A small stir ran the length of the table. He let the murmur settle, then leaned a fraction toward JingYi. “If that suits you, Princess.”
Her fingers uncurled. “It does, my lord,” she said softly. “It’s a good beginning.”
He sat back and relished Bertrand’s forced laughter.
“A healer’s cottage? Have you finally managed to find a physician willing to relocate to Lornhelm?”
Alexander sipped his wine. “No need. Princess JingYi is the best healer we can hope for. Conrad of Reave lives because of her timely intervention.”
Bertrand’s brows lifted. “Goodness gracious! Truly, fortune favours you, my lord. Not every bride comes so well-trained.” He trained his eyes on the princess. “Only . . . such duties are demanding. Would you have time to dabble as a healer when your days will be filled with otherimportantmatters?”
Alexander saw JingYi’s knuckles whiten around her goblet. “Isn’t healing people important?”
“Well, yes, but not your main priority as a newlywed Omega bride, surely?”
“You might be unfamiliar with the concept that healing is a form of leadership, then, Lord Fortier?” Krystoff asked, his tone cool. “Tending to the suffering of one’s subjects is governance, too.”
Bertrand chuckled easily. “True, true. But the princess is quite . . . special, isn’t she? An Omega. Such menial work is perhaps best left to others.” He sipped his wine before continuing. “After all, her highest duty is clear: to see this land blessed with strong heirs. Imagine, Lord Wulfbane. If your bride here gives birth to a Sunborn or a Moonfire, wouldn’t that be a great gift to His Majesty the King? House Wulfbane’s troubles, and its past, will be scrubbed clean, won’t they?”
A cold, killing rage settled in his veins. The insult was a masterstroke—reducing her to a broodmare, dismissing the healer who had saved his ward and turned her, along with their future offspring, into transactional gifts.
But a lord did not brawl at his own table. A warrior could choose his battlefield. He forced the fury down, letting it crystallize into something lethal.
When he spoke, his voice was a cold, sharp blade laid upon the hall’s silence. “Our strength will not come from heirs alone, but from healing what has long been neglected. My bride’s talents are not a diversion, Bertrand. They are the foundation on which we will build again.”
Bertrand’s smile thinned by a hair. “A noble venture. Though forgive me, Princess, village folk can be cautious. Foreign ways may unsettle them.”
Alexander cut cleanly across him. “They’ll trust the one who stood with them when it mattered.”
Krystoff gave a firm nod. “Too many lost for lack of one healer. If Her Highness leads the effort, others will follow.”
“Then we await its success.” Bertrand inclined his head, recovering smoothly. “To new beginnings.”
Goblets lifted around the table. Alexander didn’t join them. Instead, he leaned subtly toward JingYi, his voice pitched low. “Bertrand doesn’t know the people of Blackwood-Veyrde. They may be cautious at first, but they will welcome you.”
Her gaze lowered, fingers steadying on the rim of her goblet. “I will do all I can not to disappoint them.”
Recognition settled in him, solid as a sword finding its sheath.
She belonged here.
CHAPTER 14
JINGYI
JingYi sat at the edge of the four-poster bed in the chamber they had given her. A fine room, heavy with dark oak paneling that swallowed the candlelight. Tapestries of unfamiliar hunts hung on the walls, their threads faded by sun and age. The rug beneath her was thin but soft, worn by countless footsteps before hers.
She wrapped her arms around herself. How did people guard against the cold? She’d never known stone could be so frigid. The season was only autumn, yet chill seeped from the walls—a dampness that seemed to inhabit the castle itself. It was different from the cramped servant’s dormitory in the Imperial Palace. There, the cold smelled of sweat and stale straw. This was vast and empty, smelling of old wood, lye soap, and hearth smoke.
She stared at the copper tub left behind for her bath. Then at the massive fireplace, so tall she could stand inside it with a little bend. At the Imperial Palace, warmth was something she carried to others, banked in their braziers, never her own to keep. This room and fireplace, for this night, were hers alone. That was the most foreign thing of all.
She eyed the brass lock on the heavy door. Another profound novelty. She was leagues from Xûen-Sarai. But part of her, honed by years of vigilance, waited for it to be thrown open without her consent.
This was her life now. This strange, lonely privilege. Muffled music and laughter drifted from below—reminders of a feast she could no longer bear to smile through. She closed her eyes. Lord Fortier’s words still clung to her like smoke. His voice had been smooth, his smile courteous, but everything he said had been a knife hidden in brocade.
She should have spoken up. Should have said she could do more than birth children. That a land’s strength is measured by the health of its people. Dismissing healing was dismissing the foundation of stable rule. What kind of lord held such low regard for his subjects? He was almost worse than her own father.
The words felt clear now. But at the table, a lifetime of training had taken hold: silence was survival. Speaking risked not just rebuke, but making Alexander’s position harder. So she had bowed her head, like always, because it was safer to endure than to challenge.