“Toria, are you sure this is exactly what you want to do?” Mistra had stopped packing her bag and looked to me meaningfully, concern evident in her eyes. “I know this is everything you’ve always wanted it and seems like it has been perfectly set on a silver platter for you, but you’ve had no real time to think through any of this. Big decisions like this should not be made lightly or while impared such as a lack of sleep. I would not put it past Feros to have specifically waited to spring this one you while you barely had any rest to get you to agree to go with him.”

She wasn’t wrong to be concerned, we were planning on leaving in less than a day for something that would irreparably change things between the House Yser and the Draks. My leaving without warning and taking over my rightful kingdom would not go down well with Rafe and I would be lucky if he would decide not to declare me an enemy and hold a grudge. I was not sure exactly what that would mean for the castle Yser and the land connected, though if given the choice between the Yser land and my rightful kingdom, I chose the later. Besides, the fae had made the Yser castle a moot point for the time being and I could always revisit how to recover what was mine there at a later date. As for Feros intentionally picking a time where I would be less able to think through the consequences, I did not doubt at all that it was exactly what he had had in mind. Part of dealing with the fiend was always keeping in mind that everyhting was one big drama and set up for him, though in this case the carrot he was dangling was just too tempting. I had not worked out yet exactly what benefit it was going to get for him, but it would be hard to make it be something I would regret going and getting my kingdom back. Perhaps I was being too short sighted in being willing to jump at this chance so quickly and that was a risk I was willing to take.

“I have to do this,” I replied, “if I decided not to go now I would never forgive myself later for not knowing if it would have worked. I know it’s a huge risk and I understand if you would rather not take it with me. You have your own kingdom to worry about taking. You are welcome to stay here, study your tome, and figure out how to work things out for yoru benefit. I know you are going to be putting that dream on hold to follow me, that does not feel very fair to you.”

Ruby lips curling into a soft smile, her long braided locks shook from side to side as she shook her head. “You are being ridiculous now thinking that I would want to stay here during all this. No, I want to be by your side when you take back what is rightfully yours. Besides, you know my father would spend the entire time you were gone drilling me for information about where you were and what you were doing, no amount of convincing lies would make him believe I did not know anything. It is best that anyone who knows anything about where you are going leaves the castle with you.”

“I guess that makes my mind up about something,” I said with along, drawn out sigh. “Mari probably should not be told what is going on. Safest for her to be kept in the dark, even if she is going to absolutely hate me for not telling her before we go.”

“She could come with us.” Mistra was making the suggestion to be nice, because she knew I was going to worry about leaving my aunt behind with an angry demon king, but we both knew the alternative would be difficult on all parties.

“A year or so ago I may have considered it, now… no, I do not think Mari should be forced onto any more long journeys. I was wrong for insisting she be the one to go retrieve the girls and it showed by how worn down she has been since those journeys ended.” I had a lot of guilt about sending her out those months ago, I had tried to atone by making sure Mari had every excuse to stay and still feel useful since, my perception of the strong, healthful aunt that rescued me had taken a bit too long to fade. “I know she will probably be upset now that we are leaving her behind, but my conscience would not let me rest if she came with us. The best thing for her right now is the comfort and luxury of the life she is used to, not roughing it across the land on an adventure.”

“To be quite honest, she would probably spend the whole time worrying about her contact network and wanting to get back to where she could keep trying to piece it back together anyway. I think she would probably agree to come with us out of a sense of solidarity and duty, but in her heart of hearts she would not want to be there and would long to be back. She is at the age now where her ideas of duty and desires for what is best for her are muddled and she has trouble confidently picking the option that is best for her.”

“Is there even any hope of that?” I asked. "Will her network ever be whole and functioning again? She has put so much effort into it over the years and has been so proud of it. I find it really sad that it has been destroyed like this."

Mistra gave me a sad look, stopped trying to find room in her bag for a couple more items, and sat down on the edge of our bed. “You know I think the highest of you and your family, right?”

Uh oh, nothing ever pleasant started out with that kind of opening. “Of course, you have always been sure to give Mari nothing but the upmost respect.” I sat my own bag down, half-packed, and took a seat on the bed next to her.

