Chapter 81: The First Feeding
The cold on the western ridge was a living thing, gnawing through leather and wool with spiteful teeth. Dawn had bled into a flat, grey morning, the sky the color of a week-old bruise. Callum crouched, his breath pluming, his amber eyes missing nothing.
Three men. Imperial scouts in mud-spattered green and gold. They were on their knees in a rough triangle, facing Halsten’s distant towers, visible through the skeletal trees. Their heads were tilted back, throats laid open in ragged, deliberate crescents. The blood had soaked the frozen earth beneath them, a dark, almost black stain that glittered with a thin crust of ice.
“Not a weapon mark on them besides the kills,” Jerran said, his voice tight. “No defensive wounds. Gear’s intact. Purses full.”
Vincent stood a few feet back, his grey eyes scanning the tree line. “They were taken by surprise. Or by someone they trusted.” He stepped closer, avoiding the blood. He nudged a limp hand with his boot. The fingers were clean. “No dirt under the nails. They didn’t fight.”
“Message is clear enough,” Callum said, his voice flat. He rose, his knees popping. “We see you. We can get this close. And we don’t want your supplies.” He looked at the castle, then back at the corpses. “The positioning is theatrical. An offering to the castle. Or a warning from it.”
“Or a frame,” Vincent said. He finally crouched himself, examining the cut on the nearest man’s throat. The flesh was torn, not sliced. “This isn’t a knife. Or a clean sword. Something serrated. A hunting saw, maybe. Or something meant to hurt more than kill efficiently.”
Callum felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind. “Something cruel.”
“Yes.” Vincent stood, wiping his hands on his thighs despite not having touched anything. “The Emperor’s men would be cleaner. Your brother’s assassins would have taken their heads as trophies. This is… performative. It’s angry.”
A crow cawed from a nearby pine, the sound like a splintering laugh. The forest around them felt too quiet, the normal rustle of small life absent.
“Get them down,” Callum ordered Jerran. “Search them for any markings, signs, scraps of anything. Then bury them deep and away from the castle. I don’t want the children stumbling on the spot.”
“Your Highness,” Jerran nodded, signaling his men.
Callum turned and started back toward the castle, Vincent falling into step beside him. The silence between them was heavy with unspoken calculations.
“It could be a local faction,” Vincent said after a while. “Loyalists to your father who see us as usurpers, but who also hate the imperial scouts for their presence. Killing two birds.”
“It could be a gift from a potential ally with a gruesome sense of humor,” Callum countered.
“Or it could be something new.” Vincent’s jaw was tight. “Something we haven’t factored. A third player. The network we broke was vast. We liberated their assets. That doesn’t mean we killed all the creditors.”
The word hung between them. Creditors. People who’d invested in flesh and were now owed a debt.
They entered the castle through a postern gate, the warmth of the kitchens hitting them like a wall. The clatter of pots and the smell of baking bread were obscenely normal. They took the back stairs, their boots leaving muddy prints on the stone.
As they neared the Mother’s Solar, they heard a voice. Not Seraphina’s. A young, bright, chattering voice.
“…and then the big one, the orange-striped one, he put his paw right on the mouse, but he didn’t squish it! He just looked at it, like what is this? And then Mia screamed and the cat ran away and the mouse got away too!”
Kya. Sitting on the floor by the hearth, weaving a complicated-looking braid from scraps of yarn. Liana sat quietly beside her with a similar braid in her lighter brown hair. Mia was beside her, giggling with Nessa. Leo and Finn were on the window seat, frowning at a wooden puzzle. Anya was by the door, her arms crossed, a small smile touching her lips.
And in the bed, propped on a mountain of pillows, was Seraphina.
The twins were tucked against her, one on each side, nursing. A linen sheet was draped over her shoulders and across her chest for modesty, but the scene was one of shocking, simple normality. The fierce, shattered woman from the night before was gone. In her place was a mother, pale and tired, but present. Her green eyes were clear, watching Kya tell her story, a faint smile on her lips.
She looked up as they entered. The smile didn’t vanish, but it changed. It gained edges, awareness. She saw the mud, the tension in their shoulders, the cold still clinging to their skin.
“You’re back,” she said. Her voice was still hoarse, but stronger.
“What happened?” Kya asked, her perceptive eyes darting between them. She’d learned, in her nine years, to read the weather in adults.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” Callum said, forcing a lightness into his tone. He walked over to the hearth, holding his hands out to the flames. “Just checking the fences. Found a tree down.”
