Moments later, Drake stood alone in his command tent with the former lord of Skybreak Manor, a still formidable woman who managed to remain intimidating despite carrying no weapons of any kind. That he could see. He assumed his people would have searched her.
Though her rarity, cleavage, would apparently allow her to split open the earth and swallow him. As humorous as the name was, the way it could murder him was not. Yet Lady Skybreak’s blue eyes remained visibly amused, and her soft smile was as nice as her daughter’s.
“Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, Lord Gloomwood.”
“Of course.” Drake needed to sound as formal as he could, especially if he wanted to impress her. “What matter did you wish to discuss?”
“You need not trouble yourself on account of my current disagreement with Lord Skybreak. While we have reached an impasse in personal matters, rest assured that we remain aligned in all other matters... including the security of our manor and yours.”
“Thank you for that reassurance.” Drake was this close to asking her why they were still so upset with each other, but he’d literally promised himself he wouldn’t do that.
“With that said, that is not the matter I wished to speak with you about.”
“Of course,” Drake said. “What is it?”
“Would you mind telling me a bit about your parents?”
Drake could not help but hide his surprise, and from the way Lady Skybreak visibly hesitated, he immediately suspected she’d taken his surprise the wrong way.
“I realize the question is unusual,” Lady Skybreak continued. “But if you will indulge me, I would like to know a bit about the people who raised you.”
“Like... what exactly?”
“In your world, do they sit in a position of power?”
Drake couldn’t help but frown as he considered her. “So you and Lord Skybreak have discussed my origins?” It made sense she’d share with her mother, but... still.
“My daughter has said very little to me about you, lord, other than that she considers you worthy of an alliance. Your recent actions have proven that beyond any doubt. I hope you will not be angry with me if I reveal I’ve had my spies check up on you.”
Drake pondered a moment. “You still speak to Lord Skybreak’s spies?”
“These spies are my own.”
So Lady Skybreak maintained her own private spy network independent of Skybreak Manor. Even if she wasn’t the manor lord any more, it made sense she wouldn’t leave herself out of the loop. He wondered how many of Sky’s people still reported to her.
“And what have your spies told you, Lady Skybreak?”
“You may call me Viktoria if you wish.”
She was offering her name to one who didn’t know it to show both trust and respect. She was likely attempting to blunt any concerns Drake might have about her strange questions about his parents. He was in uncharted territory here, and the one thing he knew was that overthinking this conversation would just make him look indecisive.
So he’d let it flow where it would flow and hope he didn’t step on a rake.
“Of course... Viktoria,” Drake agreed. “And I am curious what you know about me.” He forced an easy smile. “If your spies have slandered me, I’d like to correct the record.”
“I know you were brought here against your will from another realm, yet immediately accepted your post as Lord Gloomwood without hesitation. I know your approach to handling your blood thralls is the same as my daughter’s. Finally, I know teleporting people isn’t the only rarity you’ve demonstrated since you became Lord Gloomwood.”
All Drake could do was struggle to keep his poker face. Her spies were well-informed, but had they figured out he could absorb rarities? And how bad would it be if they had?
“Be assured, I do not wish to antagonize you,” Lady Skybreak—no, it was Viktoria now—continued. “An alliance with your manor will benefit my daughter and our manor, so if I’ve overstepped in asking any question tonight, you may dismiss me without worry I will reveal any part of this conversation to my daughter. I want this alliance.”
Since Viktoria couldn’t lie, she meant every word. He mentally parsed her words for doublespeak and found nothing he could question. Her words seemed clear, and given Viktoria was clearly still plugged into realm politics and had her own independent spy network, he could benefit from forging a stronger alliance with her. She wasn’t asking much.
“Your question didn’t offend me,” Drake said. “But I am curious why want to know about my parents.”
“I do not know how it is in your realm, lord, but in this one, a person can intuit a great deal about another based on who raised them and how they were raised. In the interest of improving relations between our manors and between us, I would simply like to know a bit more about your upbringing. I will, of course, share similar information with you.”
