Chapter 3

Seraphine's POV

The car came to a stop and one of the Ashford guards pulled the door open, offering his hand to help me down.

I took it carefully, making sure my glove didn't slip, and stepped out onto the stone path.

The first thing I noticed was the air. It was different here. Warmer somehow, even though we were well into the cold season, like the ground itself was giving off a quiet heat. The second thing I noticed was the manor.

I had grown up hearing my father describe the Ashford estate as a place built on stolen glory, grand because it was paid for with Vale blood and Vale land. I had pictured something cold and arrogant, a big ugly building.

I had not pictured this.

The manor was beautiful. Genuinely, almost painfully beautiful. Stone walls covered in dark climbing vines, tall windows that caught the afternoon light and threw it back in warm gold sheets, a set of wide front steps flanked by iron lanterns that were already lit even in the middle of the day. The gardens on either side of the path were neat and green and full of things still growing despite the season.

It was almost as beautiful as the Vale manor.

I kept my face perfectly still and reminded myself that pretty buildings had burned before.

My father had told me not to bring much. One bag, he said, you are not going on a holiday. So I had one bag, carried by one of the Ashford guards who had met our car at the outer gate, containing a few changes of clothes, two books I could not leave behind, the dagger I kept under my pillow at home, and the strange necklace that had been left in my hand in the dark corridor two nights ago, which I still had not put on and still could not stop thinking about.

I was walking up the stone path toward the front steps when I saw him.

He was already standing at the door.

Tall, dark-haired, dressed in deep charcoal with his hands clasped behind his back, flanked by two guards who stood far enough back. He was watching me come up the path with an expression that was completely calm and completely unreadable.

I had seen paintings of Caelum Ashford. My father had shown me one years ago, a formal portrait done when Caelum was maybe twenty, stiff and serious the way all formal portraits were. I had filed it away as a reference image and not thought much about it.

The paintings had not done a particularly good job.

He was, and I say this as someone who was actively planning to destroy his entire household, extremely handsome. Sharp jaw, dark eyes that caught the light in a way that made them look almost gold, the kind of face that took you a second to stop looking at because your brain needed a moment to process that a person actually looked like that in real life.

I kept walking.

He came down the steps to meet me as I reached the bottom of them, and before I could say anything he took my hand, both hands wrapped around mine, warm even through the glove, and bent slightly and pressed his lips to my knuckles.

"Welcome to Ashford Manor, my lady," he said. His voice was low and even. "I hope the journey wasn't too difficult."

He was not just handsome. He was charming. Effortlessly, annoyingly charming, the kind that didn't look like it was trying.

Focus, Sera. Remember what you came here for.

I smiled at him.

"It was a pleasant journey, thank you," I said. "The roads through the valley are well kept."

"We maintain them," he said simply, like that was just something people did. He released my hand and gestured toward the door. "Please, come inside. You must be tired."

He led me up the steps and into the manor, the guards falling into position behind us. The entrance hall was high-ceilinged and warm, lit by chandeliers that burned with gold flames. The walls were lined with dark wood paneling and old maps in heavy frames.

I looked at the maps as I walked past them.

Not because I found old maps interesting. Because I was cataloguing exits.

The main hall connected to at least three corridors that I could see. There was a staircase on the left that curved upward to a landing. Two guards were posted near the far door. 

"This way," Caelum said, and touched the small of my back briefly to guide me left.

I followed him calmly.

He took me through a wide corridor and stopped at a set of double doors, pushing them both open. Inside was a long rectangular room with a heavy table running down the center of it, and seated around that table were seven men in dark jackets, all of them looking up as we walked in.

The council.

Caelum stepped forward. "Gentlemen," he said, his voice carrying easily in the room. "I would like to introduce Seraphine Vale, who will be joining this household as my wife."

The silence that followed was immediate and very loud.

I stood at Caelum's side and watched their faces. Some of them were simply surprised, the kind of surprise that was just genuine shock at new information. But others were something more than surprised. I watched one man's jaw tighten. I watched another's eyes move from me to Caelum and back again.

I noted which faces wore which expression and stored all of it away carefully.