She turned to face me, an unsure half-smile on her face as she assessed how to best word what she wanted to say next. It did not surprise me that she was being so careful with her words, it was part of what really set her apart from the rest of her family. The Drak men would say the first things that came to their minds, slight exception for one of the brothers who seemed to have picked up a bit more tact from somewhere, but even then, they were prone to spitting out replies with no forethought about what the long term effects would be. Perhaps it had been all the times she had seen such actions come around to bite the rest of them that had really driven home the benefits of careful consideration before blurting out on impulse. It was a large part of the reason that even if Mistra was not my consort I would still support her rise to the throne over any of them. She was calculating and sharp, she could plan for the future and hold her tongue when it was best to. The Draks would be most likely to truly find glory under her leadership.

“When my grandmother died, my human grandmother, that is, I noticed something about her that I’m beginning to realize now might be a common trait between people arriving at the… culmination of their lives.” While she spoke, she began to entwine her fingers in my dark hair, playing with and curling the ends around her fingers. She knew it instantly relaxed me, which was likely why she started to do it. “If I remember correctly, your grandmother went quickly?”

“Mhmm,” I murmured, trying very hard not to let my heavy eyelids convince me that I should lean against her for a short nap. There was too much to be done to let myself rest just yet. "Just a few days really. She seemed fine and then she was bed bound."

“Well mine went very slow. There wasn’t really any single day that I could pinpoint where I knew for certain her end was approaching, it just became a part of my working knowledge that I was watching her slowly fizzle out like a candle running out of wax.” Her eyes became hazy and she gently prodded me into turning away from her on the bed so that she could part my hair and begin to braid. “For maybe a few months before the end she became increasingly concerned about the value she was adding to the family, that she spent her time being productive in ways that everyone could see. For my grandmother it was her weaving, she was consumed with the idea that she needed to get through the massive room full of wool and thread that she had acquired over her lifetime. She pressed upon all of us that she needed to spend all her time getting through it at a feverish pace and became rather nasty if we interrupted her for any reason, even if that reason was to remind her that she hadn’t eaten at all that day or that she was squinting in pain as she worked because she hadn’t slept in days. At one point, probably when she realized that it was unlikely that she was going to finish it all before the end, I was recruited to learn and help her get through it and I think it gave her some sort of relief to know that even if it wasn’t complete by the time she was gone there would be someone to finish it for her. I realize now that she was struggling to find her own sense of what her legacy was and what she was leaving behind for other people.”

Mistra leaned away from me on the bed to reach for a small bit of fabric from the depths of the bag she had been packing, then used it to tie off the end of the first braid. Her masterful fingers had tightly braided from almost the very beginning of my forehead all the way back into a long, sleek braid that hung to my waist. I never could figure out how she was able to do it and get it to stay, my hair was so smooth and fine that any time I tried to do anything with it, even just tie it back was an act of frustration. It never wanted to do anything for me but lay pin straight and fight any attempt to do anything interesting, the only time I had ever seen myself with a real hair style or curls were when Mistra took the time to do it for me. Perhaps she had just much more practice than I, her hair was always done up for the day in some immaculate hairstyle that looked like it had to have been held in place with dozens of pins and hope, yet at the end of the night she would often just release a single pin, maybe two, and it would all come tumbling down.

“You think that is what is happening now with Mari,” I said. “She is trying to leave behind something that she feels is an appropriate legacy.”

“Something like that,” she said gently, moving her hands to work on the other braid. “I am very certain that at some point she spent a lot of time and effort into establishing the contact network from nothing, but I have personally been through many of the documents and letters she has kept over time. While some of it is very interesting and important, very little of it seems very useful. I think a lot of what Mari used to do was track Evonia’s children for her and marginally keep abreast of Church workings.” Her fingers slowed and she breathed in deeply, hesitating with what she wanted to say.

“Just say it.”

“I think at some point in the past year or so your aunt has realized that she had actually done very little in regards to setting you up for your reign. Even with her contacts she still getting information after things have already happened most times, no one she had in her employ was very high up or notable, not really the kind of people who get access to information beyond what could be gathered by tracking gossip. I think-” She paused again. “I think that Mari may have always been doing things to appear busy and very important, perhaps she wanted to somehow stand out in Evonia’s shadow. It had to have been hard for her to be so close in age to her sister and watch her become a queen while she did not.”