That sounded like doublespeak. Samuel, Valentia, Lydia, and basically everyone had warned him Lady Skybreak had been one of the most shrewd manor lords when she sat at the table. She wouldn’t inquire about something like this out of idle curiosity.
There was more to Viktoria’s question than simply wanting to learn about his parents, so should he press her to clarify further? A more egotistical man might have assumed she was asking about his parents to see if he’d make a good match for her daughter, but Drake wasn’t about to make that mistake. She likely had a different agenda here.
So what was it? The best way to find out might be to answer a few of her questions. He couldn’t think how any of his answers could come back to bite him in the ass.
“My mother’s in clerical work back where I came from,” Drake said. “In terms of my realm, that means she handles matters similar to what I imagine a mediator handles in your world. She reads documents, types documents, and sometimes makes the coffee.”
“And your father?”
“Not in the picture.”
Viktoria paused to consider, and he realized then she might be trying to parse another of his strange Earth phrases. “So your father has passed on?”
“No, he’s still alive somewhere, but he’s not a part of my life and hasn’t ever been.” He wondered what she’d make of that fact. “My mother raised me. It was just her.”
Viktoria nodded thoughtfully. “I also raised Sky on my own. Her father was killed shortly after she was born. So you and my daughter were both raised by a mother alone.”
It was sad to hear about Sky’s dad, but also, Viktoria had just referred to Lord Skybreak as Sky in his presence. Should he do the same?
Probably not. Samuel had made it clear he should never refer to Sky as anything but Lord Skybreak. Best to err on the side of trusting Samuel instead of offending Viktoria.
“I’m sorry to hear about your husband,” Drake said.
“Your sympathies are appreciated,” Viktoria said. “I loved him very much.”
Drake nodded. She was now offering personal information about herself. The question was, why? A woman who’d been a manor lord this long didn’t do anything without a goal.
“One last question, lord. Would you say you have your mother’s eyes?”
Drake considered her in silence as the strangeness of that question bounced around in his brain. People back on Earth only asked questions like that if they were comparing children to parents for similar features. But Viktoria couldn’t be asking that, could she?
Was this a weird cultural thing? Did eye color mean something here that Samuel hadn’t told him about? He’d seen other people with blue eyes, including Anna and Valentia, so his eyes weren’t unusual by the standards of this world. His mother’s eyes were also blue.
Again he considered the question and again could find no reason not to answer. Was Lady Skybreak—Viktoria—simply asking innocuous questions to soften him up for something bigger? It was tempting to simply dismiss her, and he suspected she’d leave if he did, but he’d also be admitting he was worried about her. He didn’t want to admit that.
“Yes, we do have the same color eyes,” Drake said. “I’d say people have even commented upon them looking similar before.” He watched her cautiously. “I could say the same of you and Lord Skybreak. Your eyes look almost identical.”
“Thank you, lord.” Viktoria smiled warmly. “I appreciate you indulging me, and of course, thank you for the meal. As one final gesture of good faith, I will share something with you I did not share with the former Lord of Gloomwood. One of your blood thralls, Celia Thornton, has standing orders from Lord Gloomwood to deliver letters to a woman at Hearth’s Shadow tavern in your sworn town of Shadowfort. Those letters eventually come to me.”
Drake kept his poker face as he remembered his interrogation of his blood thralls for standing orders before he left the manor. Celia’s standing order had stood out because of how odd and intriguing it was. She’d taken unknown letters to the tavern Viktoria had mentioned.
“Is that a tavern?”
“Yes, lord.” Celia nodded vigorously, looking as frightened as he’d expect her to look. “I do not know the contents of the letters. I am not allowed to read the letters. The woman who receives the letter is always different, but always greets me by saying ‘These moons will turn to ash one day’.”
“So Celia is one of your spies,” Drake said. “In my manor?”
“Celia is not my spy,” Viktoria said. “But she does deliver letters that often speak of events inside your manor. The order was first given by the same Lord Gloomwood with whom I formed our covert alliance. I do not know if you have completed a vetting of your blood thralls for standing orders from prior lords, but if you have not, I would suggest you do so.”
