Page 3 of The Mercy of Dawn

Oh. Dion was pissed.

Cyril knew that the moment she braved uncovering her face, her uncle’s gold eyes would be molten with fury. Their most defining family trait shone vividly when fueled by anger—a regular occurrence for them both.

Dion wasn’t even the sort to have unreasonable asks of people, not usually at least, but chores at the estate were non-negotiable. He expected everyone to pull their weight one way or another and, even with being his blood niece and heir, Cyril was no exception.

Hells, she bore heavier expectations for those reasons alone.

Her list of chores was one of considerable length, and spanned all areas of the estate. She would rotate through everything from servicing weapons and organizing their storerooms, to working kitchen shifts and helping to maintain the training grounds. A woman of many talents, Dion always said he wanted her to be. That was an entirely debatable notion, but she was never bored at least.

Unfortunately for Cyril though, this week’s rotation was stable duty.

Not the fun kind either, spending evenings grooming horses and bringing about order to the tack room for the next day. No, this stable duty involved nothing but shoveling shit and hay at the first miserable blink of dawn.

There was the most minute possibility that she conveniently forgot about her last day of duties when the festivities started. Convenient, yes, but completely accidental.

That’s what she’d run with.

“Cyr, I’m not leaving. So for the love of all things good in this godsforsaken fucking world, get up.” Even behind closed eyes, Cyril could picture Dion’s frustrated gesturing. He had either pinched his brow or pressed the heels of his palms to his eyes. The man was terribly predictable.

Cyril tossed her pillow off the side of her bed with a full-bodied groan.

If the way the room tilted when she pushed up on her elbows was any indicator, the firewater most assuredly was the mistake. Her wobbling eyes anchored on her uncle, planted statue-still at the foot of the bed.

With his arms folded tight across his broad chest, clad in one of those fine black tunics he seemed to live in, Dion could almost pass for the perfect form of dis-fucking-pleased, if it weren’t for how the corners of his lips tugged outwards. He was fighting it, she knew, but the Rogue Master’s stoic mask had cracked.

“You look like you fought a bush. And where—” A stifled wheeze of a laugh left him. “Where is your other boot?”

Cyril’s eyes dipped to her feet—one boot.

“I…” Cyril hauled herself up, taking stock of the floor around her bed in slow, measured movements. “I have no fucking idea.”

When in the hells did she lose a damn shoe? It hadn’t even been a month since Bron took her to the city and bought these for her. At least Dion’s amusement finally reached his eyes with that.

He shook his head at her and said, “Go wash up, kiddo. I’ll scrounge up some food for you, and then we’ve got a contract to talk about.”

Just like that, it was back to business.

The distance from Cyril’s bed to her wardrobe to the bathroom felt like it had tripled in length from the previous day once she shut the door behind her and peeled out of her day-old clothes.

She didn’t have the faintest fucking clue when a glass of red wine met her once crisp, white tunic, or who the culprit was, but the laundress was going to be furious with her. At least she’d worn her usual black pants.They smelled just like the sweet red wine she drank too.

Dion was right, though. She looked like hell.

Those brilliant Rhodea golds? Something tarnished lingered in her eyes, framed by puffy bags and smudged kohl. There was barely a whisper left of the crown braid she’d wrangled her waist-length hair into last night too. Just loops and twists of black shooting out in every which direction remained.

Gods, she could have used another day or three of sleep.

At least the frigid water from the tap was enough to shock a bit of life back into her as she gave herself a hasty scrub down. Profanities spilled through her clenched teeth for the entirety of those few brutal minutes.

The hinges of her bedroom door whining again carried into the bathroom—a promising sign that Dion had found food—and Cyril hurried to get dressed. She tugged on a pair of soft, loose pants and a fitted top, both charcoal gray, and tied up her hair before slipping back out into her bedroom.

That bright, blistering light was something she hadn’t been entirely ready to reemerge into.

But at least Dion was there, settled into an armchair by the fire with a spread of tea, toast, and fixings on the low table before him. Cyril’s stomach rumbled in anticipation.

Dion gave her a wry smile and gestured to the seat opposite him as he said, “You look paler than usual.”

Cyril snorted. “I don’t think that’s possible.”