A Crown in Ash (The Ostler's Boy Book 3)

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was abnormal how many different faces made up the Duke's staff. I had met his butler and a pair of maids the night before. In the morning, it was a long line of random footmen, kitchen staff, and otherwise background workers while I brooded through his home's halls.

But no one walked beside me while I wandered, which was a foreign concept, as I had always found Ser Willoughby nearby. On the handful of days he had been absent, somebody else was sent in his place to watch everything I did, to open doors for me.

I had been awakened by one of the girls who drew my bath, and while she tended to my hair and offered to weave it together in whatever fashion I'd desired, she didn't stay past the primping. Only long enough to tell me that her name was Eve and that she'd been accustomed to the Oreian style, as the Dowager often wore braids with the merge of customs in Gosil. The Duke and his mother were known to host her three young nieces during the springtime when they visited, and they always brought a new request.

But all I could think of was that there were so many people in the castle. Yet, there was enough distance between actual bodies to make it feel hollow and vast. I wondered if it had ever been a place of warmth for Askar. He'd told me he'd been lonely.

My shoes had been washed, the clothes the Dowager had promised me had been provided, and despite opting into the pants and burnt-pumpkin-colored dress, I was starting to feel like myself. Still... I was alone.

Someone had called me for breakfast, but I had no appetite. I knew I should eat, but I was helplessly past the point of no return and was more concerned with identifying the persons on the wall of paintings I had stumbled upon.

I held eye contact with one of the men who, based on the age of the oils used, was likely Askar's grandfather or granduncle. The art style made me think of Mr. Henrik, and that made me think of my brother. I wondered if Will had finally worked up the nerve to expose his crush to the artist, and I missed him so very badly.

I missed my parents. I missed Sam. I missed Ser Willoughby and Ser Elías; I missed the ostler and the cook, and I really missed Daisy. I was as far away from every one of them as I had ever been– and they were all in different places beyond my reach. No one was close to where I was. I barely knew where I was, and every bend and shadow in Askar's castle reanimated the life of a forgotten memory I'd shared with each of them. Chasing my brothers up the stairs... Breaking Daisy with my father... The first time my mother told me she was proud of me.

The first time I realized I would never be Queen like her.

The subject of the painting was a pleasant-looking man, despite his oddly bushy mustache, and that consideration sparked me to wonder what my Duke would look like with one of his own. But when he appeared at the opening of the corridor, sunlight bursting from behind his broad shoulders, I scowled.

"Am I not allowed to be down here?" I asked half-heartedly. "I will move."

"Good morning to you, Your Highness. There is breakfast in the dining room," he said.