Sins of the father

Summer 1235, the city of Faline...

Cyrille

Cyrille had given up on running the Andraste house. He was done with the mountain of responsibility, the sharks watching out for every perceived mistake, and the traps left out in his path to make him fail so those around him could laugh behind closed doors and compare him to someone else.

He was tired. He was far from perfect and had as many nasty faults as the next person, but this was pointless. Every new failure brought him closer to thinking abject poverty was a better fate than being a puppet duke for a den of vipers.

Worst of all was his inability to escape constant comparison to his cousin Lasair. She was a literal, confirmed murderer and rampant monster seen destroying buildings, and still the household claimed her as their paragon, their standard he constantly failed to meet. Her sins were waived off as someone else's cruel manipulation no matter how many times he said she'd abandoned the House for her own selfish reasons. It only got him cold stares in return, and a dozen unspoken promises to make him regret even bringing up her name.

He hated them all. So in retaliation, he'd started embracing his failures and started making them on purpose. Taxes not collected from tenants on time? Whoops. Roofs not repaired for the upcoming rainy season? Oh no. Rooms reupholstered in the ugliest shades known to man? What a shame! Guess they'll just have to suffer looking at it, because they blackmailed and put an absolute failure in a seat of power and refused to find literally anyone else better fit for the job!

It certainly wasn't out of family loyalty that Cyrille went through one of his millions of responsibilities and tore open his great-aunt's mail to see if it was potentially problematic - the same great-aunt that was also essentially held hostage till she died in a dark corner of the house because of disgusting family politics he wanted no part in - and found correspondence from a family member he'd long disregarded as an absentee uncle.

Aristedes Andraste was requesting a secret meeting with....his...daughter? Who was Cyrille's ancient great-aunt Carys?

Cyrille lowered the letter and scrunched his nose.

What.

....

......Oh whatever. He wasn't going to bother expanding his braincells on family drama as he kept reading.

Cyrille passed over emotional drivel and how long Aristedes had stayed away due to....oh. Due to Lord Roderick's influence. Now that Cyrille could use.

Roderick, Cyrille's charming uncle and father of Lasair, was the one who'd run the house into the ground and blackmailed everyone he could to make sure he kept the benefits of the Andraste name without having to lift a finger for any of it. Carys, Aristedes, Lasair, Cyrille - literally every Andraste alive had suffered because of that insufferable prick, and if Cyrille could use this letter somehow to get his own escape ticket out of the hell Roderick threw him into....well.

Cyrille tapped the letter thoughtfully against his chin. Coercion ran in the family, no matter how pure they pretended to be in public. Why not use this to his advantage?

So he took the letter, ignored every single servant handing him new work to do on his path, and went to go deliver the news straight to his great-aunt himself to see what she said. Roderick didn't need to know.

(562)

Aristedes

It was three days later Aristedes got a response to his carefully worded letter. Two weeks from that and he now found himself standing behind the closed gates of an estate that bore the name of his family, but it was where the connection between him and the place began and ended. He stirred from his thoughts enough to bid the carriage driver good day, his nervous gaze landing on Hvass.

There was no one else around, the cobbled street exceptionally quiet with many of the residents having either headed out to celebrate his Majesty's birthday, or had seen best to retreat to the countryside to enjoy the peace of their summer villas and their lush gardens.

It should've been a good sign, considering the certain level of secrecy his visitation required, but his worries found a way to fill that silence regardless.

"What if he sent the letter?" Ari said in a hushed voice, staring past the gates towards the grand silhouette of the house as they waited. All these years it had resided hardly a two hours ride from the house the two of them called home, but never had it felt more out of reach. He hated the manor and what it had been made into. He wouldn't put it past that viper to forge a reply in Cyrille's name.

"This could be a terrible mistake. If he sent it, and sees me here, there's no telling what he might do to her or the lad, and-" He swallowed, fiddling with the ring on his left hand underneath the light capelet he wore, its hood covering his red hair. "I can't do that to them, but if she is ill, if s-she -"

Even knowing the risks, the possibility of his letter having been intercepted by Roderick, he couldn't have stayed away this time. Not after requesting the meeting himself after hearing the rumor about the ailing health of the eldest of the Andrastes, leaving him to relive nightmares of the past again, each passing day colored by a sense of looming dread he could barely bear.

Carys deserved to know about Lasair, about anything she had ever wished to know, even if he'd never been much of a father - having met his youngest when she was already a grown woman. A dame in her sixties, but to him... To him all she had been was Eli's daughter. Their daughter they had so fervently wished for. She had looked well, at the time, but the warmth he had felt had been fleeting, crushed under the thousand tonnes of threats Roderick had so kindly levied against him after that cursed party he had dared to invite himself to, unaware of the rot that had found its way to the heart of his family.

(463)

Cyrille & Hvass

Hvass looked down at his love, feeling personally calm even in the face of Aristedes' distress. For years the both of them had stood by when it came to the Andraste House, all by Ari's command to keep the poisoned status quo after Roderick's threats. It hadn't been Hvass' decision, having respected whatever his master wanted when it came to his own family, but as they stood there at the gates today, he saw little point in indulging in fear.

He was done with being afraid. And the personal peace that brought him allowed him to be Ari's steady right hand, to turn towards him and offer comfort when he needed it.

"If this was by his doing, the fault for breaking your exile would not be yours," Hvass said evenly, taking Ari's shaking hand in his. "We would see out his trickery and retaliate as best we may to keep your descendants safe. And if the letter be true and he should still arrive, we would still handle him as we may."

Hvass smiled, the unshackled beast in his blood comfortable with violent confrontation. "And should worse come to worse, I can assure that he would answer for his sins today." He raised Ari's hand to his lips to kiss reverently. "Should you command it."

