Cairon moved through Blackstone Keep like a ghost returning to the scene of his own death. Every corner, every stone stair, every rusted torch bracket on the wall was familiar. He had scrubbed these floors on his hands and knees. Polished the stone with bloodied fingers when Lady Isolde found specks of dust she did not like. He had hidden under stairwells to avoid beatings. Slept in grain closets and cold stables to escape her moods.
The keep had not changed much. It had only grown older and poorer. The ceilings sagged with damp. Walls showed cracks that no one had repaired. Tapestries hung faded and moth-eaten. There was less gold, fewer servants, and none of the proud shine Cairon remembered from his youth.
But it was still home. Not to the boy he once was. To something else now. Something sharpened. Watching. Waiting.
As Lord Kael Viremont, he walked with the stride of a foreign noble who had never known chains. Cloak brushing the stone, sword resting easily on his hip, gloved hands folded behind his back. Servants stepped aside with hurried bows. Guards stiffened and nodded in respect.
He made his way toward the steward's quarters with purpose.
The steward was a man named Brennart, a soft-bodied creature with a weak chin, watery eyes, and fingers too fat with rings he had not earned. Cairon remembered him well. Brennart had been the one who used to cuff him behind the ears and hit him for imagined laziness. Back then, Brennart had been strong enough to swagger. Now he looked like a rat who had grown fat by nibbling crumbs from a dying lord's table.
Brennart did not recognize him.
Of course he didn't.
The steward bowed low, back hunched and tongue quick with flattery. "Lord Viremont, what an honor it is. Truly, a guest of your standing graces our humble hall. If I can be of service in any way—"
"A cup of wine," Cairon said smoothly, cutting through the man's babble. "And your company."
"Of course, my lord. At once."
The wine Cairon offered was from his own stock. Red as rubies, thick and spiced, foreign and impossibly expensive. Brennart's eyes widened at the first sip. By the third, his shoulders had loosened, and his tongue moved like butter on hot bread. Greedy men were always predictable.
"Lord Edran Vael," Cairon said, casual and mild, pouring another generous cup. "He seemed quite ill."
"He is quite ill, my lord," Brennart agreed quickly, lifting the cup with trembling hands. "Caught the Blight sickness some years ago. Some call it a curse. Others say it is a punishment from the old gods. First, the strength fades. Then the appetite. The flesh weakens. The limbs fail. A slow death. Lord Vael has not stood without aid in more than a year."
"No cure?"
"None known. The old lord tried all manner of things. Apothecaries. Hedge healers. Even southern medicine. Useless, all of it. He is a shell now. Sleeps often. Forgets things. And he has not shared Lady Isolde's bed in over two years."
Cairon smiled faintly behind his veil. "Is that so?"
The idea coiled through his thoughts like smoke. Isolde, always so arrogant, so cruel in her beauty, was locked in a cold marriage bed with a man who could not even fuck her. She was twenty-eight, still young, still infuriatingly beautiful. Her face untouched by age. Her body sharp with longing. Yet her husband, a man twelve years older than her, could no longer rise from his chair. Could not fuck her. Could not satisfy her.
He could not even imagine how frustrating it must be for her. A woman in the prime of her life, desperate for a good fuck that her husband could not give her. Her life was not happy or satisfying. It never had been. A content woman would not find joy in tormenting her husband's bastard child, now would she?
Cairon said nothing of what he remembered. Nothing of how her voice had once cut through him like a lash. He only poured more wine.
"A shame," he said at last, voice smooth. "To be young and alone in a northern keep so far from pleasure. I cannot imagine the strain of such responsibility. She seems like a remarkable woman."
Brennart nodded. "Lady Isolde runs the household now. Lord Vael is lord in name only. She decides who eats. Who is dismissed. What debts are paid. We would collapse without her. She is firm. Cold, some say. But she has kept the wolves from the gate."
"Quite the feat," Cairon murmured. "Tell me, Steward. I am new to this part of the kingdom. What is House Vael's place in the realm these days?"
The steward's eyes lit with the chance to explain something he thought he understood. He leaned in, eager.
Cairon let him speak, nodding and listening with the polite curiosity of a foreign noble.
But behind the veil, he studied everything. The movement of the man's eyes. The weakness in his voice. The cracks in the keep's foundation. The flow of power in this house that had once called him nothing. The stepmother who had once called him the filth beneath her boots. She had treated him like a worm beneath the floorboards. But that worm had grown teeth. Turned into a serpent.
That serpent was inside the walls now.
And no one could feel it.
Not yet.