Chapter 15

She stood in a hall that seemed to stretch for ages, feeling the quiet seep into her bones. It was only the sound of her footsteps that would break through the silence, like small pebbles falling into a pond, agitating the still water. Shortly after midday the shadows became of a particularly deep blue color, cutting across the large rooms with abandon. The jagged lines drew blotches over the pure gray lime wash; it was as if nature itself objected to those simple, geometric spaces full of nothing, and rebelled, burning the white yellow where the sun reached and seeping blue into the spaces it could not embrace.

She felt almost like she was walking into Aegyr's mind. There was very little furniture; only what was strictly necessary for it to be considered inhabited. The walls were strangely bare, which only made the rooms seem bigger, and in them, her lonely figure would retrace its steps as it was misled by the maze of hallways. Only the soft lines in the marble would break through the monotony, telling her she was not where she wanted to go.

In that tomb she'd reside for a week, waiting to hear from the Emperor what was to be her fate.

"Ah! Your highness!" the high-pitched voice of her sixteen-year-old maidservant echoed through the hall. She was a bright young thing, the third daughter of a Count; as it'd be expected, for her the world could not be brighter than serving the famed Byzantine woman that was under Lord Scipio's protection. It had been through Aegyr's influence that she'd been given someone so young, as it'd save her the trouble of having to weed out some old noble woman's schemes. Calliope was impressionable, and had not yet acquired that commonplace poker face with which her mother and older sisters probably armed themselves with every day.

No, she was the total opposite of what she was supposed to be, and that made Ophelia like her quite a lot. Calliope ran through the rooms, blue robes fluttering wildly around her.

"I received word from my mother!" she said as she stopped next to her, barely catching her breath. "Would you like to hear about it?"

Ophelia nodded. "Let's sit out in the sun," she proposed, and took the girl's hand to lead her outside. Some of the rooms in the second floor would have archways leading into what acted as a balcony: a small platform that protruded in the midst of the red tiling of the roof. There was no railing, and the flooring was made with dark wooden planks. As a sign of respect for the visuals of those who walked in the inner courtyard some flower pots had been set up near the border of the balcony, so that the grape ivies would cascade down and partially fence off the gallery downstairs. Two chairs were permanently set up, a remnant of some other time where the house had seen more inhabitants: they were surprisingly luxurious, the dark wood carved handsomely in natural motifs. The elements had certainly done their number on them, particularly on the weave of the seats, but they were still years away from their twilight.

It was, Ophelia thought, a peculiar sign of neglect, and she wondered how purposeful it was given how meticulous Aegyr had seemed to her.

His house was… unusual. She'd arrived during the previous evening, after a successful escape from the soiree at the Pleroma facilitated by the grace of Calliope's mother. All first impressions were temporary: she knew that the night always cast a benevolent veil over all, erasing even the most obvious of imperfections. That's why she waited until the next day to decide that Aegyr's staff were perfectly polite and reserved and nothing out of the ordinary. They made sure that her bedding was fresh and her food ready for whenever she was hungry; they divulged none of his secrets and asked for none of hers.

It was in the cold limewash white of the walls that she found, as the sun rose, the murmurs of a story. That house was full of indiscretions: it practically screamed, for the eye that was attentive to detail, that something had happened under that roof. The layout was square, with an inner courtyard; it consisted of three floors, with one tower on the east side that according to the head butler was the earliest construction in that side of the city, and predated the Elysian empire. She had been given a set of rooms on the west wing; Aegyr's were next to hers. The kitchen with its pantries and storage rooms, and the servants' quarters were all in the north wing. In the south there were halls for grand occasions and rooms to entertain guests; it didn't see much use as Aegyr was seldom at home in the capital, but it was still kept in good shape and reasonably clean.

It was the east wing that was the most mysterious, where the dust collected on the few tapestries that covered the walls and the furniture was left untouched at the mercy of the elements. Whereas the décor was minimalistic and precise in the other wings, all three floors under the old tower offered a more eclectic view, phantom traces of someone else's taste. That, she'd been told by the staff, was the harem quarters; no more details were given.