He wanted to kill the man. Would do so without a moment of hesitation for all the grief he'd brought to the love of his life. But he wasn't in the state of mind to think about the consequences of it, and was more than happy to let the decision fall into Ari's hands. And if murder wasn't on the table, he was also amenable to shaming the bastard within an inch of his life. He was all too familiar with mob mentality, and he felt a stirring glee towards the idea of his own people bringing him down.

Whatever Roderick had planned, any hand he raised would be returned tenfold. That Hvass would promise.

Hvass turned towards the gates well before the young master Cyrille Andraste walked into view up the gravel path. The youth was in a slight state of disarray, like his valet had stopped attending to him weeks ago and he cared very little to remedy that. "Ho there!" Cyrille called, raising a careless, ringed hand. "What a completely unexpected and unplanned happenstance to see you here! Why don't you come in, my clearly distant relative of mine! Far be it from me to not welcome you in after so long apart."

Hvass sighed as the youth opened the gates himself, smelling the wine on him. Cyrille walked over to Aristedes first, his chin tilted up in obvious disrespect despite the aftermath of fear on the lord's face, before he saw Hvass towering over and startled. "Ah-! Well, hm, what, uh, interesting company you keep, uncle. You can leave him outside if you w-"

"No." Hvass smiled.

Cyrille paused. "...Hm. Yes, well. Just don't - break anything, would you?"

Hvass leaned past him, showing a hint of fangs. "No promises." Then he led the way down the gravel road towards the estate, keeping his eyes open for any sign of Roderick.

Cyrille's brows flickered, and he walked beside Aristedes and whispered, "Where did you find a brute like that? Is he one of those..." He lowered his voice. "...Wild mages? Those are illegal these days, you know."

Then Cyrille paused again, thought about it, and said, "You know what, that's none of my business and I don't care. Answer me this instead, uncle! How have you been! Enjoying having nothing to do with our disgrace as of late?" Cyrille smiled, his poisonous sarcasm clear under his sleepless gold eyes. "I was so surprised when I learned you cared at all. How long has it been, ten, twelve years?"

(637)

Aristedes

His mouth opened to answer, to reassure in a gentle murmur that his nephew would have nothing to worry about from either him or Hvass - he had him well in hand, as his partner and master both, but not a word came out. He could see the adder's fangs behind those surly niceties but felt none of the bite, his maroon-tinted gaze gliding over to Cyrille's familiar features. Disregarding the young duke's disheveled state, he had grown a lot. Grown up. It had been a shock to see Lasair face to face after all those year - twelve, give or take - but whereas Lasair's lack of memories had granted him some grace from the mistakes of the past, no such kindness was to be found in Cyrille's piercing stare.

It was well deserved. How Carys might feel after eighty years of his absence, he didn't dare to even think about yet.

After all, perhaps none of this would have happened, had he been just a smidgeon less afraid.

"It's well within your right to be angry with me. I doubt that man has given you much reason to feel any different, or chances to, Cyrille," Aristedes said with grave calmness as he pulled back his dark blue hood. He was wearing his heart on his sleeve, his next words an apparent proof of that, "Whichever answer makes you feel better, I suppose, but there's little I wish more than that things could've been different for you and your cousin. Me stepping aside was no kindness to any of us, but it had to be done."

He glanced up at the estate ahead, and added almost absentmindedly, "I didn't expect to see your name on the letter, considering everything. Not to mention any of... this." There was a heavy pause, the weariness giving way to a softspoken concern, "How is she? Your great-aunt, I mean."

(310)

Cyrille

The bitter edge to Cyrille's glittering sarcasm bled away at that honest reply, and for a moment, the young duke was simply surprised.

Which didn't last long. He tossed his head with a disregarding curl of his lip and said, "Oh, fie on you and your decency. Who shall I aim my sourness at if you won't even participate?" He frowned, and joined him in looking at the fine estate, made of white stone with pale gold trim, as if prescribing to an angelic aesthetic would've been enough to keep them all safe over the years. It had, Cyrille thought, until they'd let the devil into their midst.

"She's bitter, to answer your question," He said as his frown faded. "We all are. We aim our swords at each other's backs and wonder who can best be blamed for it all."

Then he looked back at Aristedes as they came upon a servant's entrance to the side of the estate. "And in the spirit of that: don't misunderstand the letter I sent you. I didn't do this out of kindness. This house has forgotten the meaning of the word, and I expect my favor for distracting him returned. With interest."

(200)

Aristedes

What amusement he had held onto after seeing Cyrille's ire temper ever so slightly, vanished with that cold-hearted demand. Of course - like father like son, though under Roderick's influence neither Cyrille or Lasair had hardly been given any other choice but to follow suit. Ari sighed faintly all the same, and nodded. "I'll see what I can do," He felt his nephew's hard stare bore into his cheek, prompting him to add, "I promise," before the three of them snuck inside with Hvass closing the plain door behind them.

The servant quarters were tidy, which was somewhat surprising seeing Cyrille's state, but then again, maybe he should have known better. Even if his own father had cared little for social decorum at his worst, the man would've laid down on a dirty bed over his dead body. With the narrow hallway forcing the lord to take a step back and fall in line rather than walking side by side with the duke, it was right before they entered the kitchen that Aristedes spoke again.

"I'm... I know words must mean little here, but I am sorry," He murmured to the lad's back, watching Cyrille merely tilt his head towards him. It was enough though, and he continued on evenly, "Truly. I've only heard rumors, but I am sorry for what you've had to shoulder. It's... it's no easy task to rebuild something from the ashes of other people's mistakes, family or not... Although, said ashes needn't be all there is, if it's my help you need."

It was concern for Carys that had brought him here, but the old head of the family was far from his only reason.

"Roderick would have my hide if he could, but if there's any way I can help, I will," Aristedes assured, silently comforted by the sound of steady steps behind him.

