Wrath rose up in Daric with such blistering quickness that he could barely refrain from violence. He’d wanted to pummel his father only twice in his life. The first time was fifteen years ago in the Wood of Layton. The second was right now, in the bloody dining room. Rain stood beside him, as silent, horrified, and colorless as she’d been the day they’d destroyed her existence as a goddess.
“Rain will not go south to Parr. That is final.” He hardly recognized his own voice.
“Daric, it’s for the best,” his mother said, trying a conciliatory tone that wouldn’t work on him this time. It might never work again. She turned back to Rain and forced the Ashstone ring onto Rain’s delicate finger, putting it in the place reserved for a betrothal ring.
Daric saw red, then black, and then Rain—with Aldo Lockwood thrusting over her in bed.
Jealousy like he’d never known grabbed his gut so hard he thought he might vomit.
“Soon, you’ll both have children to bring you joy,” his mother said, a brittle smile pasted on her face that looked like it made her just as ill as it made him.
“Children,” Rain murmured. She could barely speak, which was distressing in itself. She usually had plenty to say, although she was more reserved around his parents.
Daric snorted harshly. “Whatever children I have will likely be sadistic cat murderers, like their mother—if I can even manage to accomplish the necessary deed with that…woman,” he ground out. What he really wanted to call Astraea wasn’t appropriate in mixed company. “And Rain will be obliged to welcome an old man to her bed whenever he feels like it. He already has more children than teeth. He doesn’t need more of them.”
“Don’t be vulgar,” his father rebuked. “Rain will be much happier with Aldo than any of us will be in Raana with Illanna Nighthall doing her best to belittle us and dictate our every move while Astraea gleefully injects her venom into our daily lives.”
“You mean Raanaleath.” Daric couldn’t contain his spite.
“The name hardly signifies,” his father said.
“I’m glad you think so,” Daric snapped, “since this aberration of a marriage is about to extinguish the name of Ash!”
“Not if Rain carries it to Parr for her children,” his mother said, giving Rain a significant look, as if she should be proud to carry on the name of a royal line of failures.
“Go to Aldo, Rain. Take the Ashstone. Be an Ash. We’ve never asked anything of you,” his father said, “except for this.”
“Never asked anything of her?” Daric said in disbelief.
“Besides that.” His father waved away the defining problem of both Daric’s and Rain’s lives. “And we stopped asking years ago,” he said.
That didn’t mean that Rain had stopped trying. Or that Daric didn’t see it eating away at her to fail.
Rain stood like a petrified tree, but Daric knew she was no shrinking flower. She was trying to do her duty, and she would obey the people she cared about, even if it killed her.
He couldn’t fault her, no matter how much he hated it. Wasn’t he doing the same?
“Soren will go with you,” his mother told Rain. “He’ll look after you.”
That awful feeling yanked hard at Daric’s gut again. “Soren? He’s half Aldo’s age and you know he’s—”
“Enough!” His father brought his fist down hard on the table. “The entire household goes with Rain. We’ve negotiated it with Aldo, and he’ll take everyone from the castle. From cooks, to maids, to guards, to masons. Entire families that live and work here. That’s one-hundred-and-thirty-two people that won’t be starving anymore. And Rain will be surrounded by familiar faces.”
A small gasp escaped Rain, and Daric knew the argument was over. She would never weigh her own wishes heavily against the welfare of so many people.
His heart twisted in agony. He’d known he’d lose Rain in a way when he married Astraea, but he’d never imagined losing her entirely. An abyss opened inside him and swallowed every hope he’d secretly held for the future.
But the sorcerer… If they could just… “We have two moons. Let us find this Barrow Witch.”
“Out of the question,” his father said. “There is no Barrow Witch.”
“Because you know all the witches on the continent?” Daric knew that sarcasm was unbecoming in a prince. He was beyond caring.
His mother looked as though she might argue for his plan, and he turned to her, but it was Rain who spoke before anyone else could.
“Let us go. If we haven’t found another solution in the time we still have, we’ll return to Ash and do what we must for Leathen.” Rain looked at his parents in turn, and then at him, awaiting confirmation.
Daric’s lungs seized. Rain had always been beautiful, otherworldly, and fierce in her own way, but right now, she was so stunning and determined that he could barely breathe.
His father eventually nodded. “Soren will put together a team for you. You can leave when you’re ready.”
Some of the knots in Daric’s chest unwound until his father proved he was just humoring them. After all, the king hated the future they faced as much as Rain and he did.
“It takes twelve days to get to Nighthall,” his father said. “Factor that into your travels.”
In other words, Daric thought bitterly, into their failure.