Eamon stares at him. "Ten thousand? Each?"
"It is a drop in the bucket for the Princess," Jellema admits. "But for Kenric? It is a duty. He told me, 'If I take the man's land, I take his burdens.' He isn't Stephen, Eamon. He doesn't want to loot Padma. He wants to save it and it butts up to Herrenstein."
Eamon looks into the fire. He is remembering Kenric’s father, Othmar, a stubborn, honest man. And he is comparing him to Stephen, a man who smiles with too many teeth.
"You trust him?" Eamon asks. "Truly, Hedde? You aren't just saying this to secure your investments?"
"I trust him enough to put him between the King and the Fey," Jellema says. "He is the only honest man left in Centis."
Eamon breathes out, a long, rattling exhale.
"A Finstaad," he mutters. "It would make the King choke on his wine."
"It would," Jellema smiles. "The King owes Kenric. And he owes the Bank. He will sign the decree if you request it."
Eamon closes his eyes.
"He sounds too good to be true," Eamon decides. "A man who marries a monster to save his estate, and then adopts a village of spinsters to get a title? He is either a saint or a liar."
"He is outside," Jellema says, standing up. "Waiting in the hall with your nieces."
Eamon opens his eyes. The flint is still there.
"Bring him in," the old Earl commands. "But leave the wife out there. I don't want any Fey nonsense clouding my eyes. I want to look the boy in the face."
"As you wish." Jellema says evenly.
"Hedde?"
"Yes, Eamon?"
"If he is half the man you say he is... tell him to bring a quill. I don't have much time." Eamon replies.
"Talk to him first," Jellema advises, walking to the door. "Talk to Kenric and see for yourself."
I am standing in the hallway, leaning against the cold stone wall. To the human eye, I am just a dutiful wife waiting for her husband.
My glamour is perfectly in place. My ears appear rounded and dull, indistinguishable from any human woman’s. I am dressed in deep blue velvet, and I know I look harmless, petite, pretty, perhaps a bit too fine for a drafty Dower House, but certainly not a monster.
But to my Fey senses, the heavy oak door is as thin as paper. I can hear the crackle of the fire. I can hear the rattle of Eamon’s breath. And I can hear the heavy, measured footsteps of Kenric walking into the room.
I signal the nieces, Sarah, Elin, and the others, to stay back near the window. They look at me with wary curiosity. They see a wealthy noblewoman, not the Feral Queen. I do not want these girls to fear me. I want them to trust me. They're about to become Kenric's kin. If anything even upsets them, I shall deal with it.
"Lord Eamon," Kenric says. His voice is calm. He does not bow like a courtier seeking a favor; he bows like a soldier acknowledging a veteran.
"Come closer, Finstaad," Eamon’s voice rasps. "My eyes aren't what they used to be. The mines took my lungs, and the years took my sight."
I hear Kenric step closer to the fire.
"You look like him," Eamon decides after a long silence. "Your father. He had that same jaw. The one that looked like it was carved out of granite and stubbornness."
"He was a good man," Kenric says.
"He was a dead man," Eamon corrects bluntly. "Because he thought honor was a shield. He didn't understand that honor is just a target painted on your chest."
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"He understood," Kenric replies, his voice hardening slightly. "He just decided the target was worth wearing."
Eamon chuckles, which turns into a wheeze. "And you? You married the Fey. The Feral Queen. Is that wearing a target, or is that hiding behind a shield?"
I stiffen in the hallway. Jellema shifts in his chair inside the room, I can hear the leather creak, but he stays silent. He is letting Kenric fight this battle.
"It is neither, My Lord," Kenric says. "It is an alliance. She is the storm. Someone has to hold the rudder."
"And you think you can hold it?"
"I am holding it," Kenric says. "Look at Varpua. Look at the trade routes. The storm is filling our sails, Eamon, not sinking our ships. But to keep it that way... I need ballast. I need weight."
"You need land," Eamon translates.