(309)

Cyrille & Hvass

The kitchen was a bustling hub of activity, with kind-faced people decidedly not paying attention to them as they passed through in order to reach another narrow stairwell. Cyrille glanced over his shoulder at his 'uncle', and replied scathingly, "If you want to help, go ahead and take my title from me." He said it loudly enough that the staff could clearly hear, "It's not as if I'm doing a very good job, isn't that right!" to which none of the staff replied, keeping their heads down. Cyrille scoffed and took the next set of stairs two at a time at first, eager to get away from them.

"Backstabbers, the lot of them," Cyrille murmured. "I don't know how Lasair ever dealt with them aside from turning them into her fanatic worshippers. She's more like her father than any of us, and really...."

Cyrille paused on the steps, leaned a hand against the inner stone wall, and looked back down with a sigh. "I don't want this title. I never did. But if shouldering it drove her as violently mad as the rumors say, she's better off not coming back to it. If you see her, tell her that, won't you?" He turned up without waiting for an answer. "But if you want it, by all means!"

They followed more hallways, descended down forgotten parlors left to dust and neglected wings of the house, till they reached the most forlorn tower in the entire estate. The only proof that anyone resided here was the disturbance of dust on the floor, a clearly trodden path over the last decade or more, to this one locked door that Cyrille took the keys out for. "I'll give you as much warning as I can should any of his rats bid him to come back early. I did set something on fire and made him deal with it, but it might not last long when it comes to his dear mother-in-law." He unlocked the heavy padlock on the door and stepped aside. "Have fun, don't tarry, and put in a good word for me, hm? She does have a mean streak in her." He smiled and started walking off. "Wonder where she got it from."

Hvass stared after the youth until he turned out of sight around a corner, and murmured, "I wonder if arson runs in the family," in the dusty hall.

Cyrille leaned back around the corner, his earrings dangling. "Oh gods, not literal fire! What do you take me for?"

"Metaphorical arson counts," Hvass grinned back, making the lad roll his eyes and finally leave.

After a while, Hvass' smile evened out, and he looked at Aristedes thoughtfully, with a question that would affect them both. "Do you want it? The title."

(461)

Aristedes

"Ah, Cyrille, are you sure you don't want to -" Aristedes started to say, but the youth in question had already disappeared behind the first turn, leaving only him and Hvass standing in the stairway, and the heavy question hanging in the air. He lifted his eyes to Hvass, the tension he had hidden from Cyrille apparent on his pallid face as he quietly shook his head.

"No. I couldn't do it even if I wanted to. Not again," Not without Eli. "That part of my life belongs in the past, and the scrutiny and games of the highborn are the last thing I'd subject you to." He turned to face his servant-only-in-appearance, fingertips brushing across the man's knuckles in a search of comfort they didn't have the time for. His gaze slowly fell to the dusty floorboards as his brow furrowed in troubled uncertainty. "The worries and the visions they'd bring would wear us both out. The best I can do is try and sort out this mess, somehow."

How exactly, he couldn't say. It had felt all but impossible for well over a decade, and now there were more urgent matters at hand. Glancing at the unlocked door, he finally stepped away, giving Hvass one more look as he raised his fist. The wordless nod was enough of an answer, and with a gentle knock on the doorframe he entered his lost daughter's quarters. His hand had shook, but there was no helping it, the desperate need to hear Carys' voice overruling any possible shame and indignition that might get hurled at his way.

"Forgive my intrusion, lady Andraste."

(269)

Carys & Hvass

The room Aristedes entered was small and had an undeniable, damp draft. The stone walls were cold, and the bit of sunlight available was anemic and thin, and it was much too small for Hvass to even consider entering. A single glance and a nod let him be content with guarding the door.

Despite the cramped quality of it, the hangings that covered the stone wall were rich and fine, and the corner held a small furnace installed after the fact, loaded high with a week's worth of scented firewood. Books lined shelves, there was a small table set for tea, and most notably, there was a narrow, one-person gap in the wall that allowed in the sun. It opened onto a fine wooden balcony that shouldn't have been there, a secret held behind usually draped curtains that were now pulled to the side.

It was there that the Dowager Duchess sat with only part of her visible through the gap. She didn't respond to Aristedes at first, content to stare out over the tiny garden tucked between the walls of the estate like it was her own little kingdom to control. When she did turn to look at her guest, her stranger of a father, she had the air of a stone wall that'd weathered every single storm thrown at her. Edges were lost and she was so, so thin, but she still sat with straight-backed dignity and a razor-sharp stare. Draconic was a good word for her, no matter her age.

"You needn't entertain formalities," She said, her voice noticeably husky and thick, likely due to the damp, but she spoke with her chin held high. "There is little need between family, isn't that so."

(287)

Aristedes

Aristedes paused, taken aback by the evident passage of time for a second time that day. The years had been long for them all, but in his case they could only make his heart grow heavier. For Carys though, time had never stopped, her once crimson hair long since turned white, each long winter and equally sweltering summer having carved its marks on her refined face. It felt wrong, but not any less wrong than hearing Lasair or Cyrille call him 'uncle'.

He exhaled softly, somewhat flustered by her reply. "Right." It had been the rule within their family - to treat one another as just that, not as ladies, lords, or anything so lofty. Such titles were to be left at the door, and it was a rule he and Eli had not only done their best to adhere to, but had enforced in the first place.

"You're right."

Never had he forgotten what their family was like, but he hadn't expected to find much if any amiability at all amidst the smoldering ruins that were their familial bonds.

With his heart in his throat, the lord quietly crossed the tiny room to join Carys' side in the warm sunlight, able to take in her features fully as the two silently regarded one another, that all too familiar air of dignity she effortlessly held. He hadn't been there for nearly all her life, but looking at her now, it was almost painfully easy for Aristedes to picture the fiery tempered girl, then the iron-willed young woman, and later on the proud matriarch of their House who Eirwyn's writings had immemorialized on those old journals' pages.

