Chapter 9: The Midnight Summons
The silence after Elara left was a physical thing. It pressed in on Hermione’s ears, thick and cottony, broken only by the ragged, sleep-strangled breaths coming from the corner where Corbin huddled. She didn’t look at him. He was furniture now, a broken chair best ignored.
The nightmare’s residue clung to her, a cold film on her skin. It hadn’t been coherent images, just sensations: the feel of parchment contracts wrapping around her limbs like bindings, the sound of her father’s approving laugh echoing in a vast hall, and the sight of her own hands, pale and inert, being placed into another’s grip—a grip that dissolved into a handful of dead leaves. The meaning was clear enough. Her victory last night was a shallow trench in a vast battlefield. Fear in one man’s eyes was not enough. She needed a broader, deeper terror.
She rose from the bed, the fur falling away. The cold of the stone floor bit into the arches of her feet, a sharp, clarifying pain. She paced, her chemise whispering around her calves. The guttering candle from the night before had finally drowned in its own wax, leaving only the faint, smoky blush of dawn bleeding through the high, narrow window. It painted the room in shades of iron and ash.
Her mind worked, turning over the possibilities like a jeweler assessing rough stones. The witch, Lysandra. The one who had given her the jar, who had whispered the incantation that bound Corbin’s will to her voice. A creature of the deep woods and older things, paid in gold and, it was rumored, in secrets. Hermione had been too shocked, too desperate during their first furtive meeting to think beyond the immediate problem of her wedding night. Now, the potential unfolded before her.
She didn’t just want a spell to control a husband. She wanted an armor of dread. A weapon made of perception. She wanted men—her new father-in-law, the Kierian generals, the simpering lords of her own court—to feel a primal wrongness in her presence. To have their confidence curdle when she entered a room. To make their bluster die in their throats.
A soft, pitiful sound came from the corner. A sniffle, quickly stifled.
Hermione stopped pacing. She turned her head slowly. In the grim light, she could see him. Corbin was curled on his side on a nest of his own velvet doublet and fine shirt, using his discarded hose as a pathetic pillow. He was shivering. His naked skin was puckered with gooseflesh, pale and vulnerable. He looked younger, stripped of his finery and his malice—just a miserable, frightened boy.
For a flickering instant, something like pity tried to kindle in her chest. She stamped it out, grinding the ember to dust. This was the creature who had struck her. This was the instrument of her father’s transaction. His suffering was the soil from which her safety would grow.
“Stop that noise,” she said, her voice not loud, but absolute in the quiet.
He flinched, his whole body contracting. He squeezed his eyes shut, pretending to be asleep, but the trembling continued.
She walked toward him. Each step was deliberate. She stopped a few feet away, looking down at his huddled form. The smell of him—sweat, fear, and the faint, clinging odor of last night’s wine—rose from him. “Look at me.”
His eyes opened. They were red-rimmed, glassy with unshed tears and exhaustion. The hatred was still there, buried deep under layers of shame, but it was a trapped, impotent thing. It had no outlet. It couldn’t even fuel a defiant glare.
“You will get up,” she instructed, her tone that of a mistress addressing a particularly stupid hound. “You will wash. You will dress. You will present yourself as a prince. You will stand straight. You will speak when spoken to. You will look at me with the affection expected of a groom. Do you understand the performance?”
He gave a tiny, defeated nod.
“The consequences for failing in this performance will not fall upon you,” Hermione continued, her voice dropping to a chilled whisper. “They will fall upon Kier. A poorly negotiated trade route. A ‘misunderstanding’ at a border garrison leading to the deaths of your men. A sudden, inexplicable blight on your father’s prized silver mines. I will peel your kingdom apart piece by piece, and every noble, every farmer, every wailing mother will know it is because their prince could not manage a convincing smile for his wife. Their misery will be your legacy.”
The color drained completely from his face. This was a language he understood. Not physical threat, but political annihilation. His personal humiliation was one thing; becoming the architect of his kingdom’s ruin was another. The terror in his eyes deepened, crystallizing into something colder and more enduring. She saw the understanding dawn: she was not just a vengeful bride, but a geopolitical adversary living in his bed.
“I understand,” he croaked.
“Good.” She turned her back on him, a supreme dismissal. “Get up. The servants will be here soon.”