"I need authority," Kenric corrects. "The King fears her. The Dukes envy her. If I remain a Viscount, they will try to tear us down, and in her defense, she will burn this kingdom to ash. I want to prevent that. But I can only do that if I stand as an Earl."
There is a long silence. The fire pops.
"You speak well," Eamon murmurs. "Better than the vultures in the capital. But words are cheap, Finstaad. Blood is expensive."
I hear the rustle of sheets as Eamon leans forward.
"Jellema tells me you are willing to take on my burden. The girls."
"They are not a burden," Kenric says immediately. "They are family."
"They are expensive," Eamon counters. "Sarah has two boys who need schooling. Elin needs a dowry or she’ll end up a spinster. And Rho..."
Eamon’s voice breaks.
"Rho is simple, Kenric. She is twenty, but she has the mind of a child of six. She needs care. Constant care. My cousin Stephen called her a 'useless mouth.' He threatened to send her to the asylum."
The air in the room changes. I can feel Kenric’s anger radiating through the door. It matches my own. In Imelenora, we cherish the innocent. The idea of discarding a family member because they are different is a peculiarly human cruelty.
"Stephen will never touch her," Kenric says. The tone is final. It is the tone he uses when he draws his sword. "If you sign this paper, Lord Eamon, your nieces become Finstaads. They come under my protection. And if anyone, Stephen, the King, or the devil himself, tries to harm them, they answer to me."
"And your wife?" Eamon asks. "Will the Fey creature accept a house full of human women? Or will she turn them into scullery maids?"
"My wife," Kenric says, and I can hear the smile in his voice, "comes from a people who value blood above all else. She has a mother and father who would burn the world to keep her safe. She understands the pack, Eamon. If I adopt them, they become her pack."
Kenric pauses, his voice dropping an octave.
"And the gods help anyone who touches what belongs to her."
Eamon lets out a long, shuddering breath.
"I am tired, Finstaad. I have spent twenty years worrying about who would hold the gate when I was gone. I laid awake nights, thinking of Stephen selling the timber and kicking Rho out into the snow."
"Sleep," Kenric says gently. "The gate is held."
"Give me the quill," Eamon commands.
I hear the scratch of the nib on parchment. Once. Twice.
"Done," Eamon whispers. "It is done."
"Thank you, My Lord," Kenric says.
"Don't thank me," Eamon grunts. "I just gave you a mountain range full of deep shafts, lung-rot, and hard men who hate southerners. You have your work cut out for you, Earl of Padma."
"I am not afraid of work."
"Good. Now get out. Jellema, stay a moment. I want to drink that brandy you’re hiding in your robe."
The door opens. Kenric steps out.
He looks pale. The weight of what he has just promised is settling on him. He holds the scroll in his hand, the deed to a province, the patent of nobility, and the guardianship of three women and two small boys.
The nieces look at him, terrified. Sarah clutches her children. Elin bites her lip.
Kenric walks over to them. He looks at Sarah. He looks at the small, dark-haired woman hiding behind her, Rho.
Kenric kneels down so he is eye-level with Rho.
"Hello," Kenric says softly.
Rho looks at him with wide, innocent eyes. "Who are you?"
"I'm Kenric," he says. "I'm your cousin now."
"Do you have a horse?" Rho asks.
"I do," Kenric smiles. "A big one. Do you like horses?"
"Yes," Rho nods vigorously. "Stephen said I couldn't see the horses. He said I scared them."
Kenric stands up slowly. I see the muscle in his jaw flex.
"Pack your things," Kenric says to Sarah and Elin. "Everything you want to keep. We are leaving within the hour."
"Leaving?" Sarah asks, her voice trembling. "Where are we going?"
"To the bank," Kenric says. "To deposit your dowries. And then... we are going to Dobile, to the palace, and eventually home, to Herrenstein."
"And Uncle Eamon?" Elin asks.
"Your Uncle is resting," Kenric says. "He knows you are safe. That is all he wanted."
