Julian
Nevan Wilder. Duke of Wellspring. The most powerful man in the kingdom who didn’t sit on a throne.
I’d grown up hearing his family’s name spoken the way people speak of storms, pestilence or great happenings. The Wilders were regarded with respect, distance, and a healthy understanding that getting too close meant destruction.
They had ruled the Wellspring territories for six generations, ever since Lord Nathanael Wilder, Nevan’s great-grandfather, two generations removed, slew the Black Serpent of Ashenmoor that had ravaged the eastern provinces for a decade.
The Crown had rewarded him with the duchy, the land and a debt of gratitude that the royal family had been repaying ever since.
That debt had made the Wilders untouchable.
They funded the Crown’s wars, bankrolled the King’s festivals, and underwrote half the kingdom’s trade routes through their eastern ports. When the treasury ran dry, it was the Wilders who opened their vaults. When foreign diplomats arrived, they were taken to Wellspring, not the palace.
The King called Nevan a friend. The court called him indispensable and the law, when it came to the Duke of Wellspring, had a curious habit of looking the other way.
Nevan himself had earned his own legend at nineteen. A creature from the Northern Forest, a Razorback, offspring of an Ogre, had broken through the border wards and carved a path of destruction through three villages before the Crown’s soldiers could mobilise.
Nevan had ridden out alone, without waiting for reinforcements, and returned two days later, dragging the creature’s carcass behind his horse. He became a hero and the Champion of the people. Ballads were written in his name, and he was literally made a god.
Some tale says it was after that particular feat that he’d become a monster, eating and slaying people himself.
He was twenty-five now. Unmarried, always with a mask and my sister, Elowen, one of his many victims and his fiancée, had vanished without a trace.
I sat on the narrow cot in the lower quarters — a generous term for what was essentially a well-furnished cell — and turned the strange dagger over in my hands. The guards had taken my sword but hadn’t thought to check my belt.
The markings on the blade had gone dark since the woman fled, but I could still feel a faint warmth pulsing through the metal, as though something inside it was sleeping rather than dead.
The symbols were unlike anything I’d studied during my three years at the military academy in Greymarch. They weren’t Old Tongue. They weren’t runic. They were something else entirely, and the fact that a woman on a lonely road was carrying a weapon inscribed with them while transporting a bound and gagged girl in the back of a cart was a thread I intended to pull until it unravelled.
I’d abandoned my training the moment my family’s ninth petition to the Crown had been dismissed. My father had aged ten years in the fourteen months since Elowen’s disappearance, and my mother had stopped speaking altogether. The petitions, the letters, the formal inquiries — none of it had worked. The Duke’s influence was a wall that no legal instrument could breach.
So I’d come to breach it myself.
I hadn’t expected it to happen like this. My plan had been simple — travel to the capital, secure an audience with the King, and make one final appeal in person. But fate, it seemed, had other ideas. A woman with a cart on a dawn road. A girl bound and gagged with bruises on her throat, and the Duke of Wellspring himself, arriving on horseback, looking at me as though I’d stolen something precious from him.
The girl. He’d called her Rosamund. I didn’t know who she was to him, but the way he’d reached for her — bare-handed, gloveless, trembling — told me she wasn’t just anyone. Whatever she was to him, it ran deep.
And that, more than anything else, was the most valuable piece of information I’d collected since arriving in this godforsaken part of the kingdom.
Leverage. The Duke of Wellspring had a weakness. And she had a name.
I tucked the dagger beneath the thin mattress and sat back against the wall, folding my arms. It was only a matter of time before —
The door opened.
Two guards entered first, positioning themselves on either side. Then the Duke stepped through, filling the doorway with his presence. Clyde, his faithful dog, followed, closing the door behind them.
I stood and inclined my head. "Your Grace. Thank you for the accommodations. The cot is a bit firm, but the company has been excellent."
"Drop the act, Whitmore," the Duke said flatly. "What do you want?"
I paused. Of everything I’d anticipated— accusations, threats, interrogation—a direct question hadn’t been one of them. The man didn’t waste time.
"That wasn’t what I expected to be asked," I admitted.
Clyde stepped forward. "What were you doing on that road at dawn? That’s a five-mile stretch through dense forest with nothing on it. Nobody travels that road unless they have reason to."
"I was on my way to see the King," I said evenly. "I’d camped overnight about a mile south and set out early to reach the capital before nightfall. I came across a woman on the road with a covered cart. She’d stopped, and I thought she needed help." I paused, letting the silence establish the weight of what came next. "When I approached, she said she’d stopped to rest. We spoke briefly, and then I heard a sound from the cart. Scratching. Banging. She claimed it was rabbits she was taking to market. I offered to buy one."
"And?" the Duke’s jaw was tight.
"She refused, but I insisted. When I opened the cart, I found a young woman bound and gagged with bruises on her throat." I held the Duke’s gaze through his mask. "So I did what any decent man would do."
Silence reigned for a minute before the Duke asked again. "And the dagger? How did you get that?"
"The woman attacked me with it when I intervened and fled when I overpowered her, leaving the dagger behind. It has strange markings I’ve never seen before, and I intend to investigate what those markings mean."
"That won’t be necessary. I’ll handle it."
"With respect, Your Grace, for the sake of the maiden who was —"
"The maiden is my wife." The Duke’s voice cut through mine like a blade. "And I will handle it as her husband."
"Oh!" I blinked, surprised. Didn’t he lose a wife five months ago or so? "I never thought..." I trailed off, took a deep breath and continued. "If I had known she was your wife, I would have returned her safely to you."
"How grand of you, Whitmore!" his tone dripped with sarcasm as he regarded me. "I hope for your sake that everything you’ve told me is nothing but the truth because I won’t be as lenient as I was if I discover that this was another ploy of your family."
I smiled slightly. "I agree the coincidence was too profound, but Your Grace, I wouldn’t endanger the life of an innocent girl just because of a quarrel between us. Somehow, I blame myself for not looking out for Elowen; perhaps if I had stopped the wedding, she would still be here with us."
"I know it’s difficult to believe, but I am as puzzled as you are concerning your sister’s disappearance. It had nothing to do with me," he answered, drawing in a deep breath. "However, I’ll send word to the King to confirm that he’s indeed expecting you; if he isn’t, I may have to take action."
I held his gaze for a moment, then shrugged and said nothing.
"Untie him," He said, turning to the guards in the room with us, "and return his belongings."
The guards moved forward and cut the ropes from my wrists. My sword was brought in and placed on the table beside me. I rolled my wrists, nodded my thanks, and met the Duke’s eyes.
"Thank you, Your Grace."
The Duke’s jaw worked, as though the next words were being dragged from somewhere deep and reluctant. "You saved my wife’s life. I don’t like being in anyone’s debt. So tell me what you want and let’s be done with it."
"I’ll hold onto that favour, if it’s all the same to you." I picked up my sword and strapped it to my hip. "I’m sure an opportunity will present itself."
"Suit yourself," he said tersely. "My men will escort you to the border of the estate and give you a horse."
"Thank you," I bowed again and started towards the door. Almost to it, the Duke’s voice rang out again.
"Whitmore?"
I stopped but didn’t turn around.
"What business do you have with the King?"
I turned slowly until I faced him. He stood exactly where he’d been, his bandaged hands at his sides, his pale eyes fixed on me through the mask. Clyde was watching me too, his expression neutral but his body angled slightly forward, as though bracing for whatever came next.
I held the Duke’s gaze for a long moment. Then I smiled.
"I’ve come to withdraw my family’s petition against you, Your Grace. All nine of them."