Chapter 82 Lisette at the Citadel

  The first thing Lisette noticed when she woke was that someone was already in her room. The curtains had been pulled back to let in the early sun, and one of the maids was fussing with her dresses, laying them out as though Lisette couldn’t decide for herself.

  Lisette groaned and rolled over, pulling the coverlet over her head. “I am not awake,” she declared, voice muffled. “Therefore, none of you should be either.”

  A soft laugh came from the foot of her bed, though it was quickly stifled when the maid caught herself. Servants weren’t supposed to laugh. Mother had said so.

  That thought pulled Lisette up in a flurry of tangled hair. She sat cross-legged on the bed, glaring at the poor girl who was folding stockings. “Mother says servants can’t be friends. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. What if I want you to be my friend? Then you’re my friend. And Mother can just live with it.”

  The maid’s eyes widened, her lips pressed tight, and she bobbed a curtsey so quickly she nearly dropped the stockings. Lisette sighed, flopped back down into the pillows, and announced to the ceiling, “No one listens to me in this house anymore.”

  When they finally managed to wrangle her out of bed and into a dress—something with lace at the cuffs and far too many buttons—she sulked through the combing of her hair, wincing at every tug. “I miss my brothers,” she said loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear. “At least they don’t pull at my head or tell me I have to sit with my ankles crossed like a tied-up goat.”

  The maids, wisely, said nothing.

  By the time Lisette was properly presentable, she escaped to the garden, the only place where she felt she could breathe in this new, suffocating version of her life. The Citadel’s small inner garden was pretty enough—roses, lilacs, and some carefully clipped hedges—but it wasn’t the wild grass and climbing trees of Avalon Manor. She sat on the stone bench beneath the largest tree and kicked at the gravel with the tip of her slipper.

  The birds sang, the sun was kind, but Lisette’s heart ached. Even Aldric, her very annoying older brother, was too busy now—off in the city doing “important things.” What good were important things if they left her sitting alone with ladies who wanted to teach her to pour tea without spilling a drop?

  Today promised to be even worse. Three “guests,” distant kin her mother had warned her about, were due at midmorning: a matronly woman somewhere in her sixties and her two grandchildren, conveniently Lisette’s age.

  Lisette made a face.

  “They’ll ask about marriage,” she muttered to herself. “They always do. ‘Have you thought of this boy, or that one?’ As if I’m not thirteen. Thirteen! And they’ll ask about my affinity again. Every time. As though it’s any of their business.”

  She picked up a pebble and hurled it at the hedge. It bounced off harmlessly. “I’ll tell them I’m secretly a dragon,” she decided. “Or maybe I’ll say my affinity is turning people into goats. That should make them stop asking.”

  The thought made her giggle, which improved her mood considerably, until the bell in the hall rang to announce the visitors’ arrival.

  The garden gate opened soon after, and in swept the matron—every inch the grande dame, with a spine straighter than the garden’s stone columns and a walking stick she probably didn’t even need. Behind her, the grandchildren trailed, two neatly dressed cousins whose eyes darted around the garden as if they expected to be ambushed.

  Lisette rose and curtsied because Mother would be furious if she didn’t, but her grin was mischievous. “Welcome,” she said sweetly. “You’re just in time for me to be bored out of my mind.”

  The matron blinked, but the cousins snorted, which was a promising start.

  Tea was served in the pavilion, and Lisette firmly claimed the chair at the head of the table with pride. “I pour,” she announced. “Because I am hostess, and hostesses pour. If you want more sugar, you may feel free to beg.”

  Her cousins exchanged shocked glances, then smothered laughter. The matron cleared her throat in that grand way older ladies do when they disapprove but cannot quite say so outright.

  The questions came soon enough. “Have you thought about future prospects?” the matron asked, stirring her tea.

  Lisette tilted her head. “Prospects of what? Of a better breakfast? Because yes, I think about that almost every day.”

  Her cousins laughed aloud this time, and even the matron’s lips twitched.

  “And your… affinity, child?” she pressed. “Have there been signs?”

  Lisette leaned forward, eyes wide, lowering her voice to a dramatic whisper. Her audience quickly leaned to hear the following statement. “Yes. At night, I turn into a dragon. It’s very inconvenient for the servants and especially hard on the sheets!”

  One cousin nearly spat out his tea, his eyes tearing up. The matron closed her eyes and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer.

  …

  The fountain gurgled cheerfully, its spray catching the sunlight in little arcs. Lisette sprawled on the stone lip with all the decorum of a cat, one slipper dangling precariously close to the water. She had slipped away after tea, triumphant, her cousins still giggling behind their napkins while the old matron sputtered.

  For a blissful moment, she thought herself free—until the sound reached her.

  That sound.

