♝♝♝♝♝♝♝♝♝♝
[Rough Draft] Chapter 51: The Scars of Vengeance
Priscilla waved the delicate lavender-laced fan against her face as she studied the quaint little cottage at the corner of the street. It was her first time seeing her fiancé’s private house, one rumored to house quite the collection of books—along with his common lover.
“What is taking her so long?” The Marquess’s daughter muttered as the smooth movements of her fan turned into angry jerking motions. “Enola!”
The cottage door opened, and a middle-aged noblewoman moved swiftly down the cobble path lined by daisies and other suitably common flowers to open the gate and hastily cross the street before heading in the direction of the rented carriage.
“Tsk!” Priscilla closed her fan sharply and folded her arms as she waited for Lady Enola to open the carriage door and climb inside. “Were you having tea while you made me wait?”
“Apologies, my Lady,” Enola murmured hastily as she drew a small book from the sleeve of her dress. “I had to take inventory to ensure I send the right dosage next month. Apparently, the common whore has developed a fondness from foreign tea that the Crown Prince saw fit to deliver by the crate last week.”
“Her preference for tea changes more often than her clothes,” Priscilla muttered with a dismissive snort. “Does she imagine that developing a more refined taste will transform her into a noble?”
“According to May, it’s because Nicholas rarely drinks the tea that Rosamund made for him before.”
“Naturally, how could one raised in the palace drink such tasteless muck.”
“Well, fortunately for us, the new tea the little whore is fond of has quit the exotic taste. We can safely increase the dosage, and she will be none the wiser.”
Priscilla nodded and tapped her fan impatiently. “But remind May she most only deliver the dose when Nicholas is away. It would not do for my future marriage to suffer because of the prince’s momentary lapse in judgment.”
“My Lady is the picture of benevolence,” Enola murmured with a fond smile as she scribbled some numbers down on a page. “I did advise May to take precautions with an increased dose.”
“How long until the slut is completely baren then?”
“It would have taken a year on the previous dose, but by increasing it, we may shorten that down to six months, provided she continues to take it at least once every months.”
“Isn’t there a more permanent solution?”
Enola’s pencil paused as she glanced up towards her mistress. “I do not believe that will be necessary. Rosamund is getting on in years. Even in her previous marriages, she never had any successful pregnancies.”
“True,” Priscilla murmured and opened her fan. “Once Nicholas and I are married, he’ll have no need of her.” A faint blush crossed her cheeks as the Marquess’s daughter pressed a hand against her slender waist. “I shall give Nicholas a son, an army, and the full support of the Imperialist Party.” Her lips twitched into a confident smile that she hid behind the lavender lace.
“His Highness is truly blessed to have such a loving, supporting fiancé,” Enola murmured as she pulled a pocket watch from her dress and gasped. “Oh my, we must hurry back and change carriages. You are running late for your meeting with the Dowager.”
“You are the one who made me late!” Priscilla snapped, then froze as a galloping black stallion rode past their carriage and pulled up in front of the cottage.
“It’s—the prince!” Enola hissed frantically as she pulled the curtains of the carriage window closed. “We must leave my La—”
Priscilla slapped her fan sharply against Enola’s lips then nudged the curtain aside. She watched dispassionately as a very dirty, sweaty, smiling Nicholas dropped down from the black stallion and then turned towards the blonde-haired woman who remained in the saddle above him.
Rosamund’s common garments and lack of accessories of any kind did nothing to diminish her natural beauty. Where Priscilla was still developing, the whore before her had grown in all the right ways that made a man’s head turn and his blood run from his brain.
The Marquess’s daughter stared coldly at the pair as Nicholas swept Rosamund up into his arms and kicked the cottage gate open. The whore laughed and whispered in his ears, causing Nicholas to blush even as he hastened his steps towards the house.
Pricilla leaned back and closed the curtains as Captain Beaumont pulled up beside the prince’s abandoned horse and led both of their mounts around back to the stables that stayed empty when the prince was no in residence.
“My Lady,” Enola whispered worriedly, with a hand over her swollen lips.
“Tell the driver to leave now,” Priscilla instructed coldly as she straightened her spine and turned away from the tacky little house. “It would not do to keep my godmother waiting.”
‘Perhaps Octavia will have more useful advice to help me deal with Nicholas’s—distraction.’
