RAMHM Chapter 160

An Unfeeling Father

"Your Highness, the shadows have come and gone."

A few letters were laid into the hand he held out without a word. Rhodness's cold eyes dropped to the scrawled handwriting.

In truth the letters were reports disguised as correspondence—reports from the shadows watching Novian Trovika.

"They're asking whether to keep following him. Nothing unusual yet. Only word that he's made himself a new name."

"No approach. Keep tracking."

"...Wouldn't it be simpler to just leave him be?"

Vincento hesitated before asking. Rhodness gave no answer, only scanned the next letter.

"His Majesty wishes to hold Empress Letina's funeral again."

"Does anyone hold a funeral twice?"

"Not in the imperial tradition this time—he wants it brief, and reverent."

"Holding onto the dead too long isn't healthy either. Should I be grateful he even bothered to pretend to ask what I think?"

His tone was indifferent, but the eyes honed sharp beneath it never rested. Vincento sighed heavily and left the tent.

Only then did Rhodness open the last letter at the bottom of the stack. The instant he tore it open, the eyes that had been sharpened to a blade went slack.

It was from Adrienne.

Rhodness let out a sigh that was nearly a groan and buried his face in both hands. Her clean, clear smile hovered before his eyes, and it was killing him.

He had been handling urgent state affairs in place of the Emperor, who had shut himself up in the imperial palace, clutching the coffin of his mother, Empress Letina.

A few shakes of the collar of any attendant rotten-eyed enough to bring a stack of work to the bridal chamber bought him a day or two of quiet.

But monster suppression was a different matter.

'The madness fades once the obsession's cut loose—that's all. Anyone born with power past the human measure needs somewhere to keep spending it, constantly, or it turns.'

Rotsy's voice rang clear in his ears, as if she stood beside him. He gathered Adrienne's letter in both hands and sank into the chair.

'If Adrienne's the cause of that thirst you've choked on—it's only because she matters that much. The one thing you pour everything into. No wonder you mistook her, as a child, for the cause of that same madness. And the madness that rises at monster blood—that's just you, still refusing to believe your own power could be a good thing.'

'Then what should I do?'

'Now that Adrienne has found her own mana, you no longer have to hold your power back. Her mana will receive yours. If you want to kill monsters with a clear head, all that's needed is to fully accept that your power is a good thing, and use it without hesitation.'

A voice rare in its compassion had wandered through his thoughts.

'You've spent your whole life holding everything back too hard, it seems.'

Just as Rotsy had said.

What he'd spent so long hiding and controlling, he now used freely.

The soldiers' burden in the brief suppression campaign had been cut in half, and he no longer fought like a beast starved for blood, as he once had.

The bloodlust born of his obsession with wanting to be near Adrienne.

The bloodlust born of the restraint that had desperately tried to suppress it, terrified that an ill-omened thing gaining mana too would steal the attention meant for his brother.

All of it—solved, just by not holding back anymore. A solution so simple it was almost obscene.

Rhodness laughed bitterly and lay down on the camp cot.

In the hearts of the monsters he'd killed, teal jewels had appeared, the exact shade of Adrienne's eyes. Lustrous, beautiful treasures, dense with pure mana inside. Ah, Adrienne...

Rhodness pressed his lips to the letter he held so carefully. He missed her enough to go mad.

The month-long suppression campaign was wrapping up in nearly two weeks. By night they swept away the monsters that emerged; by day they searched the corpses, pulled out hearts, harvested the jewels.

By Rotsy's account—she'd tagged along on the campaign, claiming research—a single one of those jewels was worth two or three great castles.

But none of that reached Rhodness's ears at all. The moment he'd seen the jewel that matched Adrienne's eyes, he'd been too busy imagining hanging it around her slender white throat.

Hang the necklace on her, then bite down on that throat so thin the veins show through, lick it—... Rhodness ground his teeth and forced himself to make a decision instead: move his return—originally three days off—up to tomorrow evening, back to the palace.

They'd already pushed everyone past the point of sleeplessness moving things up as far as they had, but the monsters were all dead now; the rest could be left to this territory's lord, or to Vincento.

He had been holding out as long as he could bear it, worried about being said to have put work aside, wrapped up in the Crown Princess's skirts.

From the wedding until now it had been nothing but tumbling into bed—he hadn't even managed so much as a common portrait—and missing Adrienne into thin air was nothing short of torture.

Rhodness kissed the letter, scented faintly with her, for a long while, then tore it open lying just as he was.

Contrary to what he'd hoped, the letter's contents were very short.

The eyes that had drooped with hurt feelings flashed the moment he read it.

"Vincento!!"

"Yes, Your Highness—!"

"The monsters are all dead. You handle the rest. I'm going straight to the palace, now."

"Sir?"

Vincento blinked, dumbfounded by his lord's sudden change of mind. Paying no attention to his stunned adjutant, Rhodness shouted outside the tent like a savage tyrant for someone to bring him his horse.

After that there was no catching him. Rhodness had already thrown his cloak over his shoulders, strapped the emergency pack he'd left loose on the camp desk around his waist, and walked straight out of the tent.

It had taken everything to coax and steady his lord from the moment they'd left the palace, his face set the whole time like a man desperate to get back to his wife.

