My father once told me that names aren’t sacred in our family; they’re something to be worn, weapons to be wielded against anybody who doesn’t share our blood. Foolish of me to have once thought this a mere piece of jewellery. It’s an order carved from my own name, reminding me what’s expected. Last time, all it took was a look, and I had my bags packed a day later, dissertation abandoned. Private ambition doesn’t matter shit, not when weighed against the Crown.
Through the ring, I can almost hear his voice.
You’ll do this quietly, Eryxon.
So I toss back the last of the liquor and stomp towards the file, splitting open the royal seal with more force than necessary, and throwing everything onto the table. Photographs and neatly typed notes spill out, followed by news articles and hand-drawn maps. The Crown’s idea of a homework assignment. There’s no logical reason to be rebuilding bridges with Sheffolk.
None whatsoever.
No pending trade deals. No defence agreements in jeopardy. And we’re supposed to believe he wants to repair ties?Please. He doesn’t give a damn about that duchy. But he’ll spin it like he always does. I move the notes aside and choke at the headline of the newspaper beneath it.
PRINCE ERYXON APPOINTED ROYAL ENVOY TO SHEFFOLK IN HISTORIC RECONCILIATION EFFORT—Political analysts hail the king’s leadership in sending his son to foster trust where it has long been lost.
Fuck, it’s so well-crafted that it pushes everything but the bloody truth. I’m annoyed to find myself the slightest bit impressed at the precision of the spin. I crumple the newspaper into a ball and toss it aside before moving on.
There’s a breakdown of Sheffolk’s economy that makes me roll my eyes, as well as an image of Duchess Sylvaine with a list of dry facts beneath it. She’s never beating the witch allegations, considering she’s pushing seventy and still looks at least fifty. Imagine my father knows the duchy is made up of weird women who would curse me as soon as I arrive. The fucker’s probably counting on it.
The family tree looks way too detailed, and I flip it over in favour of what’s beneath. The text blurs a little, my patience withering alongside it, so I fish the glasses from my pocket and slide them onto my nose. The world becomes obedient again as I read through basic facts: the duchy’s one of three under the Crown, though they’d argue against the word ‘under’.
Dunmont pledged fealty. Norstowe offered troops. But Sheffolk swore allegiance to peace, not the throne, which is too clever because once the war was over, Sheffolk got to walk away as though they weren’t seated at the table in the first place.
There’s a note from my father attached:‘Handle carefully. They’re proud’. As if I didn’t already deduce that from the fact that they’ve never allowed a royal to set foot on their soil in fucking half a millennia. And my father is sending his heir right to them.
Fucking fantastic.
Flipping to the next page, I find a singular photograph stapled there. It’s candid, taken at some charity gala, and recent, judging by the date scribbled in the corner.Mum’s handwriting, I notice offhandedly. In the image is a girl. She’s younger than I expected, or maybe just softer. Small-boned with narrow shoulders, almost birdlike. Too breakable. Her skin is a soft brown, warm-toned like the underside of a well-loved violin; she reminds me of something lived in. Something organic. The image makes no attempt to flatter, and yet it does. Her hair falls in a long black curtain, unnervingly silken. There are no jewels, no braids, nothing to impress whoever glances at this photo.
But it’s her eyes that anchor me; a green so pale that it’s almost translucent, and it doesn’t match the rest of her. I stare longer than I mean to and try to summon up hatred, but my mind traitorously whispers a truth I can’t ignore. She’s striking, in a tragic sort of way. Her features are so delicate that they appear to have been pencilled out but never inked.
The name beneath it reads: Lady Francesca Hadleigh-Marie Westcott Lanorythe Sheffolk. A mouthful, wow. Did they give her the names of every witch that came before her? Fuck, it sounds like something straight out of a period film where everyone dies of heartbreak and smallpox.
Another few paragraphs tell me that she’s the granddaughter of Duchess Sylvaine, future ruler of Sheffolk. I read on.
Born in Lanorythe, daughter of Lord Jonathan Lanorythe (deceased), eldest son of Duchess Sylvaine Sheffolk. Her maternal line appears to be an afterthought: daughter of Beatrice Lanorythe (née Jacobs), a Coloured woman born in Cape Town, South Africa. I pause on the word ‘Coloured’, but a quick internet search reminds me it’s a recognised racial group. There’s no further elaboration about her mother, as though mentioning it was already an achievement. I’ve read enough to know what absence of detail means. Parents lost to a boatingaccident; older sister—the intended heir—perished in the same accident; only survivor, named heir at six.
There’s an article about her grief that’s barely five sentences. Fiancé deceased. Gabriel Fairbanks, presumed dead after a fall near a cliffside called Blackwell Wash, not too far from Redford Estate. Fell off a cliff. Right. And I’m supposed to play nice? What exactly do I lead with—sorry for all your losses; want to trauma-bond?
The more I read, the more irritated I grow. Quiet. Obedient. Raised by the Duchess herself. No public scandals. The woman is a fucking ghost and exactly the type of heir my father wishes he had. I can’t believe it. The man is sending me to sit next to her at mind-numbing events as though her behaviour will rub off on me like perfume.
The last thing I want is to be tamed by some prissy duchess-in-training. Sheffolk is supposed to be a punishment disguised as politics. What it actually means is containment: keep him in the country but out of the way. There’s nothing diplomatic about it. It’s a muzzle. I’m being sent north to be buried while my father’s mess continues to rot beneath the floorboards of this cursed palace.
BecauseGodforbid the country catches even a whisper of what he’s done.Godforbid the golden throne be tarnished by the secrets of the man who sits upon it. He never once asked me what I saw. Because he already knows. And he knows I won’t forget. That’s what terrifies him.
Looking at Lady Francesca, I can’t help but wonder if my father is aware of what he’s done. Having raised me, he should’ve known better than to think that rural air and ancestral trauma are going to cure me. I’m not Hannah Montana, about to fall in love with a goat herder while finding my inner self.
I lean closer; something about the image is itching my brain. It takes me a moment to figure out what it is. It’s a habit now, theway I categorise people. Always fonts. Stupid, but it’s helped me survive through the worst of times.
My father is Trajan Pro, a kingly figure carved in stone and meant to be viewed from a distance. It’s the first one I ever understood. My mother is Didot, elegant and beautiful. Henrik is Garamond Light; soft with an underlying current of power, the kind of person who earns respect without demanding it. Kai is Garamond Display Regular. Still the same font but too loud. Too in-your-face.
I look down at Francesca again and try to place her, but I can’t. Her posture says Baskerville. Safe. Symmetrical. But her face tells me she’s potentially a different serif font. Structured. Aesthetically controlled. I spend more than ten seconds trying to decode her and hate myself for it.
At first, I don’t hear my mother enter. She’s the only person in this family who can enter a room without altering the air, as though she carries herself in a way that suits what other people expect. Her eyes snag on the far left shelf when she walks in, long enough for my spine to tense. The stack of old correspondences between myself and my former philosophy supervisor practically glares at her, and I wonder if she can hear his words, how he implored me to return.
“I’m surprised you didn’t break anything yet,” she speaks.
“I already broke a nose. Anything else feels too greedy.”
Her heels click against the floor as she moves, and a second later, her ringed fingers are beneath my chin, forcing me to look at her. She peers down at me with frostbitten eyes warmer than the colour suggests.