The Marquess’s daughter folded her arms and sighed tiredly as the carriage pulled away. ‘I will forgive you, Nicholas—but only this once.’ She frowned as the carriage bounced over a rut in the road and closed her eyes as she fanned away the summer heat. ‘At least you had the decency to choose someone who will never threaten my position as your wife and future queen.’
The scent of smoke, doubtless from some commoner’s firepit drifted over the road as sweat formed against Priscilla’s temple and then rolled down her cheeks. She fanned herself furiously, but rather than finding cool relief, her movements seemed only to make the carriage hotter.
Priscilla opened her eyes and mouth to snap at Enola for the wretched heat—only to gag as flames spread down her throat. Enola was gone. All around her the carriage was on fire. Flames spread along the cushioned seats, and clawed their way greedily up her robes.
Déjà vu, helplessness, and fear swirled beneath the smoke that burned against Priscilla’s blurred vision and chocked her. Screams howled against her ears even as the taste of burned blood filled her dry mouth.
‘Not again! No, no—I don’t want to die like this! Nicholas! Please, someone—anyone! Help me!’
A shadow dropped through the smoke. The uniform of a knight appeared before Priscilla’s eyes. The man threw his cloak over her as a cold wind engulfed the royal carriage and buried them in a storm of smoke and ice.
***
Priscilla’s eyes snapped open, and she gagged out a cry of pain and terror. The nuns dressed in the white frocks of the church appeared through the curtains around her.
“Hush, my Lady, it was but a nightmare.”
Hands pressed against the bandages. They forced her to sit up slowly, ignorant of the agony Priscilla could not voice past a throat as dry and as fragile as paper. The bowl of dark herbal water appeared. Tears burned Priscilla’s eyes and dampened the bandages around her face as the nuns quietly shushed her feeble cries and spoon-fed her bitter medicine.
By the time a quarter of the bowl had disappeared, Priscilla was fading into numbness once more.
***
“My Lady!” Olund’s face appeared before Priscilla’s blurred gaze as he carried her away from the flames that had almost claimed her eyes. “I’m so sorry, my Lady.” His agonized voice grated against her ears even as his touch felt as if it would shatter her very bones.
Priscilla tried to open her mouth to speak, but her lips and tongue wouldn’t move. Pain engulfed her with every breath she drew in. Fire spread across her body. She wanted to sink back into the cold darkness that offered some pittance of refuge and escape, but her eyes locked onto the glittering figure that road through the forest of trees towards the caravan.
***
“My Lady?” Earl Coldwell stared at her with evident concern even as his hand froze above Priscilla’s bandaged arm. “H-how are you feeling.”
‘What a stupid question.’
She blinked slowly. Even this single movement seemed to alert her body that she was awake as the pain flooded in like wildfire.
“My Lady, please rest assured. You are safe here.”
‘Here? Where is here? This isn’t the palace. These are not the rooms of a Royal Consort.’
“We are working night and day to bring justice to your Father.”
Priscilla’s burning lips twitched as her soul flinched beneath his words.
‘No. No that was just a bad dream. This—none of this is real.’ Priscilla closed her eyes and welcome the pain that blurred the Earl’s words as the darkness rushed in to save her. ‘Please—this can’t be true. Why? Why can’t I wake up from this nightmare?’
***
Duchess Kirsi rode up to the carriage where Nicholas sat, weakly leaning against the door, surrounded by Beaumont and several battered-looking Royal Knights.
The sun glittered off Kirsi’s dress as if it were made of diamonds. A scarlet trail of blood ran down the half-blood’s tatter skirt as she untied something from the saddle. Priscilla watched in confusion as Kirsi lifted the strange round object of hair and extended it towards the crown prince.
“Your Majesty! I present you with the traitor’s head!” the Duchess announced before she dropped her prize into the mangled grass where it bounced and rolled towards the carriage’s wheel.
Nicholas stared after the head for a moment. Then he pushed himself away from the carriage door as his hazel blue eyes focused on the half-blood. “He did not surrender.”
“I’m afraid the Marquess was both uncooperative and unrepentant, even in his last moments,” Kirsi replied with a smile that sent a rush of cold shivering through Priscilla’s body.
Olund raised gently raised the cape wrapped around Priscilla’s body towards her eyes. “My Lady—you mustn’t look.”
A whimper of pain escaped Priscilla’s lips as a knight stepped forward to turn the head over.
Her father’s lifeless eyes stared at her across the dark green grass that turned gray and then black as her mind slid free from this horrifying reality.
