Page 96 of His Realm

A servant came toward us with folded garments she gave to Balon and he then passed to me. The first was a simple cotton tunic, the second a thick, padded coat that was well worn but not threadbare and was very warm. It was made for a much bigger man than either Ødger or Balon.

“The garment belonged to my father’s champion when he yet lived,” he told me.

“When did he pass?”

“My father killed him when he first spoke of us returning Ophir to the king’s realm. It was ages ago.”

“Why did your father’s champion think that was necessary?”

“He thought my father had gone mad.”

Interesting. “His name?”

“His name was Skarde.”

“Where is your father now?”

“He sits in a chair in his room and looks out at the water. It is hard to tell when he is awake and when he is asleep.”

I had gone with many friends over the years to visit their parents and grandparents in nursing homes where they sat unmoving in chairs all day. I was betting it was similar.

“Do you want to see him?” Balon asked. “Pay your respects?”

I felt the rage and hatred rise up so quickly, I had to turn away from him so I could breathe. Trying to keep the anger from surging out of me and drowning everyone in the room felt like being stuck by a thousand pins at once. What he’d done to Leda, to Zev…and to Skarde, a man I’d never met whose jacket I was wearing, and who, it seemed, had died only because he felt that the king’s rule was better than that of Decimus.

“My consort?” Balon prodded me.

Slowly, I turned until I was facing him again. Instead of spewing hateful words he didn’t deserve, I simply said, “No. I will pay no respects. I was stolen from my home, after all, and am held here against my will.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” he rushed out. “I keep forgetting this is not a sanctioned visit.”

“You don’t have visitors here, do you? Ophir is closed to outsiders.”

“Yes,” he agreed, looking pained suddenly, though it was hard to read much on his ruined features. “I wish that were not so, and I wish your prince was not coming to kill me.”

I squinted at him. “Varic’s not coming to kill you.”

“My father, then.”

“No,” I assured him, shaking my head. “Varic is coming to bring you all under the rule of the realm, but he doesn’t kill randomly. That’s not how he does things. If you’d ever been away from this place, you’d understand that.”

Balon escorted us to the suite of rooms where he’d locked Carice and Keres the day before. The rooms were lavish, and I was thrilled to see a fireplace. I had no idea where the wood came from that was being burned, until Balon explained that in the fall, trees were cut down in the valley for use in the castle during the winter, though few were actually needed. It took a lot for vampyrs to get cold.

Zev had mentioned he’d always been freezing, and I was betting that in the bowels of the castle, where he’d lived, where, we were told, a river ran underneath, it was icy.

I sat down directly in front of the fire and thanked Balon while I tried to warm up.

“I will not lock any of you in and will have food brought for you, my consort.”

“I would appreciate that.”

He turned to the others then.

“I will have servants come to feed the rest of you, or would you prefer I have them bleed into a vessel?”

“No,” Carice said quickly, forcing a smile. “We require no servants.”

“Do you not hunger?”