She returned to the bed, sitting on its edge, waiting. She heard him move behind her, the rustle of cloth, the chattering of his teeth. He dressed slowly, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt, struggling to pull his boots onto shaking feet. He did not speak again.
A knock came at the door just as the dawn proper turned the window to a slate-blue square. Elara entered, followed by two maids carrying brass ewers of steaming water and trays covered with linen cloths.
Elara’s eyes found Hermione’s immediately. A slight, almost imperceptible tilt of her head. It is done.
The maids, well-trained, kept their eyes lowered. They filled the porcelain washbasin, laid out fresh garments—a deep green riding dress for Hermione, a fresh tunic and breeches for Corbin. They curtsied and left without a word, though Hermione did not miss the way their gaze skipped over the prince’s disheveled form and the makeshift pallet on the floor.
The door closed.
“She will meet you in the old falconry,” Elara murmured, coming close to help Hermione with her wash. Her voice was a low thread of sound, not meant for Corbin. “An hour after breakfast. The place has been empty since the old king’s time. She says the stones there are… quiet. They listen less.”
Hermione dipped her hands into the warm water, scrubbing the night from her skin. She washed her face, the ritual momentarily calming. “Did she ask why?”
“She said,” Elara whispered, her fingers working a scented soap through Hermione’s long black hair over the basin, “that reasons are for patrons who buy love potions and luck charms. Queens who buy obedience… need only state the price.”
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold traced Hermione’s spine. She had gotten what she wanted from the witch once, but the transaction had left a stain on the air, a feeling of having touched something slippery and ancient. Doing it again felt like stepping off a known path.
Breakfast was a silent affair in Hermione’s solar. Corbin sat across from her, picking at smoked fish and bread. He held his knife and fork correctly. He sipped his small beer. He did, occasionally, lift his eyes to her. The affection he attempted to project was a ghastly mask, a grimace that looked more like gas pain. But it was an attempt. The fear of her wider threat held him in check more thoroughly than any command about his cutlery.
She ate little, her stomach a knot of anticipation. When the meal was over, she stood. “I wish to walk the grounds before we depart. The air will be bracing.” She said it to the room, but it was a command for him. “You will attend the final meeting with my father and the treasurers. Ensure the dowry documents are flawless.”
Corbin stood, bowing his head. “As you wish.”
She left him there, Elara falling into step behind her. They moved through the keep, down echoing staircases and through courtyards coming to life. Stable boys curtsied. Guards straightened. They saw their princess, serene and composed, and her silent shadow. They saw nothing of the storm beneath.
The old falconry was a crumbling circular tower on the northern edge of the castle grounds, half-strangled by ivy. The air here was colder, smelling of damp moss and forgotten things. Inside, the perches were empty, skeletal wood protruding from the walls. The floor was scattered with ancient, powdery droppings and pellets of bone. Light fell in dusty shafts from high, arched windows, some with cracked panes.
Lysandra was already there.
She was not what one imagined a witch to be. She was perhaps forty, with a severe, handsome face and hair the color of tarnished silver pulled into a tight knot. She wore the plain, grey wool dress of a merchant’s widow, but her hands, resting on a simple oak staff, were long-fingered and clean, the nails perfectly shaped. Her eyes were the most remarkable thing: a pale, watery blue that held no reflection. Looking into them felt like looking into a shallow, still pool that showed only sky, regardless of what stood before it.
“Princess,” Lysandra said. Her voice was dry, precise, devoid of deference or warmth. It was the voice of a clerk stating a sum. “Your investment has yielded returns, I perceive.”
Hermione did not ask how she knew. The air around the woman seemed to know things. “The initial returns. The capital, however, remains at risk.”
A faint smile touched Lysandra’s thin lips. “Capital. Yes. You speak like your father. But you do not want what he wants. He wanted a stable union. You want… a weaponized climate.”
The accuracy of the phrase unsettled Hermione. It was exactly what she wanted. To change the very air she moved through. “Can it be done?”
“All things can be done,” Lysandra said, stepping closer. She did not walk around the falconry debris; it seemed to simply not be under her feet. “The question is the cost, and the precision. Do you wish men to fear you? To desire you? To feel inexplicable guilt in your presence? To see their own death in your shadow? Each requires a different adjustment.”