***
The nuns came and went. They changed her bandage, washed her hair, changed her sheets, and fed Priscilla the bitter broth that brought her numbing sleep. Time lost all meaning. One darkness replaced another as she woke from each fresh nightmare to face the assault of pain that plagued her every breath. Resentment grew like a second skin beneath the bandages that wrapped nearly every inch of her body. The unrelenting nightmare became an inescapable prison as Priscilla waited for death.
Earl Coldwell’s visits were the only break from her dull pitiless suffering. He spoke freely of the House of Lord’s struggle to bring Duchess Kirsi to justice for her crimes. Yet with each account, his determination and confidence wavered until the day he bowed his head before Priscilla’s veil in defeat.
“I’m sorry, My Lady. We—we are unable to do anything to rectify this injustice.”
“The Imperialist party—has become this weak?” Priscilla asked hoarsely.
Coldwell’s expression darkened even as his chin sunk lower. “The Duchess has become too powerful. She has the backing of his Majesty and the Dowager. Earl Hawthorne has also led the Noble Party to her defense. Instead of being brought to justice—she is to be rewarded for saving his Majesty’s life and—executing your father.”
A short, bitter laugh cracked through Priscilla’s dry lips. “Even though—she is a witch?”
“We have done our best to spread this as common knowledge—but the Noble Party has also done their part in spreading the Duchess’s identity as Mr. Frost! Despite her background, almost all of the noble families have opened their arms and embraced her publically.”
“And—the people?”
“There are many dissatisfied with the idea of the witch becoming Duchess, but after saving the Crown Prince’s life from mercenaries. And there are those spreading rumors that the Duchess—Mr. Frost—is currently fighting to combat the deadly sickness spreading through Lafeara. Her hospitals have opened their doors free of charge to every member of the public. The narrative that Lady Kirsi was born a half-blood and treated as such before her rise to power has also made her something of a heroine to the feeble-minded common folk.”
‘A Heroine?’ Priscilla’s bandaged, trembling fingers tightened into the fabrics of the sheet that covered her itching, bandaged legs. “You swore to me—that you would bring my father’s murder to justice! I have lost—everything!”
Coldwell flinched as Priscilla coughed blood onto the sheets. He turned, grabbed the porcelain bowl from the nightstand, and held it in her lap as Priscilla spat up fresh and dried blood.
“You must rest, my Lady. It is unwise to strain yourself further.”
“And what good will resting do me? Look at—” Priscilla clutched her throat as more blood pooled around her tongue. She spat it into the bowl as her vision blurred with unwanted tears. “I will not accept this!”
“I’m afraid there is little we can do,” Coldwell said somberly. “Even now, the House of Lords is tied on the matter of recognizing you as a Royal Consort.”
Priscilla grimaced as her lips twisted into a cynical smile. ‘Of course. I am but the powerless, scared daughter of a traitor now.’
“And then there is the matter of the empty seat for Prime Minister.”
She raised her head sharply and stared at him. “No! We cannot lose that—”
Coldwell shook his head with a resigned sigh. “We are already losing key members of the Imperialist Party to Earl Hawthorne. I don’t know if he’s bribing or blackmailing them, but it is already taken for granted that Lord Percy will become the next Prime Minister.”
“We can not—let a witch—run our government!”
Coldwell studied her quietly before he removed the bowl of blood. He returned it to the nightstand and picked up a clean folded cloth. “If we are to save what remains of the Imperialist Party, we need a strong backer behind us, my Lady.”
“Someone strong enough to oppose Duchess Kirsi, Earl Hawthorne, Crown Princess Eleanora, and keep Nicholas in line,” Priscilla whispered, then flinched as Coldwell reached towards her veil.
“Allow me to remove it, my Lady—the blood—”
Anxiety and fear knotted within her sunken stomach as Priscilla slowly nodded her permission. She watched Coldwell’s eyes widen in horror even as his brows furrowed in remorse. When he averted his gaze, Priscilla knew—her dreams were over.
“The Pope,” Coldwell said cautiously as he composed himself. “Is said to be blessed with healing powers.”
Priscilla grimaced as he gently dabbed the cloth against her numb lips and chin.
“They say he can even cure blindness,” Coldwell added with an encouraging smile.
The Earl flinched as Priscilla’s bandaged hand latched onto his wrist will all the strength she could muster. “Then write to the Pope. Tell him that if he can grant me redemption—I will ensure that the next King of Lafeara rids his lands of every single witch that breathes.”