Elysian men of Aegyr's rank were expected to have large families. She'd heard no gossip to his name, nor mentions of a wife in all of their acquaintance; it was, perhaps, uncouth of her to pry into his business, but having been given little else to occupy herself with, she'd decided to unravel that little mystery.

Enter Calliope, who owed no fealty to Aegyr and was too young to care about the consequences of her gossip; to her Ophelia had entrusted a little information gathering task, one that she was ready to report for.

"I shall begin with the bad news," the teenager said, "as my mother spent most of her letter telling me not to ask about such things. She said that it involved too many families outside of our sphere of influence to meddle with."

"That is interesting in of itself," Ophelia noted.

"She did mention, however, that his excellency had had a number of concubines, and had fathered about ten children. They are being raised, according to what is whispered in our circles, in a castle at one of his excellency's duchies."

"Oh," Ophelia had a hard time imagining the stoic man as a father. "Is that why he's gone? To see them after such long travel?"

"No, no, no," Calliope leaned in to whisper, "I spoke to a servant, trying to get some more details. You have seen for yourself the way they act; you'd think you could squeeze more secrets out of a rock. But he did say something to the effect that there's nothing the children want for, save for a single glance of their father."

Ophelia paused. "Is that normal? In Elysium?"

"Well…" Calliope mused, "it's true that in large families some children will be given preference. My mother was quite peculiar in that she raised all seven of us under the same roof. Sometimes the less fortunate children, the ones with the lesser amounts of aether, will be raised separately by a branch of the family. But all of them to be sent away… that is certainly not normal."

Ophelia tapped her lips as she thought over the matter. "How many concubines did he have? And where are they?"

Calliope deflated. "I only know he had four. What became of the rest, my mother would not say."

There was little more said about Aegyr's family matters after that; yet, the two women knew that it remained a very loud question in both of their minds. The shadows lengthened as if fattened by the mystery of it all, and secretly, both Calliope and Ophelia resolved to find out through their own ways the truth. It was perverse of them to look into a stranger's life like that; perhaps a more innocent curiosity from the former, but the latter knew she had no excuse. Yet, a voice in the back of her head reminded her of Aegyr's cruel hold on her at Arqa, the threats on Hyperion's life. She wasn't saintly enough to not give in to her nosiness, especially as boredom loomed over her stay in that house for the week.

In the evening of that first day she sat in her room after supper, looking at the ghostly sight of the old tower that emerged above the harem wing. When she'd walked through the empty, dusty rooms of the third floor she'd come across a closed door in one of the hallways, and a servant had hurriedly appeared to tell her that it was dangerous to climb up to the tower. "It hasn't been kept properly in a long time," he said, almost out of breath, "and your highness might endanger herself."

She wondered about that as she walked through those desolate rooms in her mind, examining the details to understand where to find the answer for her burning questions. When the noise from the servant's quarters had quieted down and the moon shone brightly in the cool autumn air, she emerged from her room. She walked barefoot along the corridors. Had it been anyone else the floors might have groaned in protest, but she forced them to quieten – wrapped in her aether, she almost became a ghost. Her light robes trembled around her, and shimmered as the moon stole sneaky shimmers from that strange fabric.

In the harem, she became human again, and her feet shuddered with sound as they stepped onto the cold ceramic tiles of the first floor. In the dark, her first instinct was to call forth the dreary glow of the fluorescent bulbs that lit the outdoor hallways outside her council flat, and they emerged like bulbs around her, casting their sick, meek glow onto the already despondent scenery of the room. Her eyes travelled first, her hands searching for something she wasn't quite sure it was there: shadows were cast in uncomfortable places, teasing her with their empty promises.

Eventually she went upstairs, and into the third floor. There, the tantalizing aspect of breaking into the tower was put aside in favour of indulging her fastidiousness, and she first examined the rooms that were next to its entrance. It was there when she was rewarded for her intrusiveness, when, almost hidden by a cleverly positioned chest, she found long streaky lines etched onto the limewash. They were deep, suggesting that whoever had made them had gone over them several times; they were also clearly not made with a very sharp object. Scratches.

