Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“What?” Darby asked. “What is going on?”
Kerrigan swallowed. “Apparently, at eighteen, I can become head of the household.”
Darby and Hadrian gasped. Helly looked stricken. Clover just appeared confused.
“What exactly does that mean?” Clover asked. “What’s so bad about being head of the household?”
Helly shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong with it exactly. I have been in the Society for more than five hundred years and still find it too big of a responsibility to take on the head of household position for the House of Stoirm. My brother handles the house while I manage the Society. Though I am older and would be in line to take the House, I declined to focus on my duties as a healer and a Society member. I joined the council instead of being head of household.”
“Yes,” Kivrin said stiffly. “That is how it is typically done. Siblings divide the responsibilities, but Kerrigan doesn’t have a sibling.”
“But you yet live,” Darby gasped.
Kivrin frowned. “Yes. I will continue to run the day-to-day operations to ease the burden on Kerrigan.”
Kerrigan wanted to snort. Ease the burden. As if anything could really do that at this point.
“But why transfer it at all?” Helly asked. “She is eighteen and dealing with so much at her age. Couldn’t you wait a hundred years or so for her to come more fully into her own? There is so much for her to learn before handling this responsibility, Kivrin.”
“I have considered all of the options.”
“Tell them,” Kerrigan said with a sigh. “Just tell them.”
Kivrin looked stricken. “All right. There is a geas against the house. It says that anyone who holds the head of household but is not a member of the Society will lead the house into ruin.”
Helly’s hand went to her mouth in shock. “Who would do such a thing?”
“My mother.”
“Oh dear,” she whispered. “I knew Mistress Enara, and that does unfortunately sound like something she would condone. I am truly sorry, Kivrin. Why did you not tell us? Perhaps we could have found a way to break it.”
“You can’t break a geas,” Hadrian said quickly. He ran a hand back through his blue hair. “I have been studying them with Fallon. They’re very rare, but he had a client request to break one that resulted in a pox. They cannot be broken, only fulfilled.”
The weight of that hung heavy in the room. That settled that. It was as she’d feared. She would have to go through with this. It would fulfill the terms of the geas, and the house would flourish once more. Or so she hoped.
“I’m doing it. That’s what’s happening,” Kerrigan said, staying everyone else’s objections. “We already had the paperwork drawn up. I need to sign before witnesses. We asked you, Helly, here as a Bryonican noble to witness and my friends as additional witnesses. I wish no one else to know about this. My life is already frequently at risk. I would prefer not to give anyone else added ammunition. Will you sign?”
Helly rose to her feet. “Of course. Will you take on the responsibilities of the household in name only?”
Kerrigan looked to Kivrin, and he shrugged.
“I’ll manage as much as the geas allows me to,” he said as a not-at-all-satisfying answer.
“Understood,” Helly said.
“Good. Then, let us begin.”
Kivrin walked them all through the arduous paperwork. Hadrian seemed to have more knowledge of how it worked than the rest of them. He had always been the brains of their operation. She’d forgotten how much she missed having his straightforward answers and careful expertise at her side.
Once they were through it all, Kerrigan signed, the witnesses signed, and it was over.
Kivrin poured them each a glass of a rare faerie punch and toasted. “To the new head of the House of Cruse.”
They lifted their glasses, giving cheers to her name. Then, Kerrigan drank deeply. She wished she could drink enough punch to forget this night had ever happened. That she had a new name day. That her life was once again irrevocably altered. That she was now the official leader of her people. She had already felt an obligation to them, but now … it was almost unbearable.
Her friends each gave her a hug before going on their way, leaving her alone with Helly and Kivrin. They were arguing in hushed whispers as she drained her glass of punch. She went for another, but Helly’s voice cleared.
“One is enough for now,” she said.
“Ah, but this is my house,” Kerrigan said, gesturing wildly.
“Not quite,” Helly said.
Kerrigan cocked her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You think signing some paperwork makes this official?”
Kerrigan looked to her father. “But he said …”
He frowned. “I was prevented from telling you the rest.”
“You should grab a cloak,” Helly said. “We take to the skies.”
“To the skies?”
“Yes, Kerrigan,” Kivrin said.
They marched toward the back of the estate. She grasped her cloak in her hands and followed them in confusion. She’d felt prepared for all of this. Sign the paperwork, toast her good fortunes, and then get happily drunk to forget it had happened. Why couldn’t it ever be that easy?