She stopped several feet in front of me. “Is there anything you need?”
I shook my head, turning my attention back to the fire. “No. You may seek your bed.”
To my surprise, moments passed and I didn’t feel her presence leave.
I turned back to her.
“Is there more?” I asked.
“He’s alone, back in the morning room.”
I knew to whom she was referring and at the thought I felt a warmth hit my belly at the same time a cold chill slid over my skin.
“I think…well, milady,” she went on nervously, “I think he might be there waiting for you.”
Providing Josette with an elevated salary was not only because she was very good at doing what she did. It also didn’t solely have to do with the fact she did the job of three lady’s maids.
It was because no one knew what was happening in a house better than the servants.
For years, Josette had been my eyes and ears in places I’d never be privy, providing information I’d never have without her, much of it of great use.
She was not the only lady’s maid who offered these services. Indeed, I suspected they all did if they were any good at their jobs.
But she made a point of ascertaining all I might need to know (and some I didn’t but it didn’t hurt to hold the knowledge) and sharing it with me.
Yes, she earned her elevated salary in a number of ways.
Therefore, it was not surprising that, even though I didn’t share with my maid what had transpired with Noc the night before, she would know.
However, now, as I gazed up at her, I did not see the usual. A petite, pretty, plump, ash-blonde girl with blank, hazel eyes looking down at me and awaiting my response because she was doing her job.
I saw a pretty girl with kindness and concern in her hazel eyes, looking down on me, knowing all I’d lost and that I had not one, single true friend in the world.
That look only made me feel warmth.
Touch her hand, mon ange, show her what her compassion means to you.
Antoine’s voice sounding in my head made me blink and lose focus.
“Lady Franka,” Josette called, and I forced my attention from waiting to hear more in my head from my dead lover to my maid. “I’m happy to assist you back into your gown.”
Noc sitting alone in the morning room very well might mean he was waiting for me. That he’d enjoyed our time together (which I knew he did). That he wanted more before I was to leave.
Or perhaps it meant he wanted an explanation of what transpired earlier in the queen’s study.
Either way (especially the latter), I would not go to him.
It would be better he leave this world when he eventually did with nary a memory of Franka Drakkar of the midnight soul.
It was better anyone was not touched by that blackened spirit.
Now I’m just feeling sorry for myself, which is dire as well as boring, I thought.
What I said to Josette was, “We have a long ride ahead of us on the morrow. We should both get a good night’s rest.”
She looked disappointed before she covered her expression and nodded.
“Would you like another sleeping draught?” she inquired.
I didn’t need to sleep twelve hours again (although I actually did). I needed to be up, as I’d instructed Josette to wake me, at half past five so we could see to my toilette and be away before the palace woke and became bustling. This meaning (I hoped) we’d be away without running into anyone I didn’t wish to see.
And one of those primary “anyones” was Noctorno Hawthorne of the other world.
Therefore I shook my head.
Josette nodded again and she seemed to be moving to leave before she hesitated and turned back to me.
“You’ll sleep?” she pressed.
I studied her, noting she couldn’t quite hide her feelings of worry…for me.
Thus I continued studying her, thinking, Gods, did she actually like me?
I’d never been cruel to her. I’d never been overtly kind. I respected her talents, demonstrated that in more ways than monetarily, but never told her so.
Perhaps that was just her way. I wouldn’t know, for outside her sharing gossip while she was attiring me or doing my hair, or I was giving her orders, we didn’t speak very much. But there were many, for reasons unfathomable, who were thoughtful and benevolent to just about anybody.
It appeared my maid was one of those many.
I didn’t know what to do with this. Outside Antoine—and Kristian when I allowed him to do so—no one had ever shown concern for me.
Or kindness.
Not in my life.
“Yes, Josette, I’ll sleep,” I felt safe in assuring her.
To my surprise at this juncture I endured my lady’s maid studying me, seemingly to determine if I spoke truth, before it became clear she approved of what she saw. When she did, she nodded again and made her move to leave, this time following through.
“Goodnight, Lady Franka,” she said as she walked to the dressing room door.
“Goodnight, Josette,” I replied and watched her open the door, move through it, but she gave me one last, long look before she closed it behind her.
The instant I heard it click, I turned back to the fire and whispered, “Antoine, are you there?”
I waited. I listened.
I heard nothing. I felt nothing.
I studied the flames dancing in their grate and came to the understanding Antoine was not coming to me as a spirit to keep me company in the only way he could.
It was just my conscience.
Gods, my conscience came to me in Antoine’s voice.
I supposed it would considering I’d never had one before him.
I sighed and uncurled my legs from under me, putting my bare feet to the thick rugs on the floor.
The morrow heralded the beginning of an eight-day ride to my brother through cold and snow.
Even though it might be, after having had a good sleep the night before, having been given chests of gold and jewels, new trunks filled with the finest furs, the safety wealth provided me, a plan for the coming days, months, years, that I would sleep, I was not counting on it.
So I might as well get down to it.
