"Tulori studied at the academy in Keating," Jocelynn explained. The words sounded feeble and trivial on her lips even as she spoke them, but she kept going in the hopes that, if she got enough of the words out, her sister would understand.

"He made sure I knew that he had," Jocelynn said, unable to keep a trace of bitterness from creeping into her voice even now. "And that his sister had gone across the sea, to study at one of the academies in the Iron Kingdom. He made it sound so grand, and then he talked about our cousins, Micheline and Inry, and how he heard they’d gone to the royal academy in the capital... And he, he asked me how I liked the Royal Academy because he thought I must have gone there too," she said in a very small voice.

Everything that happened after she confessed that she hadn’t gone to any of the academies in the Kingdom of Gaal, much less traveled across the sea, turned into a disaster as Tulori immediately lowered his estimations of the younger Blackwell sister. Clearly, in his mind, Ashlynn was the only Blackwell daughter who had been treasured, and there was little to be gained from courting Jocelynn.

He’d made things even worse, however, when he started talking about her cousin, Micheline, and asking if Jocelynn might be willing to introduce him to her. Or if she knew other young ladies who would make a worthy match for him as the heir to the up-and-coming Leufroy Barony. Someone more ’worldly’ and ’educated’ who could appreciate the ’sophistication’ that he had to offer.

The final twist of the knife had come when he started praising Ashlynn as the sort of woman he was looking for, talking about how impressed he was by the number of books he’d heard that she brought with her and wondering whether they had copies of any of the same texts in their collections.

Yet when Jocelynn had pressed for details about his own library and suggested she might have read the same books, Tulori had only sighed and said that not every book was meant for everyone, and it was too late now to cram an entire wasted youth into the few years she had left to find a partner.

It was as if he couldn’t believe that she’d studied just as hard with her tutors in Blackwell as he had at the prestigious school in Keating, or that she could have learned every bit as much, if not more, in the bustling port city that she called home. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

"Father avoids the royal family like they carry a pox," Ashlynn said, shaking her head at the foolishness of thinking her family would have had anything to do with sending Jocelynn to the royal academy just because her uncle, Count Dylan DuCoumont, had sent his children there. "And Father would never send you to the academy in Trevarthan..."

"Mmm," Jocelynn said, shaking her head sadly. She’d wanted to go and even threw a fit during her twelfth birthday when her father refused, but it really was impossible. "Father apologized for that so many times," Jocelynn said with a wry, half-hearted chuckle. "He even bought me a new pony. But ever since Huchon took the throne of the Duchy, Father said it isn’t safe for us to visit there alone..."

"In fairness," Ashlynn said gently. "Father never intended to start a feud with the next Duke of Trevarthan. Huchon was only third in line until his brothers died..." She left the rest unsaid, but she hardly needed to.

The circumstances under which Huchon Trevarthan’s elder brothers had died, a case of the Red Cough and a hunting accident, had both been unusual enough to draw attention and gossip at the time. The fact that Rhys forbade his daughters from visiting Trevarthan city and that he sent them to visit the outlying isles whenever the Duke visited Blackwell said even more about their father’s relationship with the man he’d once fought a duel with over their mother’s hand in marriage.

"I know, I know," Jocelynn said with a sigh. "And I understood, eventually, once Mother told me how Huchon tried to force her... I, I don’t blame Father for it anymore," she said. "But after dancing with Tulori, I felt horrible, and I complained to Mother about it, so she, she suggested I dance with Serge Otker next..."

Except, she’d done far more than just suggesting that Jocelynn take a dance with the heir to the Otker Barony. She’d spent nearly ten minutes talking about how much she admired Serge’s grandfather for transforming a desolate canyon into a stable trade route between Keating and Lothian March.

Not many men had both the vision to take on a project of such scale, nor the tenacity to see it through, according to her mother. But because of him, a once desolate barony had come to be the wealthiest in Lothian March.

Then, because praising Serge’s family wasn’t enough, she’d gone on to talk at length about how nice it would be for Jocelynn to find a match in Otker, where she would be close to her sister on one side of the canyon and her Uncle Dylan on the other. By the time Countess Maela had walked her daughter over to the Otker table, Jocelynn felt like her mother was ready to sign a betrothal letter on the spot!

"Serge was drunk," Jocelynn said flatly. "He was drunk, and his hands wandered all over me and..."

"Serge is a dead man," Ashlynn said as a whisp of fury slipped past the tight hold she held on her emotions. "No one is allowed to get handsy with you..."

"No, no, it... It wasn’t that bad," Jocelynn said, her heart hammering in her chest as she realized that she might have just condemned the man to die. "He was just, he was awful, but he just, it wasn’t...."

"It is that bad," Ashlynn responded with more heat in her voice than she’d intended. Her eyes flashed a brilliant emerald green, and for a moment, she looked like she was ready to charge down the hall to the chambers where the Otker family was recovering from the events of the evening, but she slowly pulled herself back from the edge as she focused on her sister.

"It is that bad," she repeated. "But it’s your right to deal with him about it, or not, as you see fit. If you want my help, I’ll help you," Ashlynn promised. "But I won’t move against him without your permission." Not openly at least. But, unless the young man did something extraordinary to prove himself worth succeeding his father, Jocelynn’s words had already cost him any chance he might have had at finding a prosperous future in her domain, ruling over his family’s lands.

"No, I, I could have told him not to, and I could have stepped away," Jocelynn said hesitantly. "It’s just that, I didn’t want to cause a scene and embarrass mother or... or..."

"I understand," Ashlynn said, nodding in acceptance as she assembled the pieces together.

When she accepted the arrangement with Owain, she’d made her parents promise to give Jocelynn more freedom to select the sort of man she wanted to marry, and it sounded like both her parents had done her best to do just that... Only, Jocelynn hadn’t received the sort of reception she’d expected in the frontier.

A dark future loomed before her, with a marriage to a man like Serge Otker looming large and Tulori’s unsubtle slights burrowed under her skin... While she’d been busy dancing with Owain and meeting a seemingly endless string of lords and ladies carrying well wishes for her seemingly future, Jocelynn had been simmering in a toxic stew where her own destiny looked grimmer by the hour.

"Did you hate me for it?" Ashlynn asked softly as her hands clenched into fists with her nails biting into her palms. "Is that why you told Owain about my mark? Did you... Did you want to hurt me that night?"