  The steady, doom-laden tread of her mother’s slippers on the flagstones. Not hurried, not heavy, but certain. Like thunder that always struck exactly where it meant to.

  Lisette bolted upright, heart leaping. She scanned the courtyard with desperate calculation: the three exits were all guarded by footmen standing like statues. She narrowed her eyes. “Crap, that woman has laid a trap!” she whispered to herself.

  Choosing the closest archway, Lisette darted forward, skirts flying. The footman shifted to block her path—only to yelp, one leg shooting out as he slipped on a slick patch of ice that had appeared from nowhere at his feet. He flailed wildly, and Lisette seized her chance, darting past—

  Only to feel a hand close with impeccable precision on the back of her dress.

  She shrieked, twisting in horror, then froze as she looked up into the serene, composed face of Lady Seraphine.

  “Oh, Mother!” Lisette gasped, turning her expression into a wide-eyed mask of innocence. “I didn’t see you there.” Her voice dripped sweetness, as if butter wouldn’t dare melt in her mouth.

  Seraphine raised one elegant brow. “Didn’t see me, though I have been coming across this courtyard for the last thirty heartbeats?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Lisette laughed nervously, wringing her hands. “Well, the fountain is very loud.”

  Seraphine guided her daughter firmly back to the bench by the fountain and sat with her, folding her skirts with perfect grace. She gestured. “Sit.”

  Lisette perched on the edge, hands folded primly in her lap, and tried to look as though she hadn’t been plotting escape.

  “Now,” Seraphine said mildly, “tell me. How was tea with our cousins?”

  Lisette plastered on her brightest smile. “Lovely! Absolutely lovely. The tea was warm, the cakes were sweet, and the conversation was… lively.”

  “Lively.” Seraphine’s lips quirked ever so slightly. “That is one word for it. I hear you declared yourself a dragon.”

  Lisette winced. “Only a little bit of a dragon.”

  “And that you threatened to turn people into goats.”

  Lisette’s eyes widened with mock innocence. “I was merely… discouraging further questions, Mother. They ask and ask, as if I were some performing hound. Honestly, it was either goats or pigs, and pigs seemed rude.”

  Seraphine pressed her fingers lightly to her lips, suppressing laughter. “Lisette…”

  “They were laughing!” Lisette insisted, her voice bright. “The cousins nearly choked on their tea; they thought it so funny. I was being entertaining. Isn’t that what you always say? A hostess must entertain.”

  “But a hostess, my dear, must not be scandalous either!” Seraphine’s tone was calm, but her eyes glimmered with amusement she was trying not to show.

  Lisette leaned against her mother, tugging at her sleeve. “But they were going to ask me about marriage again. They always do. And I told you, I’m only going to marry a knight who can wrestle a boar with his bare hands. I don’t see why I should waste time talking about anything else.”

  Seraphine shook her head, a soft laugh escaping before she could stop it. “You are impossible.” She reached out to tuck her daughter's braid behind her ear.

  “No, I’m practical,” Lisette said with airy confidence. “Who wants a husband who can’t even best a boar? Imagine supper. ‘Darling, there’s a pig in the yard.’ ‘Oh no, dear, call the servants.’ Absolutely not. He must wrestle it.”

  “Lisette.” Seraphine sighed, but her lips twitched despite herself.

  They sat a moment in companionable silence, the fountain’s spray misting faintly around them. Lisette plucked at a loose thread on her skirt.

  “I miss them,” she said suddenly, softer now. “My brothers. Even Aldric. At least when they were around, I didn’t have to keep answering silly questions about tea and marriage and affinity.”

  Seraphine reached over and smoothed her daughter’s hair, her touch gentle. “I know, my heart. But here, people look at you differently. They see more than Lisette, the bold girl who climbs trees and tells excellent jokes. They see Lady Lisette of Avalon. And that is… harder to be, sometimes.”

  Lisette tilted her head up, stubborn spark returning to her eyes. “Then we will have to make them see both. Lady Lisette and dragon Lisette. If they don’t like it, that’s their problem.”

  Seraphine chuckled, pulling her daughter into a light embrace. “Heaven help Avalon when you are grown.”

  Lisette grinned, bright and triumphant. “It will need a very big dragon pen.”

  And though Seraphine shook her head again, this time she did not hide her laughter.

  ..

  Lisette sat cross-legged on the coverlet of her bed, quill poised over parchment. Bella swooped in lazy circles around the canopy, occasionally dipping low enough to nip at the quill’s feathered tip before darting away again with a squeak of mischief.

  “You’ll blot it if you keep that up,” Lisette scolded half-heartedly, though she was grinning. “Then Caelen will think I’ve forgotten how to write.”

  The thought made her giggle. She bent over the parchment and began in her looping, bold hand.