And, they were positioned right above where an iron ring still protruded from the wall. They were low; they would've been made by someone who was sitting on the floor. Their character was obsessive, certainly they had some urgency to them. She found a second iron ring, also the size of her finger, some half a meter from the first one.

The final discovery happened when she opened the lid of the chest that had been propped against those scratches, and found the remnants of a metal chain scattered inside. There was also a pair fetters, small enough that they could be used around her wrists, and they were falling apart from the rust that covered them. She again appraised the hooks on the wall and decided they seemed a lot more ominous now that their purpose had been revealed. Just what exactly had happened there?

As if her thoughts had echoed in the desolate building, something stirred outside. She thought she'd heard hushed voices, and decided to take her leave before she was found peeking where she wasn't supposed to. Perhaps, in the light of day, things would be easier to explain. On her way back to her chambers she noticed from one of the windows in the second floor two servants making their way into the harem's quarters.

In the morning, she rushed to the same room; she thought, perhaps, that someone would confront her, and as they did so, she'd be given leave to ask more about what she'd seen. Confrontation often unveiled small pieces of a puzzle; prohibition normally hinted at something that had once been, but was allowed no more. Sadly, all her ingeniousness went to waste, as no one stopped her. She passed by several maids in the very corridors of the harem, but none said a single word to her other than a polite greeting. And when she arrived at the room she'd been inspecting the night before, she found that the chest had been moved, and a tapestry fixed to the wall to hide the scratches and the iron rings.

She waited outside the room until she caught the attention of one of the maids, a middle-aged woman who smiled softly at her as she asked if there was anything she could help her with.

"Yes, actually," Ophelia said, motioning for the maid to follow as she went inside. "There are rings underneath that tapestry, as if they had been used to fix chains to the wall; above them, on the wall, there are deep marks, as if someone had scratched it. Was anyone ever held hostage here?"

The maid responded without missing a bit, but something in her eyes made it clear that she knew more than what she was letting on. "I don't quite recollect that happening, your highness, but it is worth noting that this part of the property used to be part of one of the barracks of the Knights of the Black Sun before his excellency's time."

Ophelia tried asking some further questions, but she hit once again the same wall as before. The servants would not tell her anything of value.

She thanked the maid and decided to wander back to the west wing in search of Calliope. Perhaps they could distract each other with some games until that evening; and when it all went quiet, and the servants had all gone to bed, she'd finish her exploration.

Breaking into the tower of the east wing was almost an afterthought for her; even if the door had been locked with heavy chains her intrusion was but a matter of unravelling iron into a tangle of rusty threads. Metal acted like yarn under her fingers, and she wondered as the stiff cords grew into a pile on the ground if the staff really understood what she was about. None of them were of the aristocracy except for the head butler; they could not use aether, and perhaps, they truly did not know what it was capable of. She'd assumed so far that she'd entered the house as a Byzantine, but perhaps, even the butler was not privy to that information.

It mattered not; all it meant was that there wasn't really anything to stop her opening the door, and carefully making her way upstairs. She lit her way with that same fluorescent light she'd evoked the previous day, finding an opponent in the old, uneven steps of the spiral staircase. It wasn't until she was on the way to the second floor in the tower that she realized she could simply make herself float towards the landing: she had no choice, after all, as several of the stone steps had been utterly destroyed, leaving a gap almost as tall as she was between the landing and the last step.

There really wasn't any complexity in that tower: each storey comprised of a single chamber. With tiny slits for windows, she was reminded of the cells in Arqa's palace; they were certainly smaller than the one Hyperion had been confined in. The first room was bare; only a chair had been left behind. One of its legs had been broken, and unbalanced, it laid on its side on the floor.

It was in the second storey that something more interesting awaited her. It looked like an attic; and with the cold harsh light of her fluorescent floating bulbs it definitely made her feel like she was walking into a storage room. Three sets of chests had been left in there; a table, several chairs, and stacked against a wall all the necessary parts to assemble a bed frame. Scattered around were personal items of all sorts: the back of a mirror, ivory combs, several broken glass containers, sandals and even a purple stola, which hung from one of the legs of the table, which had been turned on its side.