With held breath he knelt down next to her chair, mindful of what little space there was, and offered to take her hand. "I found her," He said with a faint smile and lightly held her hand between his own. "I couldn't risk writing it down, but I found your granddaughter. She is well, and safe under my protection." It was curious, to see his own eyes looking back from her gaunt face. Eirwyn had been the very picture of Eli from the start, but it seemed like he had left more of himself with his beloved wife than he had thought.

She looked nothing like her mother, and yet it was like seeing a dead woman brought back to life in every little detail.

An abrupt burning at the corners of his eyes made him blink, to look away and murmur as he held back his tears, "It's- it's not enough after all this time, but when I heard of your condition, I knew I had to tell this to you with mine own words, no matter what." In another sigh his voice calmed, somewhat forcefully, his gaze full of heartache he wouldn't likely ever outlive. Even so, Aristedes said so very gently, "I won't claim the right to a title that I've never been able to earn after your mother brought you and your brother here, but I'm- I'm proud of you, Carys. So very much. To meet you- to talk with you like this, dear, is a gift I will cherish."

(528)

Carys & Hvass

It was hard to gather how minute her response was as she sat so very still in her handsome seat. Only the slightest widening of her eyes, a betraying swallow of her tight throat, the slight tightening of her hand in his was all that she gave away in how emotionally devastated she was to hear all of this far, far too late.

To be told, at the end of it all, that her father was proud of her. it shook her to her core, and widened the cracks there at her stone foundation.

The dowager closed her eyes for just a moment. And when she opened them, her walls had closed, as they always had.

She lifted her hand delicately out of his, and said, calm and collected, "I gave permission for a lack of formalities, but that does not imply that my invitation here is a gift for you to enjoy." Her pale eyelashes lowered a fraction, her words as refined and cutting as masterworked steel. "You do not deserve it. And nor do I."

"What matters is the fate of our family, above ourselves. My great-nephew is driving our house into the ground, my granddaughter is pursued with ridiculously fraudulent charges," Her lip curled in the same way Lasair's did, full of elegant disdain, "and my son-in-law best deserves his throat slit while he sleeps."

Hvass at the door choked a small laugh under his breath. Carys glanced towards him, then dismissed him as she continued.

"I have no ear...and no heart, really, for tender banalities, if that's what you came to offer," She said to her ghost of a father. "They are what matter. Not us. Not our mistakes, or our haunting regrets." Her thin, veined hand tightened on her lap. "Those died along with my brother."

(302)

Aristedes

"... Of course." It was all Aristedes could utter at first as he hesitantly stood up, regarding Carys with a look of solemn severity that was much less a wall than a dam struggling to hold him together. He hadn't dared to hope for much, grateful as he was for the mere fact of seeing her alive and breathing, but a part of him still recoiled at the cold words, leaving him now to mull over his words in the fallen silence even Hvass' presence did little to soothe.

At the very least Carys could stand the sight of him.

It was not much, but it was something, and there was much for them to do. Lasair's current happiness was far from a certainty, and Cyrille? Any sense of safety was nothing more than willful ignorance for the young duke, if such could exist at all in this place. All because of one sick man.

Turning to look over the garden as well, Aristedes finally offered a frail smile to Carys. "Eirwyn thought much the same, beneath it all. In his journals, that is, he-" He caught himself in time this time, giving her a look from the corner of his eye as he continued in a sigh, "He was always a kind child, that way, but he too knew warmth isn't enough to sustain anything on its own."

There was another pause, his voice taking on a heavier tone as he slowly pried his heart open, just a little. Warmth wasn't enough to protect them, but it was there all the same, this ardent affection needing to make itself known as they mulled over their options. "Before I came to Ivras, I spent decades thinking that all of you were gone. I learned of your birth not twenty years ago," And of Eli's passing when it was far too late to do anything. "But regret isn't going to help us out of this mire, I agree."

"We must look out for one another if we are to make this better, but I fear my hands are somewhat tied. Roderick didn't hesitate to make it clear what he'd do to you, or his child... ren, if I so much as showed my face around here," Ari continued, scoffing behind his teeth before turning to face Carys properly once more. "Or even at my son's funeral, but... the line has now been crossed, I suppose." The only way left was forward, but how? The past visions regarding their family had been nothing short of dreadful, leaving him hesitant to this day to delve into them for any sort of guidance but perhaps he would have to, eventually. Anything for them, right?

The lord had no proper answer to give, and so, it was the young duke's current predicament his thoughts wandered to. "Speaking of the youngs, Cyrille isn't faring well, is he? I could never take up the title of lord Andraste again, even if he truly wished to pass the reins to anyone else but Roderick, but he does seem... ill-fit for the environment here."

(514)

Carys

A fine frown, like a light dusting of snow, had fallen over her features with every topic he brought up. At the mention of Cyrille, Carys turned her chin toward the garden with a bitter sigh. "That wastrel. He's never had to lift a finger after being coddled by his grandfather's soft ways, and wastes every opportunity he has, Roderick aside. My granddaughter would never have squandered the situation like he has." She said, her pride the only warmth under her frigid scorn. "No, she's the only one worthy of the title. And you, with your connections with the Order, should make simple work of her false charges." She cut a glance up to Aristedes, brooking no argument on the matter. "We would have known if she was a mage, and would have schooled her accordingly. The very claim of it is preposterous."

Then she raised a thin brow over a stumbled word of his somewhere in his heartfelt speech. "And you overstep yourself. Lasair has no siblings. There's no one else to consider."