“You’re saying that the network was never very critical and she was mostly keeping up appearances to appear more important to the House that she really was.”

“Yes, and now I think the idea is coming home to roost that when she does pass things will not fall apart without her here. Maybe over the decades she’s come to convince herself just how important she is and now that she has time to reflect she realizes she’s been mostly playing pretend this whole time. She really put a lot of stock in her name as a Yser and used it to influence and manipulate people as she saw fit, but people did not necessarily give her deference solely due to her own reputation, it was her sister that made the name something to fear.”

It was a hard idea to wrap my head around, I had idolized my aunt when I was little, she had been my savior and the reason I had any chance of getting my kingdom back. I had watched in awe as she could make grown men twice her size grovel at her feet and women protect their children from her stern gaze. The idea that she had been mostly just putting up a front to seem important really conflicted with my lifelong view of her. I wasn’t sure I was exactly ready to reform my opinion on her, though I knew Mistra was probably pretty accurate in her version of things. I had always tasked Mari with things that I thought she would do well based on her important work, but there was the nagging idea in the back of my mind that each of those things had never turned out exactly as promised or expected. The most obvious example was her task to go find worthy girls to train in magic. Granted she had found Alice and a few other promising girls, but she had also been cut short from her duties due to our plan being found out and blindsided by one of the twins. If her information network really did work like she espoused it did, then she would have known or heard something or someone would have played defense in throwing the Church off her trail.

“I think my point is that right now Mari wants to be focused on one thing. Not only would it be physically hard on her to make this journey, it would be very mentally difficult. She will feel much better staying here and working on putting the network back together however she is able to, even if in the end it will not end up being much use to you.”

“I understand,” I sighed. “It seems that no one in my family had be transparent with me, it is always one uncovered secret after another, I feel like I have lived most of my life blind. Almost nothing I have ever thougth for certain was true about my family has turned out to actually be real. I am starting to think that I should just start going through all the things I think I know and just assume the opposite is true.”

“It is normal,” Mistra said soothingly, her lips brushing the back of my ear, “families are always bad about telling each other the truth. We often hide things from people we value that we think might make them think less of us, even if it’s irrational. Your aunt is a flawed human being just like any other, though it cannot be denied that she thinks the world of you and has always wanted you to succeed. Even if she doesn’t always approve of the people you keep in your bed.”

I let out a small laugh and sat patiently while she retrieved another strip of cloth and fashioned off the final braid. Once complete, she tugged on them playfully to indicate they were done. I turned and laid my head on her shoulder, tucking my chin into her neck. I tried to avoid such displays of what I thought was submissive affection, but I could not help but feel like I needed a bit of comfort. We sat for a long moment, my eyes closed as I enjoyed the sweet smell of her perfume and the musky smell of the scented oil she used in her hair.

“We should finish packing and get to dinner before anyone is sent to check on us,” I murmured into the skin of her neck. “We already probably seem suspicious having taken the day to ourselves. We are generally not the type of people who do that.”

“Maybe not,” she replied, gently pulling me away from her embrace so we could both stand. “we have both been worked hard lately, it is not so strange for us to have needed rest.”

We finished packing the small bags we each were going to take, Feros has specifically instructed us to pack light as we would be traveling a bit rough for a good portion of the journey. He did not want to leave much of a trail for anyone to follow so inns and such were going to be out of the question. I did not particularly like the idea of having a comfy bed unavailable to me for so long, but it was not like I was finding myself utilizing much now as it was. Besides, I would probably be pretty keen on pushing forwards as much as we physically could to get there and strike with the iron was still hot. I still had not had time to sit and think about how exactly I would go about getting my throne back, but it was not hard to imagine that it would be fairly easy to torch the little usurper and step over his ashes.

At dinner, Feros was suspiciously missing. Perhaps it was only suspicious to Mistra and myself because we knew what was going on, in actuality he generally showed up to meals only when he needed a show, especially since Ana had finally gotten fed with the possibility of running into him and had started asking for food to be delivered directly to her room. Still, he seemed to have grown fond of making his presence known, wanted or not.

