He let himself into the dark front hall. Lamps extinguished, the moths were long gone. He followed the sound upstairs, where the door to Carlijn’s room stood ajar and the light from a single candle threw long shadows across the floor.
Hannalinde sat on a settee with Carlijn’s head in her lap, stroking her brown ringlets. Carlijn lay curled on her side, her face buried in a handkerchief, her shoulders heaving. Hanna looked up with hollowed eyes when he hovered in the doorway. Behind her composure, she was distressed, too.
“Can I help?” he mouthed.
She shook her head.Not now.
He went to their room to wait for her. The crying continued from down the hall, though it muffled now, subsiding like a storm. When the sobs had thinned to silence, Hannalinde appeared. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, one hand on her belly.
“Carlijn is pregnant, too,” she said. Then her eyes flew open, seeming to recognize what she’d said. “Not like me. It was Lucan.”
Ugh. Not that news he wanted to hear. Of course, part of him was not surprised that they’d taken their flirtation that far. “I hoped they would be more careful.”
She nodded, looking tired. “She told him tonight. She’d hoped he might…she hoped it would change things between them. That he’d take her as his mate.”
Rikard sighed. He knew Lucan, and he’d seen Carlijn’s distress, so he knew the answer before he asked. “And?”
“He broke it off with her. He said she had been a diversion, and she should visit a healer for an ‘antidote to her affliction.’ Those were his exact words. He was very civil, but of course she’s devastated.”
Anger rose in Rikard’s chest. How could Lucan discard her like that, right when she needed him most? “He could have at least accompanied her to a healer.”
“I offered to take her, but she didn’t want to go. Still hoping he’ll change his mind, maybe. I don’t know. She’s sleeping now,” Hanna added. “Or trying to.”
“I told him,” he growled, pacing up and down the room. “I told him not to treat her as a plaything.”
“He’s not the only one to blame. I warned her, too.”
“Butshedidn’t take the heartstone vow. He did.” Fury scalded his tongue. “I’m going to speak with him. If you need me, send word to the tavern on the second tier, as I’m sure that’s where I’ll find him.”
“Rikard.” She caught his arm as he passed. “Be careful, please.”
He covered her hand with his. The brief contact grounded him, focusing his anger. “I will deliver a scolding, no more. I’ll be back before dawn.”
Lucan perched at the bar alone, toying with the stem of a goblet full of wine. He looked up when Rikard approached.
“Before you begin,” Lucan said sullenly, “I know you’re here to flay me alive. You can save your breath because your mate already did. She needn’t send you to sing the same tired tune.”
“I came of my own accord, so you’ll have to hear it twice.” Rikard signaled the barkeep for a drink. “Carlijn’s carrying your child.”
“She told me.”
“And rather than comforting her and helping her, you left?”
“Staying would have been a worse cruelty.” Lucan’s voice was stripped of its usual music, reduced to a flat cadence that Rikard barely recognized. “What can I offer her, truly? Winds aid me, I can’t mate with her. My family is seventh-tier. If I mate a human, I’ll lose the roost, the rank, and every family alliance my family has forged since I was hatched. You wear gold on your horns, so you know this as well as I do.”
“That’s nonsense. I haven’t lost any standing by taking Hanna as a mate.”
Lucan scoffed. “We might be the same tier, but we don’t have the same standing. You can’t fly, Rikard. You had nothing to lose by mating a human, because everything you stood to lose was already gone. I still have my wings, my prospects, my future. Am I supposed to burn all of that for ahuman?”
The truth hit like stones, accurate and brutal.
“You’re right,” Rikard acknowledged. “I had less to lose. But Carlijn has everything to lose, and you’ve made certain she’ll lose it.” He turned on the bench to face Lucan fully. “She trusted you with her heart and her body. And now she’s pregnant with your child, without protection, without your name or rank to shield her from what’s coming. You know what Solvantis will do to a woman like that! You have an obligation to her, even if you do not take her as a mate.”
Lucan flinched, but then his face hardened into something ugly. “The child could be anyone’s. Maybe it’s human. Maybe it’syours. Everyone knows you have a taste for humans, and she’s living under your roof. If the moths got hold of that idea, it’s very easy to believe.”
The anger that moved through Rikard was hot and blinding. “Youknowthat’s a lie because you were there every night in her bed,” he spat. “Say what you like about me, but don’t drag Carlijn through the mud to justify your own cowardice.”
Lucan’s jaw worked, and he tossed back the remaining contents of his goblet. “I’m leaving for the hunting lands,” he said, setting the cup down hard enough to ring against the counter. “Drogan’s been asking me to join him for weeks. Good flying, open country. I’ll be gone before the gossip starts.”