Vincent stayed by the door, leaning against the frame. He was watching Seraphina, the twins. The raw, biological efficiency of it. The way the tiny girl’s fist kneaded the air as she fed.
“A tree,” Seraphina repeated, her tone flat. She knew a lie when she heard one. She shifted slightly, winced, and adjusted the girl at her breast. “Anya, could you take the older kids to the kitchen for some of that honey cake? I think Magda said it was ready.”
Anya understood. “Up, you lot. Let’s leave your mother in peace for a bit. Come on.”
There was a brief protest from Mia, but Kya and Liana gathered their yarn and took their sister’s hands, shooting a knowing look at Callum. Leo and Finn slid off the window seat, puzzle forgotten. They filed out, Anya following.
The door clicked shut.
“So,” Seraphina said. “What kind of tree?”
Callum sighed, the false cheer evaporating. “Three imperial scouts. Throats cut. Arranged on the ridge facing the castle.”
She didn’t flinch. Her hands, resting on the backs of the nursing babies, stilled for a moment. “Our people?”
“No. It wasn’t our work.”
“Then who?”
“We don’t know,” Vincent said from the doorway. “The kills were messy. Angry. The bodies were placed. It’s a statement.”
“To us? Or about us?”
“Both, likely.”
She was silent, her gaze turning inward. One of the twins—the girl—pulled away, milk drunk, her mouth working silently. Seraphina lifted her to her shoulder, patting her back with an automatic rhythm. “The network,” she said finally, echoing Vincent’s earlier thought. “The ones who ran Blackwood, the Emporium… they had enforcers. Not soldiers. People who enjoyed the work. They used tools, not always knives. To make a point.”
Callum met Vincent’s eyes. A confirmation. “Creditors,” he muttered.
Seraphina’s head snapped up. “Yes. That’s what the ledger books called them. The ones who provided upfront capital for a… shipment. They expected a return. You don’t just burn a ledger and expect the debt to vanish.” She looked down at the baby on her shoulder, who let out a soft burp. “They’re telling you they know where the assets went. And they want repayment.”
“They can try to collect,” Callum said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register.
“They will.” She transferred the sleeping girl to the crook of her arm, then began to coax the boy to switch sides. The practicality of it was jarring against the conversation. “They don’t see people. They see inventory. You stole inventory. They want it back, or they want compensation. In coin, or in blood. Usually both.”
Vincent pushed off the doorframe. “Do you know any of them? Names? Descriptions?”
She shook her head, a sharp, frustrated motion. “They were shadows. Initials in a book. Codes. ‘Crimson’ was one. ‘Sandfox’ another. They never came to the pits. They dealt with the master. They only got… hands-on… when payments were missed.” A dark cloud passed behind her eyes. A memory. She blinked it away, focusing on the boy’s face. “If they’re here, they’re not just sending a message. They’re scouting the territory. Valuing the collateral.”
“The collateral being you. And the children,” Vincent stated.
“And you,” she said, looking at Callum. “A prince, even a disgraced one, has a high ransom value. A duke’s heir,” her eyes flicked to Vincent, “is a political lever. You’re all part of the stolen inventory now.”
The room felt suddenly smaller, the walls pressing in. The peaceful scene of motherhood was just a thin veneer over the same old nightmare, just with a different set of monsters at the gate.
“We need to find them before they decide to collect,” Callum said.
“You won’t find them,” Seraphina said, her voice weary with the truth. “They’ll find you. When you’re tired. When you’re distracted. When you think you’re safe.” She looked at the both of them, her gaze unwavering. “You can’t guard every door forever. That’s how they win. They make you exhaust yourself trying.”
“So what do we do?” The question came from Vincent, uncharacteristically direct. A tactical problem with no clear solution.
Seraphina settled the now-sleeping boy beside his sister. She pulled the sheet up, covering herself, and leaned back against the pillows. She looked exhausted, but her mind was whirring behind her eyes. “You make the inventory a liability. You make it sting to touch. You don’t just hide the treasure. You bury it in a nest of thorns and then you set the thorns on fire.”
A faint, grim smile touched Callum’s lips. “Bait a trap.”
“With what?” Vincent asked.
“With me,” she said. “I’m the primary asset. The reason they’re here. They’ll be watching. They’ll look for patterns, for weakness. So we give them one. A controlled weakness.”
