The Cursed Heir

Chapter Twenty-Three

The red-orange glare of the sunset was blinding in her eyes by the time Cassie's escort clattered up to the Mackay stronghold. He was given little welcome as he dismounted and helped Cassie down.

A few curious nobles had been in the courtyard, eager to see the arrival of a new visitor. No doubt already planning how to reinforce their own petty positions in the pecking order.

As Cassie found her balance and turned, clutching her injured arm to her chest, she made eye contact with one of them. Count Dolem, well enriched by the decade-long demand for the war horses he bred. He recoiled, recognizing her.

At least one other spectator covered his eyes, afraid to look upon the cursed Mackay. The rest pulled back but continued staring, their suddenly ravenous attention circling like a buzzard.

She had survived Longheirce to come back like this?

Cassie firmed her spine and strode through the doors that led to the drafty, unwelcoming halls. She would not stay to see the Guard member who had delivered her like a distasteful message would get the reward he had hoped for. Let the rest of the court here deal with him. She owed none of them an explanation, and would not wait like a starving beggar for someone to announce her. If she caught her father unawares, so much the better.

What was the worst he could do to her, throw her out?

The constant stares, unwelcome and unwelcoming, those were what she had been dreading. What she dreaded spending her entire life drowning in.

Someone's jaunty whistle turned to a warning as she strode past, another man halted mid-step and backed around the corner he had just been rounding as he caught sight of her. Every step she took attracted more attention, more fear.

Her cap had been lost back in the forest and her hair was tangled and dirty, sticking out in every direction in wild curls. Her plain, peasant dress, stained and ripped from fighting the bandits, moved between cloth of gold and silver like a cardinal through fresh snow. With the uneven flowers that Leora had spent days embroidering on her cuffs, with not a single adornment save her battered knife, with a fiery song crackling in her heart, ready for confrontation, Cassie had never felt more like a queen.

"He in there?" she asked the sentry at the door to the meeting room, which her father used so often it was practically his private sitting room.

The sentry stood up straight, gulping as he recognized her. He moved—either to block her from entering or to open the door for her, Cassie did not care.

Unwilling to lose her momentum, she seized the handle and pulled the door open herself. The heavy wood swung open slowly, giving the voices inside time to quiet. The usual occupants, she saw as she stepped into the room. Lord Beauford, Lord Flor, Miles, a harried secretary making notes. And her father.

There was utter silence for the span of two breaths. Three.

Unsurprisingly, her father was the first to speak. "I thought you were dead."

Cassie sketched a rusty bow. "Sorry to disappoint," she said, the words sticking like chalk in her throat.

"Are you?" His brows raised.

"I am...sorry for much of what has transpired in the past year," Cassie said, picking through her words as carefully as a quagmire. "But not for disappointing you. It is time we both admit I have little control over your opinion of me, Father."

"Enough of the hysterics," Lord Mackay said, rolling his eyes. "Sit."

He waved at an empty seat at the enormous table, the topographical map that served as its surface spread before him.