“Fear,” Hermione said without hesitation. “But not the simple fear of a sharp blade. The deeper fear. The fear of the unseen, of the wrongness that unravels a man’s certainty. I want them to feel their own power bleed away in my presence.”
Lysandra’s pale eyes seemed to cloud, then clear. “A complex working. It requires an anchor. A focus. The jar was for a single target, a literal binding. This… this is more like a perfume. You wish to wear it. To have it emanate.”
“What is the anchor?” Elara asked from behind Hermione. Her voice was steady, but Hermione heard the tension in it.
The witch’s gaze slid to Elara, and for the first time, her expression shifted into something like mild interest. “The anchor must be something of profound personal resonance. An object that has drunk deep of a powerful, relevant emotion. For this purpose… it should be something that has tasted a man’s terror. A genuine, soul-shaking terror. Not battlefield fear, but the terror of the mind unraveling, of powerlessness made absolute.”
Hermione’s mind flew to the previous night. To Corbin’s weeping, to his shrinking flesh, to the utter annihilation in his eyes. An object that had witnessed that…
“His tears,” Hermione said suddenly. “The velvet of his doublet. He wept into it.”
Lysandra shook her head. “Too ephemeral. The salt is lost. No. Think of something that held the moment. Something that was there.”
Elara’s hand brushed Hermione’s arm. “The coverlet,” she whispered. “The bedcover. His hands were gripping it. He… he was holding onto it when he… witnessed. When his terror was most complete.”
Yes. The deep burgundy velvet coverlet. His fingers had been clawed into it, his knuckles white. It had been the only solid thing in his dissolving world.
“A piece of that,” Lysandra confirmed. “A square of it, no larger than your palm. It has been imbued. It holds the imprint.”
“And what do you do with it?” Hermione asked.
“I will bind a working to it. A subtle, pervasive enchantment. You will keep it on your person. Those predisposed to dominate, to claim, to see you as a vessel… they will feel a chill. Their words will falter. Their confidence will seep away, as if they are suddenly, inexplicably, out of their depth. It will not command them. It will… unbalance them. Make them prone to error, to doubt. In your presence, their inherent advantage will feel like a lie.”
It was perfect. More perfect than Hermione had dared to articulate. Not mind control, but psychological warfare. An erosion.
“The price,” Hermione said.
Lysandra’s clerk-like demeanor returned. “The initial payment for the jar was gold. This is a more artisanal product. The price is threefold. First, more gold. Triple the previous sum.”
Hermione nodded. That was expected.
“Second,” the witch continued, her pale eyes locking on Hermione’s emerald ones. “A secret. A true one. Something you have told no living soul. The power needs a thread of your truth to weave into the working, to tie it to you specifically.”
Hermione’s mouth went dry. A secret. Her mind raced, discarding trivial confessions. It had to be true. It had to be profound. She thought of the restless heat Elara had unlocked in her. She thought of the cold satisfaction of breaking Corbin. She thought of her father’s oblivious pride.
“I fear the passion in me more than I fear any man,” she heard herself say, the words leaving her lips before she could cage them. “The night of my wedding, when I took my pleasure before my husband… a part of me was not just claiming power. It was reveling in the filth of it. In the cruelty. And it felt more like my true self than the princess ever has.”
The silence in the falconry was absolute. Even the dust motes seemed to hang still. Elara’s breath caught, a soft, pained sound.
Lysandra merely nodded, as if Hermione had stated the quality of wool in a sample. “Acknowledged. And third.” She turned her unsettling gaze fully upon Elara. “The girl must gather the cloth. She must cut it from the bed, in the light of day, while the residue of the night’s events still lingers in the room. She is the proximate witness. Her hand must retrieve the anchor.”
“No,” Hermione said immediately, stepping slightly in front of Elara. “That is not part of the bargain. I will do it.”
“You cannot,” Lysandra stated flatly. “You were the source of the terror. You are the sun that burned the impression into the cloth. To you, it is just fabric. To her, who watched, who was both instrument and observer… she can perceive the stain. She can cut the exact piece that holds the richest concentration. My working requires purity of material. Her hands must choose.”
Hermione turned to Elara. She saw the fear in the warm amber eyes, but also a fierce resolve. Elara had walked through the dark castle to fetch this woman. She had knelt on that bed and performed an act of both salvation and desecration. This was another step on a path they were now walking together.