It was Vincento, too, who had managed to hold him here this long, watching him scrub himself down with the compulsive thoroughness of a man about to bolt straight to his wife the second his work was finished.

"Your Highness! Your Highness—!!"

Vincento tore at his hair.

God—damn it.

Watching his lord, already a distant speck, Vincento stamped his feet, hollow-eyed, and picked up the letter Rhodness had dropped on his way out—desperate to know just what the Crown Princess could possibly have said to send him bolting off like a mad dog.

"...Damn it, Rhodness."

His cousin's name slipped from Vincento's mouth, cursed, for the first time in years. The words that had moved Rhodness, written in the letter, were only this:

"Today I miss you so much, my An."

As always, the cleanup was left to Vincento.

The greenhouse had grown busier than usual since the new crown princess moved into the palace and brought it back to life—that, and the carrier pigeon Vincento Winster had sent ahead with news of Rhodness's return.

"I'll manage from here. All of you can go."

"But—"

"I'm not made of glass."

The staff fretted over me walking unassisted, as if I might shatter. But they knew by now I hated being treated like an invalid, and they followed the order without a second word.

Only Yona—the maid Bliea had insisted on planting outside my door—held her post by the greenhouse entrance, primed to bolt in at the first sign I was struggling.

Alone, with every attendant gone, I savored a freedom I hadn't had in a while.

Winter was running down toward its end, but the cold couldn't touch the greenhouse. Inside, my transplanted eastern flowers were showing the best bloom they'd had in years.

The moment word came that Rhodness was back, I set out a basket of cookies I'd baked myself, first thing that morning.

A few days earlier—after hearing I might be pregnant—I'd missed him so badly I'd sent off an impulsive letter. Not to interrupt his work. Never that. Just to trade letters the way we used to as children, and if he wrote back that he missed me too, I'd planned to mention, lightly, that I had something for him when he came home.

"Adrienne!"

I was sitting with a hand pressed to my lower belly, turning over how to say it, whether the court physician's "pregnant" might actually be a misdiagnosis—when a man's voice cracked through the quiet greenhouse like a thunderclap.

"Rhoan!"

Before I could even ask how he was, the cold still clinging to his collar, that familiar scent I'd missed flooded my nose.

He crossed the room and had me locked in his arms before I could brace, kissing the crown of my head over and over.

I caught the maids—who'd been bringing in hot tea—startle and bolt from the greenhouse. I managed, with effort, to peel him off me.

"I missed you, Rhoan."

"That's it?"

His eyes wouldn't stay still.

Hot hands cupped my face.

He searched me—eyes, nose, mouth—like he meant to devour two weeks of not seeing me all at once, groaned low, and kissed me, soft. There was nothing patient in the way his whole body curved toward mine.

He hadn't even closed his eyes. His lashes stayed lifted, and underneath them his gaze was fierce, almost menacing—that was how much he'd missed me, even mid-kiss.

The hard press against my stomach—his trousers, heavy against me for a while now—caught in my throat.

A sudden grip seized the long tablecloth of the outdoor table; the dishes on it crashed down, loud.

I was pushed back before I understood it, half-seated on the table's edge.

Reflexively I reached for the cookie basket sliding toward the table's lip.

The basket didn't fall, thank God—but the hand I'd reached out with, Rhodness caught instead.

"Rhoan!"

"I missed you so much I thought I'd die—I can't waste time drinking tea."

His voice dropped low against my ear, a warning with teeth in it.

Seeing me flush, he tugged the pink hem of my dress up, urgent.

Hot palms slid up the soft skin of my thighs; my legs parted, and his big body pushed in between them.

Then his mouth, desperate, found my collarbone.

That snapped me back. I shoved hard against his chest.

He was uncanny at reading my moods—he gave way instantly, no resistance at all.

But my body accepting the refusal and my head accepting it moved at different speeds.

Pushed back so easily, so pitifully, he stared at me like a wounded animal.

I tugged my dress back down, gathered the loosened front of it closed, and gave my warning.

"From now on—for at least the next two months, I won't even let you touch me."

The ferocity drained out of his eyes in an instant.

His ears—invisible ones—seemed to droop all at once. He looked at me with a face so pitiful I could almost hear the whimper Cowan made when his favorite toy got taken away.

"Did I... do something wrong?"

He asked it, mournful.

"I'm bringing back monster hearts—I got a few, just for you—and jewels, chests of gold coins, I'll fill an empty cart all the way up, Rien."

He rambled on, scrambling to make up for some wrong he hadn't even committed.

I watched him, his eyes gone red-rimmed, with a strange look.

"Whatever you give me, it won't be worth as much as what I can give you."

"...You? You mean yourself?"

"I already gave you myself, didn't I?"

I said it, my face going a little softer.

That small warmth was enough to settle some of his unease. He crept closer, like a stray taken back in after being cast out, and carefully wrapped his arms around me.

The heavy press at his trousers hadn't gone anywhere, but I could tell he'd calmed some. Without a word, I let myself sink fully into his chest.

"Whatever it is, I don't know—but you alone are enough. You don't need to give me anything."

He steadied his ragged breath and pressed small kisses along my forehead.

I laughed, low, and let my hands drift to rest lightly over my belly.

"What an unfeeling father you have. Little one. He says he needs nothing at all, besides me."

His lips, still tangled in hair gold as honey—stopped. Dead.