  To my Dearest Caelen,

  If you do not answer this letter, I shall simply assume you have been eaten by a boar, or worse, by boredom. Either way, I will be forced to tell everyone you died tragically and heroically as possible, which may or may not be true, but at least it will sound exciting.

  Life here is unbearable. I am trapped in endless teas with dreadful adults who ask about husbands as if I were a loaf of bread ready to be sold at market. Although I try and have fun with cousins, their mothers or grandmothers stop us. Today, I had to tell one of them that I would only marry a man who could wrestle a boar with his bare hands. Mother pretended to scold me, but I think she laughed when I wasn’t looking. (Do not tell her I noticed.)

  Everything here is full of rules—how to sit, how to talk, how to walk. Servants are not supposed to be friends, apparently. But I think that’s silly. I’ve already made friends with three of them, though Mother doesn’t know. Well, she probably knows, but she hasn’t said anything yet.

  I miss the garden walks with you. Here, everything is loud, and yet I feel lonelier. Sometimes I go to the little garden inside the Citadel, but it feels too tame. Even the roses behave themselves. Boring.

  Bella keeps me company, though she is more trouble than you ever were. She steals ribbons and shiny things from the citadel. Yesterday she flew into the matron’s hair. I thought she’d faint, but then I remembered no one can see Bella.

  Come back soon, or at least send word that you’re alive and not eaten. And if you are eaten, then please haunt me. I would very much enjoy having a ghost for a brother.

  With all the affection in the world,

  Your Big sister, Lisette

  Lisette sealed the letter with far too much wax, pressing her signet into it with an air of triumph. Bella squeaked approval before darting off again, as if to carry the news herself.

  …

  Unexpectedly, the door to Lord Eldric’s study creaked open, and Lissette swept in without knocking, skirts brushing the polished floor. Her braid bounced against her back, her chin lifted with the self-importance of one who believed herself the center of any room. In her hand, clutched like a banner of triumph, was a folded letter sealed with a blot of wax.

  “Father, Mother, Aldric,” she announced, her voice ringing clear as a bell. “I have a letter I NEED delivered to Caelen quickly!”

  The silence that followed was heavy, deliberate. Lord Eldric’s quill stilled above his parchment; Lady Seraphine’s hand, poised elegantly upon the arm of her chair, tightened just so; Aldric, lounging against the desk, exchanged a glance with his parents before schooling his face to stillness.

  Then, almost in unison, they turned their eyes upon her.

  “Yes, of course,” Seraphine said at last, her tone warm but laced with caution. “Your brother will welcome your words.”

  Eldric leaned back, studying his daughter. “Though,” he continued slowly, “we have just received troubling word. It seems Caelen has asked most of New Hope Village to travel with him… south.”

  Lissette blinked, her grip on the letter tightening. “South?”

  Aldric’s mouth curved into a grim half-smile. “So it seems. The villagers who once managed the dead drops are with him. Which means…” He spread his hands with mock cheer, “…your letter may take longer to find its way into his hand than you intend.”

  “But why?” Lissette demanded, her voice pitching high. “That is not what was agreed. That is not the plan!”

  Her father’s gaze darkened, though he kept his voice measured. “Precisely. None of us were aware. It is… unexpected.”

  Seraphine’s eyes softened as she reached toward her daughter. “Do not mistake us, child. We are not concerned for his safety. But it is a surprise, and surprises, in these times, seldom come without cost.”

  Lissette’s lower lip trembled, though her chin remained high. “He promised me—”

  “Caelen promises many things,” Aldric cut in, his voice sharp with something between irritation and pride. “And he makes his own choices on how he keeps them, Lis. That is how our Father trained him. What none of us can control.”

  The air in the chamber thickened with unspoken thoughts—Eldric’s jaw tight with disapproval, Seraphine’s brows knit with worry, Aldric’s eyes alight with the dangerous thrill of seeing his younger brother step into his own.

  Lissette looked from one face to the next, her indignation wavering, replaced by something more fragile. “Then how do I send this?” she asked, voice low, the letter pressed tight against her heart as though it might take root there.

  Eldric’s expression softened, but his tone carried the quiet weight of authority. “You give it to me,” he said. “I’ll see it set upon the right road—by rider, by river, or by the hands of those he now calls his own.”

  For a heartbeat, Lissette didn’t move. The moment hung fragile as glass in the room—the expectancy of a girl certain her words could still reach across distance and danger. Then she placed the letter in his waiting hand.

  When she finally stepped back, her chin lifted, eyes bright with a fierce, trembling resolve. “Then he’ll get it,” she whispered—not as a question, but as conviction.

  “Then promise me, Father,” she whispered. “Promise me he will read it.”

  The Lord of Avalon inclined his head, grave and solemn. “That much, daughter, I swear.”