(174)

Aristedes

Aristedes frowned in return, visibly confused by her sharp denial of not just Lasair's magehood, but the much more damning family secret Roderick had held no qualms about sharing with him. The man had outright boasted about his horrible crime, so certain that Calliope would've grown to appreciate him in time, had she not been so enamored with her idiotic husband. Alas, the pig had sighed with a cold smile. All that, just to unsettle him, an inconvenient stranger but not Carys, the mother-in-law Roderick seemed to despise with all his heart?

Carys' ignorance was an unexpected mercy, seeing all the other ways that monster had seen fit to disgrace the dowager duchess with, but it was just an illusion. One that he'd need to shatter with a heavy heart.

"I will contact the Order but... Carys, listen. I'm only telling you what I have seen with my own eyes, but Lasair -" He breathed through thinning lips, weighing his words carefully, "I cannot say for certain if she always held magic in her veins, but when I found her, she bore its marks. I say this to neither praise nor demean her - she is as bright as the sun itself in spite of us all - but she is no ordinary woman."

"Likely has never been, but I'll do my everything to make sure they won't get her. Whether or not Cyrille harbors such qualities too, is impossible to say, but it is not rare for the blood to be thinner between even sisters and brothers," His next words took more effort to say, disquieted by the way Carys was staring at him. Deathly silent and so very, very still in her all too large chair. "I do not know what sick joke Roderick was hoping to come up with one day by keeping you out of all people in the dark for this long, but he... Is a sire to them both." And certainly no father to either. "Of that I'm most certain."

(333)

Carys & Hvass

The dowager duchess could only stare at the ghost before her as his ominous words widened the cracks she'd fought so hard to bury. Her granddaughter's magic she failed to register, but the rest -

"No," She whispered, the vein at her neck pulsing rapidly. 

But didn't the accusation make so much terrible sense?

Why had Ascella and Calliope fallen out of favor with each other? "No," The detachment Calliope held towards her own son that looked so much like Lasair; Ascella's quiet wish for divorce that Carys had smothered out of fear of scandal; Calliope's confusing rush for the constables and the ensuing carriage accident that ended her life? "No-"

Carys' breath shuddered, her control faltering as she hunched over her lap. This was the one piece of the fractured puzzle Carys never had. She'd only had suspicions and Eirwyn's word to turn her favor away from Roderick before -

She covered her mouth to stifle the cry she couldn't completely cut off. Eirwyn had been right all along, and he'd lost everything because she'd let Roderick into their family, blinded by the title he brought along. Eirwyn had died in heartbreak because of her.

No - because of him.

Her foundations were crumbling, turning into a ravine in a terrible earthquake she couldn't stop. Her hands shook as a cry broke free from her throat, and she rose from her seat in a blind rush, stumbling into her stone prison room. Her hip jostled the tea table, and her eyes landed on the sharp dinner knife left behind from the night before.

All of their misfortunes now had someone to blame. Roderick had used and broken Ascella, Calliope, Cyrille, Lasair, herself - and Eirwyn, her soft-hearted brother she was supposed to protect from all the world's cruelties.

She could barely remember the sunny way Eirwyn used to smile in the past, the open heart he wore on his sleeve.

It wasn't until a broad, scarred hand barred her way that Carys had realized her rush towards the door with the knife clutched in her grip. "Get out of my way!" She snarled, the force of it bringing out a blasted coughing fit. She pressed a hand against the wall as she tried to catch her breath, and the man there looked at her with such calm certainty once she did. "He ha- has to pay," She bit out.

"That's what we're here for, my lady," Hvass said. There was a pride in her sudden rage, an agreement.

Carys frowned, then looked back at Aristedes.  There was the smallest bit of hope laid at her father's feet, amidst her loneliness and terrible pain.

(440)

Aristedes

He met her fierce eyes without flinching; the rage her pain had wrapped itself into, that feeble hope that made his heart ache more than any word she could've said after her quiet rejection of him mere moments ago, prompting him to nod ever so faintly, unable to answer any different in the face of her brewing despair.

Gentle and shaken, Aristedes began to approach her and Hvass with careful steps. "He will," the lord murmured in affirmation, offering to take the silver knife from his daughter's hand and all the weight thrust onto it. "He has hurt this family enough, and it'll be put to a stop now that he can't hold your lives hostage any longer with us here."

The words left his mouth more easily than he thought. More easily than they should have, and he stole a look at Hvass that spoke of stirring fright. He hadn't come here looking for a confrontation, not in the least, but he couldn't leave Carys to suffer with this horrible revelation. In her rightful fury, she was every bit the dragon depicted in their family's insignia, but Roderick had the advantage of youth on his side, and wouldn't have any trouble overpowering an elderly woman.

No trouble murdering her, either, just like he had no trouble m-

He grasped the knife, disgusted by it even as his fingers tightened around its sleek hilt, but any further discussion was interrupted by the sound of a ringing bell, its sharp chiming making all three of them turn their heads towards Carys' bedside.

'Roderick,' his daughter hissed like a curse, earning a confused look from Aristedes until the realization dawned upon him.

"Don't tell me he is back already."

(287)

Carys, Hvass & Cyrille

"He is," Carys grimaced, standing upright. "And for once, I praise his timing." She snatched up her father's hand and again headed for the door. "Come, I know the shortest way to the entrance hall. If Fortune is with us, he'll see the gallows before the sun is set."

Hvass followed after the two, sporting a contented smile at their backs. The woman leading the way was neither the perfectly frigid Dowager, nor was she as broken as Roderick had wanted her to be. The Carys who gripped her father's hand with a fierce grip was merely herself, hellbent on revenge for her family's suffering, free at last to act.

Whatever the outcome, Roderick's plans were at an end. That, Hvass was sure of.