Then a tall man near the far end of the table pushed back his chair and stood up. His face was red and getting redder.

"Has the Lord of Ashford lost his mind?" he said. His voice came out louder than he probably intended, bouncing off the walls. 

"She is a Vale. You are bringing a Vale woman into this house and telling us she will be your wife?"

Caelum turned his head toward the man. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't change his expression at all.

"You might want to remind yourself," Caelum said quietly, "who it is you are speaking to like that."

The man's mouth closed. He sat back down.

The room went back to tense silence.

Caelum looked around the table once, the way someone looks around a room after they have made a point and are giving everyone a moment to absorb it. Then he turned to me.

"Would you mind waiting just outside for a few minutes?" he said. "I won't be long."

"Of course," I said pleasantly.

I stepped back out into the corridor and the doors closed behind me.

For approximately four seconds it was quiet.

Then the arguing started. I could hear it clearly through the wood, multiple voices going at once, the tall man's being the loudest. I stood with my back against the wall beside the door, arms folded, and listened to every word with great interest.

They were afraid of me. Most of them. That came through clearly even through the muffled door. They were using words like reckless and dangerous and what were you thinking. One of them said the word curse twice.

Caelum's voice cut through the others each time he spoke.

By the time the doors opened again about fifteen minutes later and the council members filed out past me without making eye contact, I had a fairly clear picture of the room.

Caelum came out last.

He looked at me for a moment, then reached out and touched my cheek, just lightly, the backs of his fingers against my face, and the gesture was so unexpected that I genuinely did not have a prepared reaction for it.

"I'm sorry for all of that," he said. "It was not the welcome you deserved."

He had perfect eyes. That was the thing. Not just the color or the shape but the quality of attention in them, the way he looked at you like he was actually seeing you.

Gosh, he was so perfect it was almost offensive.

I opened my mouth to say something appropriate and composed.

That was when I heard the footsteps.

Fast, heavy, coming from the left. I turned my head and had maybe half a second before the tall council member, the one who had been the loudest in the meeting, crossed the corridor in four large strides, grabbed me by the front of my jacket, and drove my back hard into the wall.

His hand closed around my throat.

"Die, you monster," he said, and squeezed.

The air cut off. I grabbed at his wrist with both hands, but he was bigger than me and running on pure rage.

"Guards, seize him!" Caelum's voice came out sharp and hard, nothing like the quiet tone from before. "Now!"

"If anyone comes closer, I will kill her!" the man shouted, not loosening his grip at all. 

His face was inches from mine, twisted with something beyond anger, something older and more frightened than that. "I will snap her neck before you reach me!"

I could feel my vision beginning to spot at the edges.

And then, for some reason, I started to smile.

He felt it. He looked at my face and saw me smiling at him while he had his hand around my throat, and his grip faltered just slightly, he raised a brow probably wondering what was wrong with me.

He frowned. "What are you—"

I raised my right hand.

The glove was gone. I had slipped it off the moment I saw him charging, smooth and quick and completely unnoticed in the chaos, tucking it into my pocket while everyone's eyes were on his face.

I stopped struggling. I wrapped my bare fingers around the hand he had at my throat and held on.

"Stop struggling, you bitch, you're only making me angrier," he spat.

"I wasn't struggling," I said, my voice coming out rough and thin around his grip. I kept my eyes on his. "I was just praying for your dying soul."

He blinked. "What?"

Then his hand dropped from my throat.

Both his hands went to his chest. He stumbled backward one step.

His face changed completely, the rage draining out of it and replacing itself with something raw and panicked. He opened his mouth and what came out was not words but a sound, a broken, winded sound, like the air had been taken from somewhere deep inside him.

"What did you do to me?" he gasped, doubling forward. "What did you do, you monster, what did you—"

"I didn't do anything," I said, smoothing my jacket down with both hands. I reached into my pocket and pulled my glove back on, finger by finger, taking my time. 

"You were the one who charged at me."

I picked up my bag from where it had fallen when he grabbed me, straightened up, and walked out of the corridor. 

My heels clicked against the tiles with each step, echoing off the walls all the way down the hall.

I didn't look back.