The contrast of that cluttered, chaotic room and the bareness of the rest of the harem was striking: if the room had been bigger, perhaps she'd been inclined to think all that furniture had been hurriedly stored there. But it was clear that all that were the belongings of a single person; and by virtue of the natural logic that makes humans assume all mysteries must be linked, Ophelia decided to suspect the owner was the same that had etched their fingernails into the wall in the room below.

She looked around the floor, reached into the far corners for anything that might give her more clues. When she found nothing of interest, she started opening the chests, going through them. They all had fabrics and clothing in them, and except for the second one, they contained nothing else. But still, something had been hidden in that second chest underneath the stolas: an old manuscript, bound in leather, with pages made of parchment.

Bright illustrations accompanied elaborate calligraphy: she recognised the latin script the Elysium empire favoured, but would not be able to easily decipher it. It was, after all, a bit like the gothic style of writing that was common in her own world for old manuscripts, which for the eyes of the modern reader were but an impenetrable maze. Around the paragraphs and occupying every bit of free space available, another hand had made their own additions in a friendlier block-style type; the dark blue ink stood in contrast to the black of the main text, its penmanship decidedly less artistic and more personal. As Ophelia tried to make sense of it, she realized it was someone's confessions, a diary of sorts.

That he would dare try and sully this great lineage of mine, first daughter to the great Duke of the West, is incomprehensible, Ophelia read with great effort. Where is his love for this Empire? His sense of duty, his pride and honour as the heir to the only arch-duke? How is a man so blind, so incredibly stupid as to not see what's in front of his eyes?

The more she read, the easier it became. She continued flipping the manuscript around, passing one page at a time, trying to make sense of that angry woman:

No one else in this empire can lay claim on him; that is the way things are. That he so ardently defies the proper way of things by twisting my fate so, by forcing my hand in this matter fills me with no small amount of anger. Aegyr, Lord Scipio, how perverse are you? This duke's daughter is second to none in the potency of her aether, and yet you shun me, you prefer the company of that inferior third daughter.

Wretched Talia, who by artifice of a man's whims has given birth four times, being favoured in all things, while I, the rightful wife, am shunned and my child scorned.

Yes, I did under the right auspice and guidance from my most honourable father put myself forth in Lord Scipio's way; I did act in a way that could be frowned upon, that could put into question my virtues as a lady, if it wasn't the case that it was all guided by the right order of things. Lord Scipio and I are bound by fate; if it hadn't been then, it would've been later.

And I bore him a son, as it was my duty; and he's a powerful one, the better amongst his children. He knows this, and yet he refuses to acknowledge him in the same manner he does the others; he's ventured into the wrong path, fostering all sorts of strange, dangerous thoughts. I said to myself, if he dares to claim them all equal at the time of their baptism, I shall make it so that thunder will groan at the site of the temple and many teeth will be gnashed.

And although I have many times tried to offer him a branch of my holy, an offering of peace, he turned me away, time after time. If I had not been a mother, I would have perhaps tried my womanly arts once again. But for the sake of ensuring my child's rightful place I was forced to act. Like a good gardener should protect their garden, I took care in getting rid of pesky, filthy pigeons; it will not do to hide an eagle in the nest of a swallow.

He has now locked me in this horrible place; my child has been taken from me, and I barely see any sun to warm my skin, any bread to fill my belly, any wine to wet my lips. I have yelled and fought, but he has put his Lyre's Tears on me, and now I am as powerless and pathetic as any other commoner. He has made no secret of the fate that awaits me; in this matter he's the sole judge and executioner. I can only imagine the lies that he must be feeding my mother, my father; but I have faith in the shrewdness of my bloodline. They will be able to see through his deception, and they shall come to rescue me, give me justice.

I write this so that it may once land in the hands of my venerable mother, who will seek my justice. Mother, this daughter of yours has been horribly wronged: I implore that you stop at nothing to achieve justice, for the sake of our family name. This book was your gift to me on the occasion of my wedding, as tradition had it; it is fitting that as it is my marriage which saw to my end, that you get it back filled with my intentions. Eternal prosperity to our family, to the once and future Duke in the West, Lord Pylos.