* * *

Cyrille paced the entrance hall as Lord Roderick's carriage pulled up to the front driveway. His heartbeat raced in his throat, and he plastered a cheerful, ridiculous smile on his face as the man slammed his carriage door, in a clear rage. Cyrille could only hope his great-aunt was having the most lovely heart-to-heart chat in order to make this distraction worth the price.

Panic rose when he saw the thundering look aimed right at him. He absolutely hoped that chat was worth it. "Back so soon, Uncle? Did you bring back a souvenir-"

A hand struck across his face before he could even finish. His ears rang, and he could feel something run down his cheek - blood, from a ring cutting his cheek - and he was sure there'd be a nasty bruise there in the morning. "How dare you," Roderick sneered in utter rage. "Do you have any idea of what your foolishness has cost us!"

Cyrille cupped his cheek, trying to remember the last time anyone had laid a hand on him. He distantly saw the staff around them straighten from their work, held still, watching. "Oh - you mean the mixup with parting gifts? Well, if one lord was a bug collector as a pastime, and the other was head of the Merchant Guild's paper records, it's an honest mistake when one gets a set of magic silverfish and the other gets a rather remarkable set of quills if I do say so myse-"

Roderick grabbed at his collar and slammed him into the nearest endshelf. "You have made a disgrace of me for the last time!"

Cyrille laughed, and winced as he did so. "I should hope so," Roderick stared down at him, and Cyrille raised up his hands, palms up. "Consider this my resignation. I quit."

Roderick's mouth twitched. "I see," He scoffed, eyes narrowing in disgust. "Rebellion, is it. Well, we shall hear a different tune from you after you-"

"Get your hands off of my grandson."

Roderick startled to see Carys standing at the top of the entrance hall's staircase, her face glowing with endless hatred. The air turned electric, and more servants started filing in, peeking around corners, horrified at the scene and its implications.

"Carys," Roderick crooned with malice. "Are you turning senile at last? He's no grandson of yours. Only an incompetent waste of air that needs to learn his lesson."

"I said," Carys bared her teeth as Aristedes joined her at the high railing. "Get your hands off of him."

Roderick looked between her and Aristedes, and uttered a low laugh. "Ahh...what is this, some idea of a coup, then?" His hand moved from Cyrille's collar to his throat, a threat leveled directly at them both. "Foolish."

(582)

Aristedes

"Don't hurt the boy!" Aristedes called out to Roderick from the top of the stairs, his temperate demeanor giving away to seething anger. He saw the cut on Cyrille's cheek, the unspoken threat only adding to his well-festered hatred of the man who had come between him and his family.

'Help me corner him,' was all he whispered to Hvass as he left the man's side to descend the stairs together with his furious daughter, arm protectively hovering behind her back lest a fit of weakness strikes her after their sprint through the hallways and staircases.

"How low can you sink, truly? Holding your kindred hostage to your pride and whims, and now open humiliation?" Aristedes spat, still holding the knife in his right hand, the blade lowered but not hidden. "Rotten bastard. A murderer is what you are, and I've held my tongue long enough. Touch him and it's not only the constable I will drag you to, do you h-"

And not another word came out of his mouth. He froze in place, a horrible feeling pounding within his chest as he beheld Roderick's golden gaze, nailed to the floor by it.

He knew this sensation, all thanks to Mordreaux's demonstration of cruelty not too long ago when the fey knight had seen fit to force his hand. This awful, insidious sense of the control of his very own body being ripped away from him, leaving him spellbound by magic the man before them shouldn't have held.

(247)

Carys, Hvass & Cyrille

Roderick grinned, his gold eyes sharp and serpentine laid upon Aristedes and Carys both. "Do I hear what, exactly?" His attention was fixed on them, not on the way Hvass took another path down to the foyer, hidden by shadows. "The accusations of a senile dowager and the man responsible for the death of Eirwyn Andraste? You showed up on our doorstep once, and the poor man died that same night. I cast you out to keep the rest of us safe!" His eyes flashed wide, and by his command, something scaled and wicked slid from the crevasses of the stairwell to coil around Aristedes's ankle. "And I intend to keep it that way."

"Safe, he says," came Hvass' low growl behind Roderick. "With a hand on his own son's throat."

Roderick turned, and without warning, Hvass grabbed the man's shoulder and threw him violently against the nearest pillar, causing a cry from the gathered crowd of the house.

"You have no grounds to accuse him on," Hvass said, his deep voice carrying across the hall. "You, who caused the deaths of Ascella, Calliope, and her husband Valere, in efforts to obscure what you did to Cyrille's mother." More cries followed, sputters of outrage and shock, as Roderick rose on shaking limbs to glare at Hvass.

"Lies, lies, all of it!" Roderick sneered, turning his gorgon stare on Hvass next. "Who are you to attack me and lay such false claims at my feet!" He rose and got to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he radiated pure hostility. "Who do you think owns this house!"

"Oh, certainly not you," Cyrille said, rising from the table and fixing his crumpled cravat. "Lasair does, and she's not even here."

Roderick scoffed in absolute derision, but Cyrille continued. "And let's say the brute here was lying. Needless to say, who pushed all manner of suffering onto our favorite lady until she broke? Who pushed that awful engagement to a man whose actions and death led to her downward spiral? Who expected her to run the House despite her kidnapping and withdrawal to her rooms!"

"Such was her duty!" Roderick spat, turning his gorgon gaze to Cyrille next. "One she failed at, until the only one left to take her place was a useless, disappointing wastrel like you!"

Cyrille paused.

Then he burst out laughing, the sound as delightful as Lasair's, and just as scornful. "Did you hear that, everyone!" Cyrille grinned as Roderick faltered, his magic failing to hold his own blood. "He just called Lasair a failure! Isn't that just awful, John?"

