Chapter 59: The First Stroke
Chapter 58: The First Stroke
Lyria’s POV
In the end, I stayed.
And definitely not because I wanted to.
I had tried, on no fewer than three separate occasions, to take the apple and leave with what remained of my dignity intact. The first attempt had been dismissed with a quiet but immovable I insist.
The second had been met with a pointed observation about the temperature of the soup and how it would be a shame to waste it.
The third had been interrupted by the cook himself, who had set a bowl before me with the resigned efficiency of a man who had learned not to involve himself in the conversations of his betters and simply wished for everyone to eat and go to bed.
And so I had eaten.
Begrudgingly.
The soup was warm and the bread was soft, and I hated that both of these things were true because it made it considerably more difficult to maintain the appropriate level of reluctance.
The whole while, Corvin watched me from across the kitchen.
Not the way Baron Redwick watched me — with that careful, cataloguing attention that felt more like observation than judgment. Corvin watched me the way one watched something unpleasant that had wandered into a clean room and could not be immediately removed.
With distaste.
With the particular brand of contempt that required no words to communicate itself.
I kept my eyes on the bowl before me and ate with measured, unhurried movements and told myself that his gaze did not matter. That I had endured worse. That the soup was warm and I had not eaten a proper meal since morning, and that was the only thing that required my attention at present.
I genuinely could not comprehend why he remained.
If my presence disgusted him so thoroughly, the door was directly behind him and entirely unobstructed.
And yet he stayed.
I finished the soup and the bread, but did I enjoy the both of them? That would be a no.
I folded my hands in my lap and turned to Baron Redwick, who had eaten his own meal with the methodical satisfaction of a man who had made a decision and was at peace with it.
"Thank you, Baron Redwick," I said, keeping my voice even and my gratitude genuine but measured. "Your kindness this evening has been most unexpected."
"There is nothing to thank me for," he said simply. "You were hungry. The food was available. The conclusion was a reasonable one."
He said it as though it were the most logical thing in the world.
Perhaps to him it was.
I rose, dipping into a small bow, and excused myself before anyone could insist I remain for a fourth time.
I did not look at Corvin as I left, nor did I bow. A quiet disrespect it may be, but he did not deserve to be bowed to at that point.
---
The walk back to my chambers felt longer than it had on the way down.
My stomach was full, which ought to have been a comfort.
It was not, entirely.
The warmth of the soup had settled pleasantly enough, but the memory of Corvin’s eyes across the kitchen followed me up every staircase and along every darkened corridor until I reached my door and shut it quietly behind me.
I sat on the edge of my bed in the dark.
The next time I saw Patricia, I decided firmly, I would tell her everything.
I doubted, though, that she would be delighted to hear that the Marquess I had once foolishly believed to be a friend had proven himself even worse than Duke Aurelgrave.
At least when the Duke bullied me as a child, he had possessed the honesty to do so openly.
Corvin, it seemed, preferred contempt disguised beneath cold civility.
---
Two days passed.
And then the competition began.
The announcement moved through the palace, setting it abuzz with discussions.
The first event of the competition to determine the Princess’s future spouse was to commence.
The excitement that followed was difficult to describe precisely.
It was not the clean, simple excitement of something purely joyful. It was the taut, breathless excitement of people who understood that what they were about to witness would be spoken of for a very long time. Among the nobles, it manifested as restrained anticipation, fans moving with slightly more urgency than usual, gloved hands pressed together just a moment too long. Among the servants, it was murmured conversations that ceased the moment a superior appeared and resumed the moment they departed.
The whole palace hummed with it.
I observed all of this from the outside, as I observed most things.
The venue chosen for the first event was the South Courtyard.
Surprisingly, there were numerous courtyards in the palace, but only a few parts were actually cared for well.
The courtyard was a large, open space that sat at the rear of the palace, framed on three sides by the pale stone of the building’s outer wings and open on the fourth to the formal gardens beyond. It was used, ordinarily, for ceremonial gatherings and outdoor addresses — the kind of occasion that required both grandeur and fresh air in approximately equal measure.
For today’s purpose, it had been transformed.
Fourteen easels stood in a long, precise arc across the courtyard’s centre, each positioned to face a raised dais at the far end where the judges’ table had been arranged. The easels were spaced with careful deliberateness, far enough apart to prevent one candidate from observing another’s work, but close enough that the assembled audience could move between them with ease.
Canvas had been stretched and primed on each one.
Brushes and pigments had been laid out on small tables beside each station with the orderly precision of a military arrangement.
The afternoon light fell across the courtyard in clean, pale sheets, the sky above the palace holding the thin, washed quality of early autumn. It was good light for painting.
Honestly, I wished I was able to partake in the competition too so I could paint to my heart’s content. But then again, I was only a shadow, and shadows didn’t paint nor draw on something as expensive as this and in a place as beautiful as this.
Today, I wasn’t behind Jacinta. I was instead at the eastern edge of the South Courtyard.
Set slightly back from the open space and half consumed by the creeping shadow of the palace’s outer wall, there stood what had once been a gatehouse. It was a small, solid structure of pale stone, its original function long since forgotten.
The windows along its lower floor were narrow and set deep into the walls, and the whole building had the particular quality of something the palace had simply forgotten to remove.
And it smelled of mold too.
It was the perfect place for me... according to the queen. No one would look at it, no one would notice it, but I would get to see Jacinta in all her glory and watch clearly how the suitors went after her.
I positioned myself at the leftmost window of the gatehouse’s ground floor, standing just far enough back from the narrow opening that the shadow of the wall fell across me completely.
From here I could see the full arc of easels, each suitor’s station visible from where I stood, the judges’ dais beyond them, and the assembled nobles arranged along the courtyard’s edges in careful, colourful rows.
The King and Queen were seated at the centre of the dais.
Jacinta sat between them, her pale blue gown catching the afternoon light, her golden hair dressed in a style that suggested both careful preparation and effortless elegance. She held herself with the particular stillness of someone who knew they were being observed and had decided to make the observation worthwhile.
The suitors had taken their places.
Each man stood before his assigned easel with varying degrees of composure. Some examined the canvas before them with focused attention. Others stood with the carefully managed ease of men pretending to be less nervous than they were. One — I believed it was the Count of Northvale — was already rotating his brush between his fingers with the repetitive motion of someone whose hands needed something to do.
And there, at the far end of the arc, was the Duke of Blackmere. I was quite surprised at that because I thought he’d still be sick with a stomach ailment. It seemed he had recovered. He did look bored, though.
Baron Redwick frowned with concentration, and I almost giggled at that. He looked so focused for a competition that hadn’t even begun.
Suddenly, I noticed movement from the dais.
The queen rose from her seat, and the courtyard fell silent immediately.