A few pages of blank margins had been left, but nothing else had been written on the manuscript. Ophelia flipped through its pages again, this time going backwards, to see if she'd missed something. There was nothing else.

The temptation of taking the document with her was tantalizing for about a few seconds, before she came to her senses: what was she to do with it? Throw it at Aegyr's feet, demand an explanation? Even if Lady Pilos had met her demise, even if she had been held downstairs, produced the scratches on the wall, what was she expecting to happen? A crew of forensics would not storm in to gather evidence, a court of law would never prosecute Aegyr; Elysium bent to the will of those who had power to speak the loudest.

She would leave everything as she'd found it, but she would not pretend she hadn't seen it. She left the tower, purposely leaving the iron threads that had once been chains on the floor in front of the entrance. She didn't bother silencing her footsteps; she walked with her head held high. However no servants came across her; they had long ago gone to sleep.

As she was about to enter her room, she realized not everyone had fallen to the charms of the night: the soft light of the lamps glowed warmly, beckoning her from the corridor. She thought perhaps Calliope had come to share a midnight snack with her, then fallen asleep, but she spied a man's silhouette sitting on the bed and knew the master of the house was back.

"Out for a midnight stroll?" Aegyr asked when he heard her enter, turning around to face her. "I saw you leaving the east wing."

Was it an accusation? An invitation for her to ask her questions? His tone, as ever, gave no clue as to what his true thoughts were.

"There is this story I remember from my childhood; it was the tale of a man named Bluebeard. He was a fabulously wealthy man whose five wives had all mysteriously vanished. In the tale, he seduces a young woman, who agrees to marry him. After she has entered into his household, she's given the keys to every single room, bar the one that leads to the cellar. She's told not to look into it; else, terrible things might happen."

Ophelia sat in one of the chairs that faced the balcony; half of her face was softly illuminated by moonlight, half by candlelight. "She eventually falls prey to her curiosity, steals the key that opens the door to the cellar, and finds that Bluebeard has been keeping the bodies of the wives he murdered downstairs."

She looked at Aegyr, body halfway turned towards him. "I don't meant to imply anything, of course; I simply wanted to share what has been on my mind."

Silence fell heavily on the room; it was tense, full of expectation. In the dim lighting she could not quite tell what the man was thinking, only that he seemed to be deep in thought. His hands were resting calmly, interlaced, on his lap; one might have thought a nervous person would've fidgeted. But he was different; and to the observant eye, only the tense line of his shoulders betrayed him.

"It is true that the east wing is empty because all of its occupants are dead," he said, finally. "If I do share my tale, would you come sit closer to me? I am only human, after all, and these are painful memories."

Ophelia felt cautious at first; was he seeking her comfort? Or was he looking for her pity? She slowly nodded, and moved to sit on the bed, with enough distance between the two of them not to give him any strange ideas.

"To celebrate the arrival of spring, the Pylos family, the western dukes, would hold banquets and tournaments, and other such entertainments," Aegyr began after she'd joined him. "I assumed my responsibilities very young; it was my duty to represent my family at their famous soiree. So I went for the first time the same year that their eldest daughter came of age. They'd expressed their intent to formalize an engagement between the two of us, but due to my circumstances I kept postponing its arrangement."

He looked at the Lyre's tears that hung in Ophelia's boudoir. "Our aether makes us in many ways different from other humans, but it doesn't make us invincible. In my inexperience I failed to see the signs of a zealous father who had much to prove, and a besotted woman who could not control her desires. Through the artifice of poison, I was made unconscious, and lady Pylos celebrated the rites of marriage by herself."

Ophelia drew back, shocked. "A child was conceived that night," Aegyr continued. "And, as objectionable as their schemes had been, taking her in as my wife was the lesser evil overall."

"How could that be?" Ophelia indignantly asked. "How could such evil go unpunished?"

"Evil?" Aegyr was genuinely curious at her words. "She was the best candidate for me; in that her father and her were absolutely right. And some might say that it would've been bound to happen sooner or later; certainly, there's some blame on my part for having neglected my duties to bear an heir for so long."