“And why are you telling me this now?”
“Before your arrival, Celia and her letters were one of the only ways I could slip information about Lord Gloomwood and his activities out of your manor. Now that you are Lord Gloomwood, I felt it best to reveal this to avoid any perception I was working against you in secret. Celia was only following her lord’s orders, and I’m trusting you not to punish her.”
Drake had already decided to let the letters continue, but he hadn’t thought about where they might be going since the cabal had come up shortly after he discovered Celia’s nocturnal activities. It was a relief to have an explanation for Celia’s odd standing orders, and he understood why Viktoria had wanted the intelligence.
The prior few Lord Gloomwoods had been assholes—Drake knew that from his blood thralls and Sky—so it made sense that Lady Skybreak had kept tabs on their activities to protect herself and her manor if they made any idiotic plays... like trying to summon a leviathan. That was the type of thing Viktoria would have wanted to know about to cover her own ass.
Still, it was interesting that Viktoria hadn’t passed such a useful resource on to her daughter. Unless she had, and Sky hadn’t told him about it. Which made a lot more sense.
“Since we’re sharing information, you don’t need to worry about Celia,” Drake said. “I discovered what she was doing recently and decided to let her continue. I’d set the matter aside given everything else going on, but learning the reason does ease my mind.”
Viktoria smiled warmly. “Then I am glad we spoke before any misunderstandings resulted. Thank you for your time, lord. My daughter is waiting, so I’ll bid you good night.”
Drake could only nod as Viktoria inclined her head, turned away, and walked confidently toward the flaps leading out of his tent. She really wasn’t going to explain why she’d asked about his mother. He decided he wasn’t willing to let her leave just yet. He could ask questions in this private meeting, too.
“Lady Skybreak, one moment.”
She stopped, then turned. “Yes?”
“Why did you want to know about my mother?”
Viktoria smiled pleasantly. “Your mother is from your realm, lord?”
She hadn’t directly answered his simple question. She’d deflected by asking her own. So she was hiding something from him... so how far did he want to push her?
“She is,” Drake said. “And as I know of no way I can ever return to my realm, I also don’t know any way she could come here. So why the sudden interest?”
“As I said, lord, I merely wished to know a bit about the people who raised you.”
“And that’s all?” That obviously wasn’t all.
“Could I ask you to clarify your question further, lord?”
What was he asking? He couldn’t compel Viktoria to answer any of his questions. They could do this dance all night without a resolution.
“Do you know of any way to travel between realms?” Drake asked finally.
“I am sorry, lord. I do not know how to travel between realms.”
Drake nodded. It had been foolish to hope she might.
“But if you will share it, may I ask your mother’s name?”
That set off warning bells in his head. Names had power here. Knowing the name of someone let you cast spells on them or whatever.
But also, you’d need a full name to do that... at least in his world. Just giving Viktoria his mother’s first name likely wouldn’t give her any power, since “Marissa” was a name shared by hundreds of women back on Earth. Viktoria had also given him her first name.
He could just make something up, but what if, by some weird twist of fate, his mother’s real name somehow came up? Viktoria would then know he’d lied about it, which would be bad. He also couldn’t stand here considering her question for too long without looking like an idiot. In the end, he decided to go with the simplest solution.
“My mom’s name is Marissa. I’d prefer not to share anything else about her.”
Viktoria smiled warmly. “Thank you for sharing her with me. Knowing what I do about how difficult it is to raise a child alone, I have no doubt your mother is a strong, capable, intelligent woman. While I know it to be unlikely, I hope you get to see her again someday.”
She wasn’t going to him what she was really after. He should just accept it and move on with his life. Perhaps Samuel would have some ideas when they discussed this later. He was certainly going to run this conversation by him and get his insight.
“Then good night... Viktoria. It was a pleasure speaking with you.”
“Good night, Lord Gloomwood.” She slipped out of his tent without a look back.
Author's Note: A slower pace this week as Drake regroups from the big rescue. Next week, Drake arrives in the capital, finally learns the reason for the cabal, and insists that this is not a sex thing.
