The statues—except for the beheaded falcon—were pushed to one corner of the room, stacked in an agonizing way to allow space for the round table that took up half the room.
Her personal couch had been dragged to the opposite side of Cornelius’s work table-something she now recognized as his way of extending an invitation to her. The memory of his skin against hers burned the back of her mind, instantly lighting her cheeks a bright scarlet shade.
“Manners are only excruciating tortures the royals came out with to set themselves apart from the rest,” Cornelius’s deep voice pierced through the scarlet fog of her mind. “You do not need to announce yourself to me.”
A breath that she had not realized she had been holding in escaped her. No signs of the silver eyed beast yet.
“I thought you wouldn’t come,” Cornelius said without glancing up from the myriads of scrolls spread out before him. The quill in his hand had not stopped gliding from one parchment to another even as he spoke to her.
Rowan took in the spread parchments laid before them, all of which were covered in the Duke’s own cursive writings. Each alphabet was written with such delicate penmanship, its owner's keen eyes for details was apparent.
Rowan tilted her head to one side as she studied the words, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu as she did. Where had she seen them?
Perhaps noticing the line of her gaze, Cornelius glanced up and met her eyes. Straightening her back, Rowan inhaled and forced herself to smile. “What makes you think I wouldn’t?”
The quill in his hand paused then. A mixture of surprise and confusion swirled in his eyes that was a lighter blue than it was yesterday. He drew to his full height, coughed and blinked. “I supposed you wouldn’t…” he shook his head. “I wasn’t myself the other day…” The white quill quivered with uncertainly between his fingers.
Rowan craned her neck and tried to read the Duke’s face, now shrouded by strands of misplaced dark hair. Was this really the same man who had commanded fear throughout the land? The notion made Rowan chuckle, albeit unconsciously, as she rounded the table to his side. “Right, you weren’t. And I wasn’t myself all the time.”
Cornelius’s gaze slowly traveled from her feet to her face, burning her skin with its intensity as he did. His smile stretched to his eyes, now twinkling with approval as he noted her new look. “I am glad to have you back as yourself.”
Rowan’s toes tingled with heat, forcing her to shift her weight from foot to foot. Flustered, she added quickly, “Am I intruding?”
“No.” The change of subject painted his face a serious hue. “In fact, if you hadn’t, I would’ve asked Walter to bring you over myself.”
All bliss and humour drained off his chiselled face as he picked a leather scroll off the pile to his right and rolled it open atop the one he was pouring over. A list of names filled up the length of the table before them. More than a handful of them crossed out in red ink and few with black.
“These are the ministers who were once loyal to Regis,” Cornelius explained, voice dropping a note lower.
Rowan froze at the mention of her father’s name. How long had it been since she had last heard it upon another’s lips? Regis Lockhart’s name had become a taboo within the palace’s walls since her uncle’s betrayal.
Taking her silence as cue, Cornelius continued.
“I had my men track their whereabouts a few years before you came but as you can see…” he gestured to the red crosses. “…Davor had the same thought. Most were executed without trial for treason. Their spouses and children, down to the very last of servants annihilated. Only the ones in black survived.”
Rowan took a step closer and skimmed through the names of the survivors. A few seemed to call out to her, though vaguely.
“Have you heard of Lucidus’s Knights of Light?” Without averting his eyes from the list, Cornelius reached for a scalloped map that dangled from the edge of the table. Rowan stepped around and followed his finger as it traced along the terrain that loomed above Noxsidus.
Forest of Shadows.
A stretch of darkness that separated the land from the forested swamp that had been deserted for eons. Rumours had it that it had been haunted by the vengeful souls of those perished during the Purge and none had dared to approach it since.
It was exactly there that Cornelius’s fingers hovered. “I had Walter move them within its premise. The Fulgels would never think to search them there.”
Despite having heard of the Knights’ unparalleled skills, the first question that occurred to Rowan was how mere Fulgels could survive in a swamp crawling with creatures of the night. But a look at Cornelius’s triumphant face answered it for her.
Her eyes widened in realization.
“The woods…the shadows they said would devour intruders at the swamp…they were your doing?”
Cornelius Darkwoods looked centuries younger as he flashed a conspiratorial smile in return. “I may have left a nightmare or two there in my younger days.”
“Only one or two?” Rowan arched an eyebrow at the Duke, arms crossed across her chest.