“I can do it,” Elara said, her voice firmer than Hermione expected. “I know the spot. I remember where his hands were.”
Hermione wanted to refuse. To protect her. But protection was a luxury she could no longer afford, for either of them. This was alliance. This was shared risk. She gave a single, tight nod.
“Bring it to me by dusk,” Lysandra said, turning away. “At the crossroads of the abandoned oak, a mile east of the town. The gold and the cloth. I will have your talisman ready by dawn tomorrow, before your cavalcade departs for Kier.” She began to walk toward the falconry’s broken doorway, her steps making no sound. “Remember, Princess. This is not a charm for popularity. It will make you a walking unsettling. Some will be repelled. Some will be fascinated. None will feel at ease. And it will work on everyone—your allies, your servants, your father. There is no toggle. You wear the weather. You become the climate.”
Then she was gone, as if the shadows of the doorway had simply absorbed her.
Hermione and Elara stood alone in the dusty silence. The weight of the decision settled between them, immense and strange.
“We should go back,” Elara murmured. “Before you are missed.”
They walked back through the grounds, the morning sun feeling thin and false. The castle loomed, no longer a home, but a machine of politics and pain they were learning to operate.
Back in the bridal chamber, servants had been through. The bed was remade with fresh linen, the old coverlet stripped away, likely already in the laundry hamper. A moment of panic seized Hermione. But Elara moved with purpose. She went to the large woven basket in the corner where used linens were tossed. She dug, her arms buried to the elbows, her face set.
She found it. The burgundy velvet, heavy and rich. She pulled it out and laid it on the floor. She knelt, running her fingers over the fabric, her eyes closed, her face a mask of intense concentration. She was remembering, feeling.
Hermione watched, her heart thudding. She saw Elara’s fingers pause, pressing down on a section near the center of where Corbin had sat. “Here,” Elara whispered. “This is where his grip was tightest. When you… when you first told him to watch. The terror was newest then, sharp as a crack.”
From the small pocket in her apron, Elara drew a pair of sewing shears, sharp and fine-pointed. She looked up at Hermione, a question in her eyes.
Do it, Hermione’s nod said.
Elara positioned the shears. The snick of the blades piercing the costly velvet was a shockingly final sound. She cut a neat square, perhaps four inches across. She held it up. It was just a piece of dark cloth. But looking at it, Hermione felt a cold echo, a whisper of the profound helplessness she had engineered.
Elara stood, folding the square carefully, hiding it in her palm. “At dusk,” she said.
The day wore on, a marathon of farewells and final ceremonies. Hermione stood beside Corbin on the dais as long, rolling speeches were made about unity and prosperity. She felt like she was watching a play from a great distance. Her father kissed her cheek, his eyes moist with sentiment she now knew was for the treaty, not for her. “Make us proud,” he said.
I am making myself into a monster, she thought, but she smiled and said, “Always, Father.”
Finally, as the sun began to bleed orange and purple over the western walls, she found a moment. She pressed a heavy purse of gold into Elara’s hands, their fingers brushing. No words were needed. Elara melted into the deepening twilight, a grey shadow heading for the postern gate and the crossroads oak.
Hermoine stood at her window, watching the last light die. She thought of the piece of velvet, steeped in terror, traveling through the dark. She thought of Lysandra’s cold, skilled hands working over it. She thought of the secret she had given, now woven into whatever would come back.
Corbin entered the room, escorted by a steward for their final night in Valdoria. He looked at her, standing silhouetted against the window. He tried for the mask of affection. It crumbled instantly under her gaze. What she saw in his face now was more than fear. It was a kind of horrified recognition, as if he was truly seeing her for the first time—not a princess, not a wife, but a phenomenon.
The spell, it seemed, was already beginning to work, even before the talisman was in her hand. It was rooted in her own will, in the choice she had made.
She turned from the window. “Sleep,” she told him, nodding to the fresh pallet servants had laid on the floor. “Tomorrow, we go to your home. You will show me my new kingdom.”
He obeyed, wordlessly, his movements stiff with dread.
She lay in the vast bed alone, waiting. The night was vast and silent. She listened for Elara’s return, for the soft step that would bring her new, fragile armor. She stared into the dark, no longer a girl playing at power, but a woman staring into the abyss of her own creation, wondering what shape would stare back.