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Moments later, Drake stood alone in his command tent with the former lord of Skybreak Manor, a still formidable woman who managed to remain intimidating despite carrying no weapons of any kind. That he could see. He assumed his people would have searched her.
Though her rarity, cleavage, would apparently allow her to split open the earth and swallow him. As humorous as the name was, the way it could murder him was not. Yet Lady Skybreak’s blue eyes remained visibly amused, and her soft smile was as nice as her daughter’s.
“Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, Lord Gloomwood.”
“Of course.” Drake needed to sound as formal as he could, especially if he wanted to impress her. “What matter did you wish to discuss?”
“You need not trouble yourself on account of my current disagreement with Lord Skybreak. While we have reached an impasse in personal matters, rest assured that we remain aligned in all other matters... including the security of our manor and yours.”
“Thank you for that reassurance.” Drake was this close to asking her why they were still so upset with each other, but he’d literally promised himself he wouldn’t do that.
“With that said, that is not the matter I wished to speak with you about.”
“Of course,” Drake said. “What is it?”
“Would you mind telling me a bit about your parents?”
Drake could not help but hide his surprise, and from the way Lady Skybreak visibly hesitated, he immediately suspected she’d taken his surprise the wrong way.
“I realize the question is unusual,” Lady Skybreak continued. “But if you will indulge me, I would like to know a bit about the people who raised you.”
“Like... what exactly?”
“In your world, do they sit in a position of power?”
Drake couldn’t help but frown as he considered her. “So you and Lord Skybreak have discussed my origins?” It made sense she’d share with her mother, but... still.
“My daughter has said very little to me about you, lord, other than that she considers you worthy of an alliance. Your recent actions have proven that beyond any doubt. I hope you will not be angry with me if I reveal I’ve had my spies check up on you.”
Drake pondered a moment. “You still speak to Lord Skybreak’s spies?”
“These spies are my own.”
So Lady Skybreak maintained her own private spy network independent of Skybreak Manor. Even if she wasn’t the manor lord any more, it made sense she wouldn’t leave herself out of the loop. He wondered how many of Sky’s people still reported to her.
“And what have your spies told you, Lady Skybreak?”
“You may call me Viktoria if you wish.”
She was offering her name to one who didn’t know it to show both trust and respect. She was likely attempting to blunt any concerns Drake might have about her strange questions about his parents. He was in uncharted territory here, and the one thing he knew was that overthinking this conversation would just make him look indecisive.
So he’d let it flow where it would flow and hope he didn’t step on a rake.
“Of course... Viktoria,” Drake agreed. “And I am curious what you know about me.” He forced an easy smile. “If your spies have slandered me, I’d like to correct the record.”
“I know you were brought here against your will from another realm, yet immediately accepted your post as Lord Gloomwood without hesitation. I know your approach to handling your blood thralls is the same as my daughter’s. Finally, I know teleporting people isn’t the only rarity you’ve demonstrated since you became Lord Gloomwood.”
All Drake could do was struggle to keep his poker face. Her spies were well-informed, but had they figured out he could absorb rarities? And how bad would it be if they had?
“Be assured, I do not wish to antagonize you,” Lady Skybreak—no, it was Viktoria now—continued. “An alliance with your manor will benefit my daughter and our manor, so if I’ve overstepped in asking any question tonight, you may dismiss me without worry I will reveal any part of this conversation to my daughter. I want this alliance.”
Since Viktoria couldn’t lie, she meant every word. He mentally parsed her words for doublespeak and found nothing he could question. Her words seemed clear, and given Viktoria was clearly still plugged into realm politics and had her own independent spy network, he could benefit from forging a stronger alliance with her. She wasn’t asking much.
“Your question didn’t offend me,” Drake said. “But I am curious why want to know about my parents.”
“I do not know how it is in your realm, lord, but in this one, a person can intuit a great deal about another based on who raised them and how they were raised. In the interest of improving relations between our manors and between us, I would simply like to know a bit more about your upbringing. I will, of course, share similar information with you.”