Whether it bring victory…
Or what I’d grown accustomed to.
Defeat.
* * * * *
Attend your father.
The hiss sounded in my ear and my eyes flew open.
I saw nothing but a dark room cut only by the faint dancing of firelight from the grate.
Attend your father!
Oh no.
Gods no.
I shot up to sitting and threw the covers off me, my gaze darting through the room.
She wouldn’t come to the Winter Palace. She’d never come to the Winter Palace.
But he would.
He most definitely would.
He did whatever he wished.
And she did whatever she had to to make that so.
Thus, worse, she’d make it safe so he could.
The buttery at the end of the hall off the kitchens, the voice instructed.
I felt the snake of panic and fear coil up my throat, but I didn’t even waste the time to snatch my shawl from the end of the bed after I jumped out of it and hurried to the door.
I just asked the room, “Do you have him?”
I’m near.
Oh gods. Gods.
Never safe. Even with trunks of jewels and gold I was never safe.
And worse, neither was Kristian.
“I’m going to him directly. Let Kristian be,” I demanded as I put my hand to the doorknob.
Accept your punishment, endure the length of it, and your brother will be safe, the voice replied.
At what I knew was to come, I felt saliva fill my mouth and swallowed it down as I pulled open the door.
The hall was lit with lantern sconces on the walls, but faintly. Hesitati
ng only a second, I made the decision to seek the servants’ stairs, a more direct route and one where I was sure not to run into one of my kind. I had no idea where those stairs were but moved instinctively away from the main stairwell to the back of the hall.
I found them and rushed down the flights. The light even more dim there, I held on to the banister to guide my way, my bare feet making no noise on the risers.
I made the kitchens, shifting through the barely-illuminated, deserted area on darting feet, this being an area I’d been made familiar with during Frey’s first interrogation of me after a woman was poisoned at a past Bitter Gales.
I found the door at the end of the hall closed. Even knowing what lay beyond, I hesitated not even a second in opening it.
This room was lit brightly, blinding me the instant I stepped through.
I struggled to become accustomed to the light as I swiftly closed the door behind me.
Too soon, my eyes adjusted and I saw him. Standing tall and strong amongst the casks and shelves of bottles, the Drakkar good looks stamped on his proud features, even through age.
“Papa,” I whispered, fighting the shiver seeing him caused to slither over my skin.
It had been years.
But I was never safe. I knew I was never safe. Not in Lunwyn.
Her magic didn’t reach Fleuridia. And thus I counted on the fact it definitely wouldn’t reach the realms across the Green Sea.
But in Lunwyn, I knew, knew I was never safe.
“You and your brother have behaved very badly, Franka,” my father declared.
“I—” I started to explain.
“Silence!” he barked, leaning toward me, and as used to it as I was, the verbal strike of his loud word still made my body lurch in surprise and fear.
It was then I saw the lash coiled in his grip.
I didn’t take a step back. I never did. Weakness was not tolerated. I’d learned. I’d learned if I showed weakness, Kristian received the punishment and it would be twice as bad.
He could not endure it. We’d discovered that when we were children in a way so heinous, I buried it so deep I couldn’t even remember it, just the feelings it caused.
But we’d learned.
Kristian broke. He did it easily.
Soft heart. Weak will.
Thus I had to endure it. Every last strike. If I broke, they’d turn to Kristian and wouldn’t stop until the blood flowed in streams down his legs while he hung unconscious, receiving his punishment through oblivion.
“What have you done to our House, Franka?” my father asked, but didn’t allow me to answer. He continued on, “The mighty House of Drakkar could have been brought down to nothing, and would have if this generation didn’t see the resurgence of The Frey within The Drakkar.”
How had he heard?
“Please, Papa, if you’d allow me to—” I began.
“There’s no explanation for treason,” he bit out.
Gods! How had he heard?
“Papa, if you’ll let me share. I assisted Frey and the others with—”
“You,” he interrupted me, “are at least a Drakkar. Headstrong. Whip-sharp. I can imagine you have a reason for what you did, though I don’t bloody give a damn what it was. Your brother, however, had no reason. None at all. Except to do as you told him. Always minding you, like a brainless pup. It’s revolting,” he spat his last, the expression twisting his face sharing just how revolting he thought his son was. “I wished to punish him. Your mother, though, she has a soft spot for that boy. So I’m here.”
I was uncertain my mother had anything soft about her. In my estimation, it was less her caring for Kristian and more the enjoyment she got from inflicting pain on me.
“The hook is ready, Franka. Prepare and make your way to it,” he ordered.
I cast a glance to my right and up, seeing the hook was indeed ready as, in times like these, it always was.
But I didn’t prepare and move to it.
I looked back to my father.
“I endure, she leaves him alone,” I stated.
That was the arrangement. It had always been the arrangement. And they had never reneged.
But there was a reason I carried a midnight soul, for the evil contained in both my parents set their souls to cinders years ago. It was not a wonder I’d inherited the blackness.
“You committed treason, daughter,” my father reminded me.