"No! There's no blame on your part," Ophelia reached out to grab his hand in hers. Her eyes were full of fire. "She should've waited until you were ready. Nothing excuses her forcing herself on you. Even if you two were meant to be, fate will not give her rights over your agency."

Aegyr's lips twitched. "I am touched by your concern; your words are true, Lady Ophelia. Fate did indeed reveal that there's more to it than just pedigree. That might have put us on the same level as equals, but it's our decisions that shaped what happened next."

He put his other hand on hers. "She entered this house with none of my forgiveness. Due to her station I was forced to feign some civility, but knowing of her possessiveness towards me I made sure she knew she was my first wife in name only. She was still pregnant when I brought another concubine, Lady Talia. I showered her with gifts, gave her new servants, and fathered twins with her. My intentions were not entirely insincere, but she soon began to develop a fixation that I did not share."

"As it was expected of my role, I brought two more concubines in, Lady Priya and Lady Jul. Over the next four years I continued to favour them, and my other seven children were born. I had placed Lady Pylos in an appalling position; her influence was minimal, and despite her family name and the strength of her aether, she was for all intent and purposes at the bottom of the hierarchy. Her anger simmered until it boiled."

"Over the course of two weeks, while everyone slept, she snuck into Lady Talia's rooms and spread rubidian powder over her and the children. Although in small doses it causes no harm, prolonged exposure caused the little ones to foam at the mouth and their faces turn sickly yellow. If it hadn't been for one of the maids who caught her in the act one of the nights, they would have all died."

"I was both delighted at the opportunity to finally dispose of her, and deeply disturbed that her wickedness knew no bounds. If she'd just harmed the other concubines, she could've perhaps been able to get away with it, if not face exile into some other manor in the countryside. But as she'd made the children targets as well, I was within my rights to take her life."

"I snuck into the tower," Ophelia interrupted him, "and found a manuscript in one of the chests. Lady Pylos had written a letter of sorts in the margin, to her mother. Was she held prisoner before…?"

Aegyr nodded. "Yes, those are her belongings. I… had forgotten they were still there. Was the manuscript, perhaps, a copy of The Tale of Death and the Maiden?"

Ophelia nodded. "Ah, yes," Aegyr pursued his lips. "It's a tradition that mothers pass on to their first daughters a copy of that book as part of their dowry. And in cases of divorce, or when the daughter dies before her mother, the book is meant to be sent back to her family."

"Did you read its contents?"

"I saw no reason to."

"She was very angry. She had some hope she would be rescued."

Aegyr snorted. "To the very end she truly believed in her own exceptionality. I did have to notify her parents and present my case to the Pleroma, but given how strong the evidence was, there was very little argument to be made. Her parents had no choice but to renounce her, and erase her from the family registry to save their own reputation. No one was going to come for her."

Ophelia tried to recall more from the letter she'd read, but after hearing Aegyr's own account of the story the details blurred together. There was, however one detail that she was curious about: "how come she didn't escape? It's not very difficult to come in and out of that tower. Were Knights keeping an eye on her?"

Aegyr blinked once before his lips curved slightly. "Lady Ophelia, the Knights escorted you due to your unique circumstances. No one else would be given that honour; they're either dealt with immediately, or as is the case with Lady Pylos, I forced her to wear my Tears. Such are the qualities of those extraordinary stones, that after attuning to their owner, they will snuff out the aether of anyone who carries them on themselves who happens to have a lesser degree of it."

"Oh," Ophelia remembered the moment the man had put his pendant on her. "Do you often use it like that, then?"

"That was an extraordinary case," he explained. "I could've used more… ungentlemanly methods to restrain her. But she was still the mother of my child, and I gave her that much mercy."

"You still chained her to the wall!"

Aegyr looked confused for a moment, before his eyes lost focus and he found in his memory an explanation for her comment. "Ah; not quite so. But, perhaps I better continue my tale, as we'll get to that."