“Absolutely not,” Callum said, the words a knife-slash.
“You don’t get to absolutely not me,” she fired back, a spark of her old defiance igniting. “This is my life. These are my children. I know how these people think. Better than you ever will. You fight wars with honor and strategy. They fight with exploitation and fear. You have to speak their language.”
“She has a point,” Vincent said quietly. Both Callum and Seraphina stared at him. He held up a hand. “Not about offering herself as bait. About the language. We’re responding to a message. We need to send one back. One they’ll understand.”
“Which is?” Callum’s arms were crossed, his body a wall of resistance.
Vincent looked at the twins, then at Seraphina. “We show them the collateral is already claimed. And that the claimants are infinitely more dangerous than any imperial guard.” He walked to the bed, looking down at the sleeping babies. “We declare her not as stolen goods, but as the heir to a sovereign power. We declare these children as nobles of that line. We make any move against them not a theft recovery, but an act of war against the Southern Coast. We change the entire game.”
“How?” Seraphina asked, her voice a whisper.
“The Grain Council at Whitebridge. We move the timeline up. We don’t wait six weeks. We go now. With you. With the children. We present you to the southern lords not as a recovering victim, but as Archduchess Halsten, surrounded by her heirs and her… protectors.” He glanced at Callum. “We make our stand in public, under the banner of law and legacy. It’s harder to snatch someone from a hall of lords than from a remote castle solar.”
Callum was already shaking his head. “She can’t travel. The twins—”
“Can travel in a heated carriage with Magda and a wet nurse,” Vincent interrupted. “It’s a risk. Staying here is a bigger one. Here, we’re isolated. At Whitebridge, we’re in the heart of southern power. Your brother would think twice before striking there. These ‘creditors’ would be mad to try.”
The logic was cold, brutal, and impeccable. Callum hated it. He saw the strain on Seraphina’s face, the fear she was trying to master. “Sera?”
She was staring at the canopy of the bed. Her hand found the obsidian dagger on the bedside table, her fingers wrapping around the bone handle. She felt its grounding coolness, the whisper of her mother’s strength. She thought of roots and rivers. Of not asking for permission from the stone.
“We go,” she said. The words were final. “We stop hiding in my mother’s room. We plant the flag.” She looked at Vincent, then at Callum. “And you two? In this hall of lords? What banner do you stand under?”
The question hung in the air. The personal, tangled truth of it, now demanded by the political necessity.
Callum looked at Vincent. The memory of the kiss was a brand in the cold morning light. The contract of silence, the operational pause, felt like a child’s game now.
Vincent held his gaze, his grey eyes unreadable. Then he gave a single, shallow nod.
Callum turned back to Seraphina. “We stand under yours,” he said, his voice rough. “As your sworn shields. As the fathers of your heirs. Let them make of that what they will.”
It wasn’t a confession of love. It was a statement of alliance. The deepest kind. Forged in blood, and fear, and the soft, sleeping breaths of two premature babies.
Seraphina absorbed it. She gave another nod, accepting the terms. “Then we have a week to make me look like an Archduchess, and not like a woman who just survived a battlefield.” She managed a weak, defiant smile. “And you two need to look like you haven’t been sleeping on the floor.”
As if on cue, the boy in the crib let out a thin, reedy cry, quickly joined by his sister. The moment of high strategy shattered, replaced by immediate, squalling need.
Seraphina sighed, letting go of the dagger, and reached for them. “The first order of business is getting them to latch properly at the same time. It’s a tactical nightmare.”
Callum watched her, this fierce, fragile creature at the center of the coming storm, and felt a surge of something too vast to name. It wasn't just protection. It wasn't just strategy.
It was the root, digging in.
Outside, unseen, Kya stood in the corridor, her palm flat against the cold castle stone. She’d sent Mia ahead with Anya. The stone hummed under her hand, a low, distressed vibration. It had been humming since dawn. Since the men on the ridge had bled into the earth. She didn’t know what it meant, only that the forest was whispering about the iron-scent, and that the whispers were angry.
She pulled her hand away and looked toward the door to the Solar. Her mother was in there. Her new siblings. The two princes.
The thorns, she thought, remembering a snippet of conversation she’d overheard. We have to be the thorns.
She turned and walked toward the kitchen, her small face set in a determined line that mirrored her mother’s. She would find the castle cats. They knew everything that moved in the shadows. They would be her first scouts.