Page 1 of The Bride of Lycaster
I wanted the sunto die.
Three blankets covered my head, but sickly golden afternoon light still crept through the cracks in my defenses and stung my eyes. If I could trade my blankets for bricks and mortar, I would stack a wall into the heavens so high that I would never seesunlight again.
I used to love when the sun stretched across the sky—when my older brothers came home from Heaston Academy every June and they were all mine until September. We would hide in the woods outside of Ravenwood Manor, eat lingonberries in the meadow, and dip our ankles in the rocky stream and scream about how cold the mountainwater was.
But then the giants atemy brothers.
I had stopped counting the sunrises after the news of the failed battle against the giants had darkened Ravenwood Manor. Instead, I counted the threads in my green and white quilts, how many times my stomach growled, and the thumps of myheavy heart.
But I did not count my tears. I was too angryto cry.
I pulled the blankets tighter around me as my bedroom lock clicked open. Unmistakable footsteps tapped closer to my nestof torment.
Mother. The liar who promised me my brothers wouldcome home.
She tore the blankets away and yanked me out of bed by my wrist. I did not want to even look at her, but I could not ignore the panic etched in the lines of the corners of her eyes as she spoke. “The Dukeis coming.”
She let go before I could pull my arm away and directed the maids to make me presentable. They scrubbed days—maybe even weeks—of stale grime from my skin, raked through my matted hair, and smeared a mixture of red berries and beeswax on my cheeks and lips to make melook alive.
Mother had painted her sallow cheeks and dry lips with the same vermillion grease. She had oiled her dark hair so it shined and traded her dingy nightgown for a green velvet dress. She forced her tears behind sparkling emerald eyes and hid her screams beneath perfectred lips.
She became a lie for the Duke and she turned me intoone too.
Mother pulled my dark hair back into a golden comb shaped like a raven in flight and gave me a ghost of a smile. “Now His Excellency will see yourpretty face.”
Liar. People often said I looked just like my mother, but I was only a shadow of her famed beauty. My cheeks were sharp as a starving man’s, my hazel eyes were hard, and I was so short and frail I was often mistaken for a muchyounger girl.
Mother’s beautiful mask disappeared as she noticed my scowl. She grabbed my chin and forced my eyes up to meet hers. “Smile, Serafina. We have everything tolose now.”
A team of horses trotted on the cobblestones outside the manor. The Duke of Lycaster had arrived. Mother hurriedly swiped perfumed oil across my clavicle and the smell of roses punched me in the nose.
Before I could protest, Mother snatched my wrist and led me downstairs. With each step she took, she straightened her back, brightened her eyes, and held out her chest—completing her transformation from a grieving mother to the beautiful Baronessof Ravenwood.
Father waited for us in the foyer with his dark eyes fixed on the wooden doors of the manor. He was still as a sentinel, seemingly counting down the seconds until the man who sent his sons to their deaths walked into our home. His dark green cape that marked him as a member of the House of Ravenwood was fastened with a golden pin of the House emblem—a raven looking over its shoulder—that designated him as the leader ofour province.
Mother wanted the last three members of the House of Ravenwood sparkling for the man who ruled Lycaster, but Father went too far. He had put on the family jewels like armor and glittered in the thin strips of orange light that slashed acrosshis chest.
Mother put on a strained smile as she dragged me with her to dutifully stand beside Father. Her voice was sweet as a rose hiding its thorns. “Frederick, we are in mourning. Why are you wearing a dozen rings on your hands and eight amulets aroundyour neck?”
Father glanced down at Mother and kept every other part of his body facing the doors. “I am sending a message, dear Adalia. The House of Ravenwood is still mine as long as I breathe. That rat-bastard takes my province, my home, and my daughter over mydead body.”
“And if you anger him,” Mother replied in a dark hiss, “hewillmake you adead body!”
The ache of simmering resentment in my muscles faded into a numbing tingle as my parents transformed from spoons to knives. I had never heard themargue before.
“His father would have never done this,” Father said in a low voice. “Alastar the Wise would have never forced all thoseboys to—”
Father cut himself off as soon as our doormen opened the manor doors. Mother quickly tapped me on the back and I straightened my spine.
Shoulders back, eyes down, mouth shut. Stay frozen.Stay hidden.
The Duke’s entourage of more than a dozen men flooded into the foyer, each one wearing the rich blue color of the House of Hyton. A small man hurried to the front of the crowd and his booming voice echoed off the dark wooden panels of the foyer. “Announcing His Excellency, Alastar XI, the Dukeof Lycaster!”
Through the manor doors, I watched as a tall man with a round belly stepped out of a golden carriage that gleamed like starfire in the fading daylight. The man wore a flowing Hyton Blue cape trimmed with fur and the golden crown of Lycaster on top of his salt and pepper hair—Alastar Anders Hyton, the man who wouldtake Ravenwood.
My mother had warned that he would also ownmeif I did not marry. The suffocating numbness in my body kept me from shuddering at the thought as the Duke stomped intothe foyer.
The announcer’s voice rang out like a bell again. “Announcing the heir to the House of Hyton and the Dukedom of Lycaster, Lord Alastar DerrickPervale Hyton!”