"Lady Talia and the children did not survive unscathed. She became unstable; the shock of what happened and her own growing obsession mixed in unpleasant ways, and she soon became manic, and a menace to herself and others. As the children's health had become precarious, I made the decision of sending them all north, to be raised in a large property we have in the valley of Uco. I wanted to prevent history from repeating itself, even if it meant separating them from their mothers."

"The death of Lady Pylos did not deter the others from playing their games. Unbeknownst to me, Lady Priya begun to approach Lady Talia as her health worsened, and through her smooth talking convinced her that Lady Jul was after her life. There was a first attempt on Lady Jul's life, after which I ordered Lady Talia to be restrained in the room next to the tower. I had not known then of Lady Priya's schemes; one night she bribed a servant to release Lady Talia, who ran to Lady Jul's rooms. Poor woman, she was attacked in such a way that one could hardly tell whether it had been done by man or beast."

"Lady Priya, who witnessed the entire scene, encouraged Lady Talia to turn against herself. I can only imagine that in her wretched state, her mind only tatters of what had once been, she saw some sense in what was being said. Or perhaps, a semblance of sanity brought some remorse with her. The result was the same, regardless: she killed herself then."

"I would've been oblivious to Lady Priya's meddling if it hadn't been for her poor choice of lackeys. The man she'd bribed spent all his money and some in drink and games the very next day, and a creditor was sent to our manor to look for him. The butler caught on to it, and after making the necessary inquiries, alerted me as to what had happened. It took about ten minutes of interrogation for him to confess."

At that point Aegyr moved away from her. A moment of silence passed before he found the right words to continue. "I admit that, perhaps, I overstepped my bounds then. Had that case happened at some other point in time, I would've done what was expected and send Lady Priya to her exile. But the madness in the east wing had not left me untouched; I too, began to feel paranoid that if I did not nip it in the bud that it would come back again to haunt me. So I had her executed, as well, and made it seem like Lady Priya had also fallen prey to Lady Talia's madness."

His lips twitched. "I cannot say that I can live up to your expectations, lady Ophelia; I have not kept the bodies of my four wives in the cellar. But perhaps it does speak to your good intuition that I cannot altogether disassociate myself from your Bluebeard."

Ophelia would've liked to imagine herself blameless, but there was a bitter taste in her mouth. "I've been nosy; I apologise."

His weight on the bed shifted. Her heart skipped a beat, and then returned to normal when he stood up. It wasn't the first time he'd intruded in her quarters, but after baring his past for her listening pleasure a certain air of intimacy had slowly settled over the room. It awakened her nerves, made her fingertips twitch: she didn't know if she wanted things to go one way or the other.

"On the contrary;" his voice was low, almost a whisper. "I find no small amount of joy that you would take interest in my affairs, lady Ophelia."

His half-lidded stare met hers. With Phobos she'd felt no need for pauses; even a stare was expressive enough to break through the silence. But Aegyr's rythim was strange. It could be bare, minimal, the calm before the storm; it could be very intense at times, either filling her with anger and frustration, or as it was the case at that moment, a deep sense of compassion. It ran, it stalled, it ran again for miles, then stopped. She wasn't quite sure when she'd hit one of those walls he put up, when she'd have to be on guard, when she'd have to coax him to answer.

His fingers touched her face. She didn't know why, but she closed her eyes. The world came alive all of the sudden, and she could detect the smallest of tremors in that hand that explored her cheek so reverently. She could hear Aegyr's breathing had hitched, and the soft shuffle of his stola as he leaned in towards her.

His scent washed over her like a fresh winter breeze. She opened her eyes, knowing that she'd find that intense icy blue stare looking back. His face was an inch away from her own, and his fingers were still on her cheek.

She flinched.

It all crumbled away in a second; a deep anxiety settled at the bottom of her stomach. She could not allow him to go any further. Whatever intimacy they'd built, it wasn't the type that would invite him into her arms. She was enthralled by his beauty, by the mystery of his taciturn manner, and that made it all very confusing. Was he a mystery to solve or a man she wanted to embrace? She did not fully know, yet.

He sensed her hesitation: he conceded but did not capitulate, and lightly kissed her on her forehead before moving away. "I will eagerly await for your curiosity, my lady," he said, as he turned to leave.