That sounded like doublespeak. Samuel, Valentia, Lydia, and basically everyone had warned him Lady Skybreak had been one of the most shrewd manor lords when she sat at the table. She wouldn’t inquire about something like this out of idle curiosity.
There was more to Viktoria’s question than simply wanting to learn about his parents, so should he press her to clarify further? A more egotistical man might have assumed she was asking about his parents to see if he’d make a good match for her daughter, but Drake wasn’t about to make that mistake. She likely had a different agenda here.
So what was it? The best way to find out might be to answer a few of her questions. He couldn’t think how any of his answers could come back to bite him in the ass.
“My mother’s in clerical work back where I came from,” Drake said. “In terms of my realm, that means she handles matters similar to what I imagine a mediator handles in your world. She reads documents, types documents, and sometimes makes the coffee.”
“And your father?”
“Not in the picture.”
Viktoria paused to consider, and he realized then she might be trying to parse another of his strange Earth phrases. “So your father has passed on?”
“No, he’s still alive somewhere, but he’s not a part of my life and hasn’t ever been.” He wondered what she’d make of that fact. “My mother raised me. It was just her.”
Viktoria nodded thoughtfully. “I also raised Sky on my own. Her father was killed shortly after she was born. So you and my daughter were both raised by a mother alone.”
It was sad to hear about Sky’s dad, but also, Viktoria had just referred to Lord Skybreak as Sky in his presence. Should he do the same?
Probably not. Samuel had made it clear he should never refer to Sky as anything but Lord Skybreak. Best to err on the side of trusting Samuel instead of offending Viktoria.
“I’m sorry to hear about your husband,” Drake said.
“Your sympathies are appreciated,” Viktoria said. “I loved him very much.”
Drake nodded. She was now offering personal information about herself. The question was, why? A woman who’d been a manor lord this long didn’t do anything without a goal.
“One last question, lord. Would you say you have your mother’s eyes?”
Drake considered her in silence as the strangeness of that question bounced around in his brain. People back on Earth only asked questions like that if they were comparing children to parents for similar features. But Viktoria couldn’t be asking that, could she?
Was this a weird cultural thing? Did eye color mean something here that Samuel hadn’t told him about? He’d seen other people with blue eyes, including Anna and Valentia, so his eyes weren’t unusual by the standards of this world. His mother’s eyes were also blue.
Again he considered the question and again could find no reason not to answer. Was Lady Skybreak—Viktoria—simply asking innocuous questions to soften him up for something bigger? It was tempting to simply dismiss her, and he suspected she’d leave if he did, but he’d also be admitting he was worried about her. He didn’t want to admit that.
“Yes, we do have the same color eyes,” Drake said. “I’d say people have even commented upon them looking similar before.” He watched her cautiously. “I could say the same of you and Lord Skybreak. Your eyes look almost identical.”
“Thank you, lord.” Viktoria smiled warmly. “I appreciate you indulging me, and of course, thank you for the meal. As one final gesture of good faith, I will share something with you I did not share with the former Lord of Gloomwood. One of your blood thralls, Celia Thornton, has standing orders from Lord Gloomwood to deliver letters to a woman at Hearth’s Shadow tavern in your sworn town of Shadowfort. Those letters eventually come to me.”
Drake kept his poker face as he remembered his interrogation of his blood thralls for standing orders before he left the manor. Celia’s standing order had stood out because of how odd and intriguing it was. She’d taken unknown letters to the tavern Viktoria had mentioned.
“Is that a tavern?”
“Yes, lord.” Celia nodded vigorously, looking as frightened as he’d expect her to look. “I do not know the contents of the letters. I am not allowed to read the letters. The woman who receives the letter is always different, but always greets me by saying ‘These moons will turn to ash one day’.”
“So Celia is one of your spies,” Drake said. “In my manor?”
“Celia is not my spy,” Viktoria said. “But she does deliver letters that often speak of events inside your manor. The order was first given by the same Lord Gloomwood with whom I formed our covert alliance. I do not know if you have completed a vetting of your blood thralls for standing orders from prior lords, but if you have not, I would suggest you do so.”
