Cairon sat at the long table, having breakfast with Lord Edran Vael and his family, veiled and composed, slipping effortlessly once more into the role of Lord Kael Viremont. The mask fit perfectly now.
Lord Edran Vael looked worse than he had the night before. His hands trembled as he lifted his spoon. His skin had the gray, thin texture of old parchment. His eyes, once cold, now drifted with confusion. Each morning, more of the man vanished, leaving behind only the ghost of a lord. The Blight sickness was doing its work.
He was completely unaware that his lady wife had shared another man's bed last night. That she had moaned and begged beneath that man. That his own bastard had spilled seed in her womb again and again while he lay sleeping in the tower above, drugged and dying.
Cairon felt no guilt.
His father had not felt guilt when he condemned him to die in the Blightlands. Why should Cairon feel guilt for cuckolding him and stealing his beautiful lady wife?
Isolde sat beside her husband with practiced poise. Her back was straight. Her expression unreadable. To any casual observer, she was the perfect noblewoman, the loyal wife.
But Cairon saw what the others could not.
She smiled at him. A secret smile. Warm and bright. There was satisfaction in her gaze. Contentment. The glow of a woman who had been well and truly pleasured. But there was something more than lust now. Something deeper.
Affection.
She watched him with tenderness. Her eyes lingered on his hands, on his voice, on every word he spoke. She had never looked at Lord Edran like this. Never looked at any man like this.
It was more than just physical attraction.
Isolde was falling in love.
Cairon saw it.
He saw the child bride buried beneath the layers of silk and cruelty. The noble girl who had been sold into marriage at fourteen. A political trade, nothing more. A virgin wife for a man twelve years her senior. Trained to satisfy his carnal needs and bear his children. Told to serve him. Forced to endure him on top of her every night. There had never been love in her life. Not once.
Until now.
What she felt towards Kael Viremont was her first love. The child bride buried under the proud noblewoman and cruel stepmother surfacing again for the first time in years. He had become her dream. Her fantasy. Her secret longing come to life. Not the dutiful obedience of a noble bride, but the ache of something real. Something fragile. Something innocent.
She smiled at him with the wide, soft eyes of a girl in love. No longer the cruel noblewoman. Not even the hungry love of an unsatisfied wife for a new flame. Isolde looked at him like a girl who had finally been touched with kindness. A girl who had been kissed like she mattered. A girl who now dared to dream of more.
Kael Viremont was her first love. Her only love. The first time she had felt something innocent. A dream she had long buried rising up again through the snow.
And Cairon smiled back.
Because he could not wait to break her heart.
He could not think of a darker punishment than this. To let her fall in love. To let her dream. To let her feel something innocent and pure. To let her believe she had finally found the one thing her life had always lacked. Kindness. Safety. Warmth. To build her a dream. A quiet dream of the true love she had never known.
Then burn it.
Betray her. Break her. Destroy her.
He would make her trust him completely. Make her hope. Then he would tear it all away. He would show her what it meant to dream of sunlight, only to wake to ash. That would be his revenge. Her final punishment. The cruelest fate. The death of the one soft thing she had dared to hope for.
Isolde had never shown him mercy when she held power over him.
Now, he would return the favor.
Lord Edran stirred beside her, his spoon clinking against the bowl.
Cairon turned his attention to the old man. "You seem tired, my lord. The weight of the realm, perhaps?" he played the concerned guest, probing the man's fading memory.
Edran chuckled, though his voice was hoarse. "The realm. The keep. The bones. All tired. I am fading, Lord Viremont. Fading slowly. I am only forty, yet I feel like a hundred."
Cairon poured him a fresh cup of tea. "I hear the herb helps. What is it called?"
"Veilroot," Edran murmured. "A strange thing from the east. Dulls the pain. Makes the mind float. But the heart, the heart feels too much. It opens the door to old memories. Old ghosts."
It was a slow poison, but anything to stop the Blight sickness from killing him.
Cairon nodded, watching carefully. "Do you dream of the past?"
"Too often," Edran whispered. His fingers twitched. "I see her now. The peasant girl. Hair like wheat. Skin like fresh cream. I took her under a tree in the woods. A hunting trip. Summer. She wept when I left. I left her a bag of silver."
"And nothing more came of it?" Cairon asked gently.
Edran's brow furrowed. "There was a boy. A bastard. I remember now. The one born of that summer. Sent him away. To the Blightlands. Foolish boy killed someone he should not have. Needed to be taught a lesson."
Cairon leaned forward, voice soft. "And what did you say to him when you last saw him?"
Edran blinked. His voice dropped. "I told him... I could protect you. But I will not."
The words stirred something dark inside Cairon. But the old man did not recognize the man before him. He stared into his cup as though it were a mirror of the past.
Just then, the hall doors swung open.
A courier burst in, boots wet with snow, his face tight with urgency. He dropped to one knee chest heaving. "A message, my lords. Urgent. Soldiers of House Avenlock have crossed the border. Fires along the Halden road. Villages burning."
Gasps followed. Servants froze. Rylen looked to his father. Edran's eyes were wide with fear. His mouth opened but no words came.
Cairon stood. Calm. Commanding.
"I will deal with it," he said.
Edran looked up at him in relief. "You would help us, Lord Viremont? Truly?"
"Of course," Cairon replied smoothly, placing a hand on the old man's shoulder. "This house has shown me great hospitality. I have known nothing but warmth and love within these walls."
He left the hall without looking back.
Isolde watched him go.
Her eyes followed every movement, soft and shining, brimming with something dangerously close to love.