John, Lasair's loyal driver, her faithful man who'd watched her grow up, the man whose life she'd saved from a hanging Roderick himself would've ordered without a second thought, stepped forward with a thunderous look on his soft, ruddy features. "Just awful." He said, as others stepped forward along with him, loyal to Lasair till the end.

Roderick stared at them all, at every last servant he'd ignored over the years as unimportant, beneath him. There were far too many to use his magic on, and his first bespelling was already starting to fade on Aristedes and Carys.

Seething, Carys' first words from a stiff jaw was the command, "Arrest him," to which several of the crowd moved closer in order to do, their knuckles cracking with hatred long-smothered. In a fit of boiling rage, she took the knife from Ari's hand and continued her descent down the stairs, one rigid, slow step at a time.

(593)

Aristedes

"Be careful, a wild mage walks in our midst!" Aristedes barked hoarsely, feeling his whole body shiver as the spell loosened its petrifying grip, his fingers too lax to resist Carys grabbing the knife back for herself.

Yet, something held onto him still, the sight of what had wrapped itself around his leg unsettling enough to make the lord yelp in fright. An unseen embrace instinctively lifted Carys away from him in an instant, placing her down at the foot of the steps, well-beyond the stone-scaled serpent's reach Ari couldn't now lift his eyes from. It couldn't be an animal - a familiar, maybe - but where telekinesis had helped move his daughter to safety, it did little against the snake and its ironclad grip around his shin.

But his cry hadn't gone unnoticed, catching the crowd's attention, their surprised glances towards the stairway all the time Roderick needed for chaos to break out. A few servants broke the circle that had begun to form around the much hated duke, turning on their colleagues then. Rotten, hired hands all of them, who was to say from where or when, but as the crowd fell into disarray, Aristedes was now truly struggling against the enchanted beast as it slithered up his leg, ready to do its master's bidding.

It was going for his neck - revealed by a split-second glimpse of the future that pierced his consciousness - and in a desperate attempt to deter the serpent's plan, he grabbed it by its neck, bidding the reptile to retaliate on the spot. Its teeth sunk deep into his clothed wrist, making him stumble against the railing in a flash of pain.

(275)

Carys, Hvass & Cyrille

"Ari!" Hvass cried, struggling against the fading hold over his own limbs as the crowd began to seethe like an ocean tide, fighting itself in a sudden crashing storm. He forced his limbs to move, and joints cracked like splitting stone as he moved towards his love.

Carys, at the base of the steps, her hand on the ballister for support, stood torn between her father's cry of pain and the source of it down below. But the choice was made for her as Hvass rushed up the steps past her, and Roderick was stalking through the chaos towards his son, full of rage.

"You," Roderick rumbled, pushing and flash-freezing those who sought to interfere. "This is because of you,"

Cyrille backed away as much as the crowd allowed, his back jostled by a set of men caught in fisticuffs. "I set the stage, yes," Gods, there was nowhere to run. "But the star performer! That's all you, Father."

"Another one of your plays," Roderick sneered, full of hatred and scorn as he advanced, snatching up his son in his strong grip, choking him. "You always did like your tragedies."

Legitimate fear entered Cyrille's eyes as his father strangled him, his grip as deadly as the snake around Aristedes.

(209)

Aristedes

Aristedes heard the fearful cry, but it wasn't until Hvass was upon him that it fully registered, his love's red gaze and clawed hands marking the severity of his protective fright. He was kneeling on the steps by the time Hvass reached him, stupefied and panting in agony as the serpent's venom spread inside him slowly, its hold on his wounded wrist broken by nothing less than a brutal death at the hands of Hvass, black liquid spilling on the marble steps as the familiar was pulled apart by the monster hiding beneath his companion's skin.

The pain was still there, his hand numb and bloodless below the two puncture wounds, but as Hvass began to gather him in his arms, the redhead resisted, rasping, "Hvass, no, don't- y-you have to help them!" but it had no effect. "Quickly, before Cyrille-" Aristedes tried to continue all the same, his attention sliding over to the crowd and the flash of red hair he could only catch a glimpse of before it was smothered, swallowed by Roderick's imposing frame that hunched over the young duke.

It took Ari flinching away from Hvass' gentle touch to get his love's attention, only for him to order sharply in his rising panic, "Go help my family, Koszmar."

He didn't see the skin on his hand turning gray and cold. Stonelike, as if met by a gorgon's evil gaze. Even if he had, it wouldn't have mattered, his thoughts centered only around the lad and Carys who braved the chaos, adamant to make her way to Roderick and put an end to this.

(270)

Carys, Hvass & Cyrille

The command forced Hvass' hands. "No," He released Ari against his will, his name binding him. "No, Ari, no!" He had to take a step down, fear choking him, his desperate need to save his love choked and twisted against himself.

Fear filled him, not for the scene below, but for the one he was forced to abandon as he dove into the crowd, leaving Aristedes on the steps to die.

Cyrille didn't have much longer, his fists uselessly beating against his father's arms as he choked and started turning blue. There was nothing but Roderick's ire, his desire to rid himself of a useless son he couldn't control, and Cyrille had never known the fear of death before now.

He'd die here, with his hands losing their grip on his father's wrist. As his eyes started rolling back in his skull, he didn't see the shimmer of magic take root, a golden spark not from Roderick, but from Cyrille.

Roderick failed to see it as well, blinded by rage. He also failed to see Carys reach him first in order to raise up her knife and plunge it into his back.

Roderick roared in pain, bringing the attention of all those around him. He released Cyrille, letting him fall to the ground to choke and gasp for air. Roderick stumbled, all eyes on him now, and he seethed as he reached for that knife with a hand that shimmered in gold.

The second knife in his back was from John, a humble farrier knife for cleaning horse hooves he always carried around his person. Roderick's screams carried in the now silent entrance hall.