“I see you look well rested,” Mari said, voice obviously snippy. She had been aggressively stabbing her food around her plate with her fork since we had entered the room, working herself up to say something. “We have so much work to do, but I guess a little nap was more important. I knew I might have been making a mistake agreeing to let her learn from me, I can't pass down all I know if she is not actually there to learn.”

“You have been working her to the bone,” I said gently. "She has spent most of her time the past few days working as hard as you have asked of her, but eventually everyone needs a break."

“For good reason and she knows that.” Mari put her fork down on her plate and crossed her arms at her chest, casting Mistra a withering look. “She is the one who so badly wanted to be my apprentice and now when I actually need her assistance she chooses a bit of sleep over me. It feels to me like her priorities need a bit of an adjustment, if that is even possible, perhaps she never really wanted to learn all along and just wanted to steal all my secrets instead.”

“Surely she will work better tomorrow if she caught up on a bit of sleep today,” I suggested, feeling bad knowing that we would not be here tomorrow. I did not want to go down the road of arguing with her about Mistra's intentions, nothing positive was going to come out of that path.

“It’s alright Toria, no need to defend me,” Mistra said, placing a hand on mine briefly before turning to Mari. “I am truly sorry Mari, I was exhausted but I know you need me as well. I hope you can forgive my oversight today. You know I have been working as hard as you have asked, even you have been falling asleep in your chair at random because you have been working yourself so hard as well.”

Mari made a sniffing noise and kept her arms crossed. “I will consider forgiving you once our work is complete.”

Before Mari could complain any more the dining room door opened and a smiling Feros entered the room. He glanced to me and winked so briefly that I wasn’t sure I had seen anything at all.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he grinned.

“Your lady friend is not here,” Rafe said gruffly. He seemed disappointed that it looked like there would be no entertainment with his meal, but relieved the bickering happening in front of him had cause to cease.

“Ah, well, actually I am here to see you.”

I sat up straighter in my chair and trained my gaze on the fiend. I would not have been overly surprised if he had set this whole thing up as another drama, though it would have surprised me that he would be so bold to entangle myself in his distraction. Surely he was stupid and arrogant, but not quite that stupid. My mind ran over all possibilities of things that might make it beneficial to paint me in a bad light to the demon king, though I could not really think of any.

“Oh? This has to be good.” Rafe crossed his arms in front of him and nodded to indicate the creature could continue.

“Well, I must confess that I have been hiding something from you." Again he glanced to me and gave a wink. "The girl, Alice, the reason we are hiding from the fae is currently unable to control her power and I’ve been keeping her locked in the basement sealed off.”

My eyes widened, he was stupid and a touch suicidal after all. This seemed like the last thing he would want to divulge right before he was about to leave. It was like kicking a bee hive right before you begin your picnic underneath it. The last thing we needed was for Rafe to be on a rampage as we were trying to sneak out.

“You have been doing what?!” Rafe bellowed, rising to his feet. “How long?!”

“Several days now,” he answered with the strange smile still plastered on his face, “I was trying to hide it, but it has come to my attention that the quicker I come clean, the less painful the outcome will be for me. You see, not only is she unsealed, but I am pretty certain that she is acting as a sort of beacon to draw attention to wherever she is so the fae can find her.”

“THERE IS A BEACON FOR THE FAE IN MY CASTLE?!” Rafe was no longer pulling his power for the comfort of the humans present. I had to shove my fingers in my ears to keep them from feeling like they would burst. “I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE CAST YOU OUT OF MY KINGDOM LONG AGO, YOU HAVE ALWAYS HAD TROUBLE FOLLOW CLOSELY BEHIND YOU. GUARDS!”

I was certain every guard in the castle had heard him and they all came running, several piling into the room mere moments after they can been called. I was impressed at the speed of their response and took note for how I would like the guards in my new kingdom to behave when summoned.

“TAKE HIM TO THE DUNGEONS, THE ROOM WITH THE RACK, HE IS GOING TO BE SPENDING THE NIGHT THERE AT THE VERY LEAST. ONCE HE IS BROKEN, BLEEDING, AND MAYBE REMORSEFUL I WILL CONSIDER HEARING HIS CASE FOR LIVING IN THE MORNING.”

"Ah, yes, that seems fair," the fiend said with a tinge of mirth as two guards took him by each arm and began to roughly lead him from the room and to the dungeon.