“And why are you telling me this now?”
“Before your arrival, Celia and her letters were one of the only ways I could slip information about Lord Gloomwood and his activities out of your manor. Now that you are Lord Gloomwood, I felt it best to reveal this to avoid any perception I was working against you in secret. Celia was only following her lord’s orders, and I’m trusting you not to punish her.”
Drake had already decided to let the letters continue, but he hadn’t thought about where they might be going since the cabal had come up shortly after he discovered Celia’s nocturnal activities. It was a relief to have an explanation for Celia’s odd standing orders, and he understood why Viktoria had wanted the intelligence.
The prior few Lord Gloomwoods had been assholes—Drake knew that from his blood thralls and Sky—so it made sense that Lady Skybreak had kept tabs on their activities to protect herself and her manor if they made any idiotic plays... like trying to summon a leviathan. That was the type of thing Viktoria would have wanted to know about to cover her own ass.
Still, it was interesting that Viktoria hadn’t passed such a useful resource on to her daughter. Unless she had, and Sky hadn’t told him about it. Which made a lot more sense.
“Since we’re sharing information, you don’t need to worry about Celia,” Drake said. “I discovered what she was doing recently and decided to let her continue. I’d set the matter aside given everything else going on, but learning the reason does ease my mind.”
Viktoria smiled warmly. “Then I am glad we spoke before any misunderstandings resulted. Thank you for your time, lord. My daughter is waiting, so I’ll bid you good night.”
Drake could only nod as Viktoria inclined her head, turned away, and walked confidently toward the flaps leading out of his tent. She really wasn’t going to explain why she’d asked about his mother. He decided he wasn’t willing to let her leave just yet. He could ask questions in this private meeting, too.
“Lady Skybreak, one moment.”
She stopped, then turned. “Yes?”
“Why did you want to know about my mother?”
Viktoria smiled pleasantly. “Your mother is from your realm, lord?”
She hadn’t directly answered his simple question. She’d deflected by asking her own. So she was hiding something from him... so how far did he want to push her?
“She is,” Drake said. “And as I know of no way I can ever return to my realm, I also don’t know any way she could come here. So why the sudden interest?”
“As I said, lord, I merely wished to know a bit about the people who raised you.”
“And that’s all?” That obviously wasn’t all.
“Could I ask you to clarify your question further, lord?”
What was he asking? He couldn’t compel Viktoria to answer any of his questions. They could do this dance all night without a resolution.
“Do you know of any way to travel between realms?” Drake asked finally.
“I am sorry, lord. I do not know how to travel between realms.”
Drake nodded. It had been foolish to hope she might.
“But if you will share it, may I ask your mother’s name?”
That set off warning bells in his head. Names had power here. Knowing the name of someone let you cast spells on them or whatever.
But also, you’d need a full name to do that... at least in his world. Just giving Viktoria his mother’s first name likely wouldn’t give her any power, since “Marissa” was a name shared by hundreds of women back on Earth. Viktoria had also given him her first name.
He could just make something up, but what if, by some weird twist of fate, his mother’s real name somehow came up? Viktoria would then know he’d lied about it, which would be bad. He also couldn’t stand here considering her question for too long without looking like an idiot. In the end, he decided to go with the simplest solution.
“My mom’s name is Marissa. I’d prefer not to share anything else about her.”
Viktoria smiled warmly. “Thank you for sharing her with me. Knowing what I do about how difficult it is to raise a child alone, I have no doubt your mother is a strong, capable, intelligent woman. While I know it to be unlikely, I hope you get to see her again someday.”
She wasn’t going to him what she was really after. He should just accept it and move on with his life. Perhaps Samuel would have some ideas when they discussed this later. He was certainly going to run this conversation by him and get his insight.
“Then good night... Viktoria. It was a pleasure speaking with you.”
“Good night, Lord Gloomwood.” She slipped out of his tent without a look back.
Author's Note: A slower pace this week as Drake regroups from the big rescue. Next week, Drake arrives in the capital, finally learns the reason for the cabal, and insists that this is not a sex thing.
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