I step forward then.
Sarah and Elin look at me. They see a beautiful woman in a fine dress. They don't see the ears. They don't see the magic coiling under my skin.
But then I smile at them. It is meant to be reassuring, but I forget myself, and the smile is a little too wide, showing the slightly elongated points of my canines.
Sarah flinches, just a little.
"I am Víl?," I say, my voice soft. "Kenric's wife."
I look at Rho. I think of the cousin who wanted to throw her away like garbage. A cold, hard certainty settles in my chest. These women are Finstaad now. That means they are mine.
"You are coming with us," I tell them. "You will have warm rooms. You will have good food. And you will never see Stephen again."
"But... he said he would come for the house," Sarah whispers. "He has men."
I step closer to her. I reach out and adjust the collar of her frayed dress. My movement is gentle, but there is a sudden stillness in the hallway.
"Let him come," I say, and my canines flash again. "I have not killed a man since Tuesday. I am due for some exercise."
Kenric puts a hand on my shoulder, grounding me.
"She means," Kenric translates smoothly, "that you are under the protection of the Earl of Padma and a Princess of Hloir? Aralli?. No army in Centis is strong enough to breach that wall."
Ohhh Chapter 140 was a banquet, a banquet of tension, legacy, grief, family, power moves, and one Fey Princess barely resisting the urge to obliterate a man named Stephen from the material world.
Let us set the table.
Jellema walks into this chapter like:
“I am here to negotiate a succession and also to bully the King with facts.”
He delivers Kenric’s offer with that smooth “I do not raise my voice, I raise your blood pressure” political tone only he can manage.
Meanwhile, Oskar is probably outside sniffing lavender oil and congratulating himself for “supporting succession discussions” by existing nearby.
Eamon is:
- dying
- exhausted
- furious
- terrified for his nieces
- and DONE with Centis politics
He is honest in the way only the dying are—
which means he verbally bodyslams everyone in sight, living or dead.
If Oskar were allowed in that room, he’d have turned into a puddle of lavender?scented despair within minutes.
Kenric walks into the room not as a supplicant, but as a man who:
- carries honor without bragging
- carries duty without whining
- carries Víl? without dying
- carries an entire kingdom’s political stability on his ridiculously broad shoulders
Every line he says is a mic drop.
When Eamon challenges him, Kenric answers like granite answering wind.
She is trying VERY hard to be a polite, harmless, supporting wife.
Unfortunately:
- her ears are hidden
- her power is not
- her canines keep doing “the thing”
- and her maternal instincts just latched onto an entire family of frightened human women like a wolf adopting stray lambs
It is… beautiful.
And terrifying.
Mostly terrifying.
This sweet, simple young woman—
dismissed, insulted, threatened by Stephen (“useless mouth”? Really?)—
meets Kenric and immediately asks:
“Do you have a horse?”
She is purity incarnate.
Kenric kneels to her level.
Víl?’s predatory instincts take over.
The narrative shifts into:
“Oh, sweetheart, you’re ours now, and we will tear kingdoms apart before anyone harms you.”
Víl? says this with the same tone one uses when mentioning errands.
Sarah flinches.
Kenric quickly translates it into “legal?appropriate husbandese.”
But we all know the truth:
If Stephen shows up, the earth will remember where he died.
Eamon signs.
Just like that:
- Padma is saved
- the nieces are protected
- Stephen is politically thwarted
- Kenric becomes Earl of Padma
- and Víl? gains even more territory to turn into a bureaucratic fortress
Chapter 140 is an emotional triumph wrapped in political steel:
- Kenric wins not through force, but dignity
- Víl? claims a family with the intensity of an apex predator adopting pups
- Jellema navigates deathbed diplomacy like a maestro
- Eamon dies at peace knowing good hands now hold the gate
- Stephen should start digging his own grave now
- And Oskar continues his reign as the kingdom’s most ornamental liability
A magnificent chapter.
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