The knives descended on him in quick order then. Molly with her kitchen knife, the steward with his sharp quill he always carried - he screamed as countless blades tore at him and stabbed him, each one no less hateful than the last. He failed to see his skin turn into solid gold, climbing up his limbs, making him falter and choke.

He did see, as his last sight, a hooded figure slip through the chaos towards the open grand door. She paused there, meeting his gaze - it was his second wife, his partner in all of this, his one whispering encouragement to take more and more and more - she waved her fingers at him, and left with the same man who'd warned him to return home today, lest all his plans fall to ruin.

Roderick breathed a laugh, and stumbled into the last bloodthirsty member of the crowd. And this one made short work of him, as Hvass' clawed hand shoved through his chest in a shuddering grunt, if only to rip out his still beating heart.

Roderick took a step back, the gold climbing up his throat. He stared over the crowd that hated him, and died there, turned into a heartless statue of gold.

(480)

Aristedes

From the high steps, Aristedes had a clear view of the horrors as they unfolded on the stone floor, remaining completely still as he leaned against the ballister with a look that knew no mercy for the dying man below. Their family was no stranger to secrets - or at the very least, his descendants weren't - and Roderick's fate too would undoubtedly become just another tragic accident on their record.

What had hurt to witness, was Hvass' horror; to see Hvass stare at him with such a honest look of betrayal, making his heart constrict painfully as the man now waded through the crowd towards him, racing up the steps to meet his bitten lord who knew not what to say. His thoughts felt scattered, the adrenaline pumping through his veins so overwhelming that he barely noticed the bite beginning to seal on its own, the familiar's magic becoming undone in the wake of its master's death who now stood motionless, refusing to kneel even in death.

It was no true animal, and neither was its 'venom' of the natural world, but the realization didn't register, his limbs remaining numb.

Neither did he hear loyal John proposing to take blame upon himself, ever diligent to protect the true head of the house even in her absence. Cyrille's confusion, the heated yells below with those loyal to Roderick subdued and bound, all of it fell to his deaf ears before fading completely the moment Hvass knelt before him with a look of seriousness so grave, that Aristedes couldn't stop himself from gasping as he watched his love bite down on that stolen, still faintly beating heart before Ari's wide-eyed, breathless stare.

Not a word left his lips, any resistance he might've held forced down by the kiss Hvass pulled him into, as desperate as it was demanding. It was a pungent, sickly taste Aristedes knew too well, and one he yielded to with a shaken exhale.

(320)

Carys, Hvass & Cyrille

Hvass was so afraid, his pulse pounding in his limbs down to his fingertips that gripped Ari far too tightly. He could only hope their usual ritual would work, with him collecting the blood of a mage and feeding it to Ari, praying his own healing magic would work while fed on a magic-rich heart. It made a terrible sort of sense to use the life of the caster to heal its own poison, and he had no other alternatives but this.

The relief when he saw Ari's skin return to normal was borderline painful, and Hvass shook, dropping the remains of that heart onto the stairs as he gathered Ari into his arms. "Don't," his deep voice broke as he burrowed his face into Ari's neck. "Ever do that to me again," he choked, his throat and eyes stinging from nearly losing him.

Down below, the hired ruffians were taken care of, but the shock of the scene now turned to Cyrille. Handprints of solid gold marred the tiled floor as Cyrille crawled backwards, and in her panic, Carys hastened towards him to offer him help to stand. "No!" Cyrille shouted, fear gripping him tight around his bruised throat. He desperately tucked his arms around himself. "Nobody touch me, I -" He clamored, before realizing that his fine jacket was starting to turn into gold as well. In an instant, he was locked in a straight-jacket of gold, and panic made his breathing shallow and shrill.

Carys stood, lowering her bloody hands as she stared at her frightened grandson.

Then she started to bark her orders, taking immediate authority of the scene to take care of both the evidence of their crime, and a way to free Cyrille from his new and terrifying magic. John's offer of taking the blame was immediately shut down in her steady stream of orders, and with John taking care of Cyrille personally, it didn't take long for the hall to empty out, all matters seen to but one.

She climbed the steps towards her father and his softly sobbing love, unable to find words at the end of it all.

(356)

Aristedes

He watched her approach just as silently, dwarfed by Hvass' smothering embrace as the two men sat there on the stairs, each holding onto the other with the taste of Roderick's vile blood still coating his mouth.

The tension had fled him in the orderly chaos that had followed the killing of the violent duke and his hired hands, leaving behind just a weary redhead who looked up at Carys over his distraught love's shoulder with pursed lips, his hand idly resting between Hvass' shoulder blades in a silent attempt to soothe the man he'd wounded in a way no one else could. There were too many questions, and none at all at the same time, and it was nothing but the lingering shock that first broke the silence.

"Are you hurt?"

He could see the shape of the mauled heart at the edge of his vision, left to bleed on the steps next to kneeling Hvass, but if Carys saw it; saw what they had done, his daughter gave nothing of her thoughts away. Neither shock nor disgust colored her face, and in a swell of emotion Aristedes stifled a sob of his own to Hvass' shoulder, reaching to cover and wipe his eyes while his breathing struggled to settle. 

The monster was gone, unable to hurt them or Lasair any longer.

(223)

Carys & Hvass

Her brows flickered at the  sound of his sob, and she shook her head in answer to his question. She wasn't hurt beyond a few likely bruises in pushing through the crowd, and she wouldn't count those when Roderick was dead.

All because of her father's second visit. With the torn heart on the ground and the blood running down his chin, he seemed to bring death whenever he arrived, but she welcomed this one.

"I consider things even, with this," She said, her voice so tired now, thick with the rot still in her lungs. "I forgive you."

Then she offered her hand for him to take, not to lift him - she hadn't the strength, with Hvass still clinging to him - but to welcome her father home, and give him a chance to rest after their ordeal.

They deserved that, at least.

(143)