“I endure, she leaves him alone,” I repeated.
Panic threatened to paralyze me when I saw the cruel sneer curl at his mouth, the excitement light in his eyes, the same in the rush of pink to his cheeks.
He enjoyed this. I’d learned that as well. In the past, there needn’t even be a transgression for Kristian or I to earn a punishment. No, our father simply had to be in the mood.
And to our misfortune, he was in the mood often.
“You endure, my daughter, she leaves him alone,” he agreed.
But I knew by his expression. I knew my transgression, Kristian’s, had earned a punishment even I might not be able to survive.
Regardless, I nodded. On shaking legs I focused all efforts on keeping me upright, I moved to the hook.
I was twelve when they’d stopped binding my wrists and hanging me from the hook. From that point, it was part of the punishment to keep my fingers curled around, hold myself up, not fall.
Never fall.
And tonight, I definitely could not fall.
When I arrived below the hook, I turned my back to my father and pulled the thin straps of my silk nightgown down my shoulders and arms. I felt the material drift down my skin to catch on my hips.
Bare up top, I took in a deep breath, closed my eyes tight then set my jaw.
I opened my eyes, lifted my hands and curled my fingers around the cold steel of the hook.
“I begin, my sweet.” I heard my father say and knew he was communicating with my mother. A mother who was not there but could be in a blink if there weren’t enchantments protecting the Winter Palace.
No, she was close to Kristian, ready to complete the punishment should I fall.
On that thought, my fingers gripped the hook tighter.
He did not delay in doing as he said he would.
The first lash I barely felt. Years of this, the scar tissue ran deep.
He would get there, though. He always did.
No, at that point it was the whip whistling through the air, the crack, the sinister whisper as it snaked against my flesh that could unravel my mind.
In order to fight it, I thought of Antoine. His smile. The sound of his laughter. The change in his eyes when I’d bare even an inch of flesh to him. The touch of his fingers as they drifted over my skin.
Another lash came and I kept hold of these thoughts.
Then another. And more.
But I’d closed my eyes and I saw only Antoine. Felt only Antoine’s touch.
Until the first rivulet of blood glided over the upper swell of my hip to soak into the silk of my nightgown.
Then, suddenly, I saw Noc and the fierceness in his face when he’d said he wouldn’t even blink at turning traitor to save the woman he loved.
The next lash came, and the next, the pain intensifying with each strike, but I focused on Noc and his fierceness, focused further on something alien to me.
Hope.
In this instance it was the hope that he found a woman he could love that much, but more, a woman worthy of that kind of love.
I kept this focus through the next lash.
And the next.
It continued and I could no longer think of Noc. Or Antoine. Or anything but keeping my hands curled around that hook, trying to block out the sweat of that effort mingling with the blood trailing down my body. Attempting to force my shallow panting into deeper breaths to beat back the pain. Blinking rapidly as dull cloudbursts exploded behind my eyes threatening to blind me, take me to a blissful, painless oblivion.
There was none of t
hat for me. Not Franka Drakkar. I’d been born to agony and, as ever, simply had to endure.
More lashes and I feared I couldn’t withstand it. It was worse than ever before. Far worse. As my transgression had been.
My hands had gone beyond clammy, they were slipping on the hook and I was terrified I’d lose hold.
I couldn’t lose hold.
Mother was close to Kristian. She could be with him in seconds.
He’d never endure.
Another lash and for the first time I cried out as it hit, tearing through my flesh, feeling like it glanced across my spine.
When it was done, my heated body all of a sudden iced over with fear that I’d lost consciousness when I heard the impossibility of a shocked feminine gasp and right on its heels an enraged, “Fucking hell. What the fuck?”
Noc’s voice.
He couldn’t be here. I had to have blacked out.
“Who are you?” my father asked.
“Get Frey.” Noc’s voice ordered.
“You’ll do no such thing!” my father snapped, his deep voice no longer astonished but annoyed.
“Fucking get Frey!” Noc demanded.
“You’ll mind your betters,” my father hissed.
A moment of nothing before, “Goddamn…get…Frey.”
The pain drove deep as I chanced looking over my shoulder and saw Josette disappear from the doorway.
I also saw Noc, fury carved in his handsome features, moving to me.
How was he there?
Why was he there?
The pain remained, I couldn’t have slipped into oblivion.
Thus he was bloody there.
“Know your place!” my father commanded on a near-shout. “Remove yourself from this room this instant!”
Noc didn’t remove himself from the room. He arrived at my front, his eyes holding mine.
His voice came as a shock, precisely the gentleness running through it that belied the look of wrath seated deep in his eyes. “Let go of the hook, baby.”
“This is beyond the pale, a servant intruding on private matters of members of the most powerful House in Lunwyn!” my father decreed loudly.
“Frannie, sweetheart,” Noc whispered, ignoring Papa, and I felt his hand touch light at my waist, “let go of the hook.”
“Intolerable!” my father bit out. “Franka, is this domestic your lover?” he demanded.
Midnight Soul Page 6