“Maybe.” Cornelius cleared his throat, tried and failed to conceal the amused grin that had found its way to his lips once again. “Now, as I was saying, there were some that remained undiscovered. But among those that were found, a few confessed that they knew about the truth to Lockhart’s massacre.” His tone took on a serious tone as he locked his gaze with hers. “What we need now is the evidence of Davor and Pilleur’s act of treason and all will be set in the stone.”
Though she was aware of the time he spent locking himself in his study, never once had she glimpsed what he was actually working on.
“Since when have you started gathering all these?” she asked, noticing for the first time the trail of faded black that marked the tip of his fingers, the ink long seeped into his skin.
Cornelius stared at her as if she had asked the obvious. “More than a decade ago.”
Not since the Purge. But a decade ago—the year of which Anastasia had her coming-of-age ceremony. Could it be? The Darkwoods Beast was pointedly going against the King to avenge her?
“Though it wasn’t until two weeks ago before I could confirm the number of survivors on my own,” he added as an afterthought. His tone as easily as one would talk about the weather of the day.
Rowan’s heart stilled completely. Each piece of time puzzle fell in place, perfectly fitting each curve and cut. All the time he had been missing from the Keep…were for these?
“What do you stand to gain from this?” she found herself asking in a small voice.
If he only wanted revenge on the Maganti bloodline, he could have done it long before she was born. There must be something he wanted from her. She was no longer a green youngling who believes that one would willingly do anything for another without any motive at all.
“That depends on you, my love.”
He closed the gap between them in a heartbeat. Rowan backed instinctively and found herself with nowhere to escape, sandwiched between the Duke and the round table.
A few scrolls rolled off as Cornelius leaned in, spluttering droplets of ink in the process, but he paid them no attention. His gaze was transfixed on hers, their intensity made her insides churn and charred her already burning skin. “What would you allow me to gain?”
She felt his breath clearer on her lips than his words in her ears. The scent of life magick pulsing under his skin heightened and licked at her senses, eager to consume her whole. A spell she found herself powerless against. He wanted her, life magick do not lie.
It was something unlike any that she had picked up before. His was much more complicated than other fiends that had desired her in the past. Unlike their serenades of passion, his was a lullaby sang in the storm, forceful but strangely gentle at the same time. As if he wanted her but tried to restrain himself, afraid he might break the doll of porcelain.
Rowan watched the man she thought she knew but could never seem to grasp entirely.
He was the sole surviving Magus, the notorious Beast of Noxsidus. Yet, he was also the man behind her only companion over her coldest, darkest years as hostage. The man who had quietly listened to her laments, her fears, and her rare moments of happiness through the little one’s ears.
This was the man who wanted her. So much so he would risk war with the whole of Lucidus. To finally act on their mutual enemies when he had chosen to live in seclusion for thousands of years, away from the sorrows.
“Cornel—”
Two urgent knocks on the door lifted the spell Cornelius had woven around her. The edge of his brows twitched slightly before he straightened himself, her strands of raven black slipped from his fingers. He pulled away from her, so unceremoniously that she wondered if she was reading too much into their exchange.
“Come in,” his voice boomed across the room with more force than it usually carried though his face was carefully arranged into its usual unreadable expression.
The doors creaked open an inch and a trembling hand peeked in. “I-I apologize for interrupting, Your Grace.” Marie scampered into a failed attempt of nervous curtsy and gasped when the brown envelope in her hands slipped from her grasp.
She sank to the ground, frantically reached for it but Cornelius’s slim fingers found it first. His features instantly darkened the moment his gaze fell on the seal engraved in wax. A chrysanthemum in white.
“What happened?” Rowan addressed Marie, unable to peer at the letter over the Duke’s unmoving stature.
“It’s Princess Anastasia,” Marie blurted in a hurry while casting warrying glances in the Duke’s direction. “The King has sent for Your Grace and my lady to witness the Princess’s wedding three days from now.”
“Anastasia is to be wed?” Rowan’s voice hitched, unable to hide the surprise from her face.
Only one man came to her mind. Her stomach churned at the mere thought of his face, his peculiarly light eyes that she now knew were stolen from another. The sound of his voice echoing in her mind tempted her to dig her claws through her own skull just to put a halt to it.
Cornelius turned to her as if he could hear her inner screams. The look that crossed his face chilled the room and paled the young Fulgel.
“It appears our plan may have to be carried forward.”
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