Chapter 127: The Weight of a Duchy
Mirabelle stepped behind Lucien.
Out of all her mates, he was the shortest. Even so, she had to rise onto her tiptoes to drape her arms around his neck and rest her chin on his shoulder.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
She felt his tail twitch excitedly between them. The warmth radiating from his body seeped pleasantly into hers, and the familiar scent of cedarwood and morning dew wrapped around her like a favorite blanket.
"Recharging."
Lucien laughed softly.
His heartbeat was slow and steady against her chest. Resting against him, Mirabelle watched Kaelith and Silas with quiet curiosity, wondering how they’d react to her openly showing affection toward the fox Beastman.
Kaelith’s attention settled on the two of them.
Though, if she was being honest, he seemed to be watching her far more than Lucien.
His posture remained completely relaxed. His tail swayed lazily behind him while he continued dabbing the sweat from his neck with the towel. The towel carried the fresh scent of soap and damp linen as he rubbed it across his skin.
Silas, however, lingered on Lucien a heartbeat longer. For the briefest moment, the edges of his shadow blurred, as though the darkness itself had become unsettled. The air around him seemed to cool for the span of a single heartbeat.
Then the shadows sharpened once more. His gaze found hers. Mirabelle puckered her lips and blew him an exaggerated kiss.
Instantly, the panther’s expression softened.
The playful gesture earned the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Through the bond, she’d felt the brief flare of jealousy. Now... it was gone.
She had realized early on that Silas struggled more than the others with the idea that his female needed more than one mate.
Fortunately, that seemed to have very little to do with Kaelith or Lucien themselves.
If anything, the three males got along surprisingly well.
Still...
Mirabelle made a mental note to keep paying attention. She wanted to regularly check how each of them felt about her affection — both in public and in private.
If problems ever arose, she’d rather notice them early than let resentment quietly grow.
"Why do you need recharging?" Lucien asked. His hand settled gently over hers where they rested across his chest. She could hear the smile in his voice. His thumb idly traced small circles across the back of her hand.
"Oh..." Mirabelle buried her face against his shoulder. "My grandmother."
She inhaled the familiar scent lingering on Lucien’s collar as if it alone could dissolve the lingering tension in her shoulders.
Kaelith wandered over until he was standing beside them.
"That bad?"
Silas joined them a moment later:
"I had the feeling she might be... a difficult woman."
"Difficult doesn’t even begin to describe her," Mirabelle mumbled into Lucien’s shoulder, her words barely intelligible.
Then her ears perked up. She lifted her head again with a small grin.
"But...
I think I handled it pretty well."
A proud grin spread across Kaelith’s face. He raised his fist. Without hesitation, Mirabelle bumped it with her own.
It was something she’d taught them only recently. She still found it oddly adorable how quickly her hyena Beastman had embraced the gesture...
Even though none of them had the faintest idea what it was actually supposed to mean.
"Should we do something to cheer you up?" Lucien asked.
At the same time, one of his hands disappeared behind him. A heartbeat later, warm fingertips brushed teasingly against the inside of her thigh.
A soft, startled squeak escaped Mirabelle before she could stop it. Heat rushed into her cheeks almost instantly.
Fortunately, from where she stood tucked behind Lucien, the soldiers still lingering around the arena couldn’t actually see what he was doing.
Not that it stopped quite a few of them from casting openly envious glances toward the three Beastmen.
Silas slowly turned his head.
Mirabelle didn’t even need to see his face to know exactly what expression he was wearing.
The effect was immediate.
The loafing soldiers suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be. Several spun around so quickly they nearly collided with one another.
At almost the same moment, one of the drill captains raised his voice.
"Enough gawking!
If you’re not back to training this instant, every last one of you will be running thirty laps around the grounds!"
The crowd dispersed with remarkable enthusiasm. Boots pounded across packed sand while shouted apologies echoed through the arena.
Within moments, the center training arena belonged to the four of them.
Mirabelle giggled softly. The sound quickly blossomed into bright, unrestrained laughter. The tension she’d been carrying all morning seemed to dissolve with every laugh.
She let go of Lucien, and the moment she stepped away, he already missed the warmth of her body against his.
Taking a deep breath, Mirabelle tried to compose herself.
"Phew...nI should probably head back.
I still have quite a bit to do."
Immediately, all three of her mates’ expressions darkened. Kaelith reached for her hand. His rough calluses brushed gently across her fingers before their hands intertwined.
"Do you really have to go?"
Like a disappointed little boy, he idly swung their intertwined hands back and forth.
Mirabelle beamed at him.
"I really do."
"We could come with you," Silas offered.
"To visit my grandmother?" Mirabelle raised an eyebrow.
The panther’s expression didn’t change:
"If you’d like us to."
She burst into laughter again.
Yes.nComing here had definitely been the right decision.nHer mood had completely recovered.
"You’d probably be torn apart. I don’t think I’d survive watching that."
"Hey." Lucien looked genuinely offended.
"Weren’t you just watching us fight?"
"I was."
She rose onto her tiptoes and pressed a kiss against his cheek.
"But brute strength won’t get you very far against my grandmother’s will.
But..." A mischievous smile spread across her face. "You could use the time to decide which one of you is visiting my room tonight.
She gave all three of them a playful wink.
Then she turned and sauntered away in remarkably high spirits.
Behind her...
Three Beastmen remained rooted to the spot, staring after her with identical expressions of complete and utter bewilderment.
_____
For the first time, Mirabelle found herself inside one of the castle’s tower rooms.
This particular chamber occupied the very top of the highest tower in Luchsenstein.
And she still couldn’t quite get over how incredible it was.
The only way to reach it was by climbing a narrow spiral staircase built into the side of the tower. The steps wound upward for what felt like far too long, circling around and around until Mirabelle had begun to wonder whether the room at the top was truly worth the effort.
It was.
The staircase emerged directly into the chamber. No door. No railing.
Just a circular opening in the floor that led straight into the room.
Mirabelle climbed the final step...
...and came to an immediate halt. The entire chamber seemed to open around her.
There were barely any walls.
Instead, the outer edge of the room consisted almost entirely of enormous windows stretching from the floor toward the vaulted ceiling, broken only by the pale stone pillars supporting the roof.
From the center of the chamber, one could look in every direction. A complete view of Luchsenstein. Three hundred and sixty degrees of sky, mountains, forest, and distant land.
Mirabelle slowly turned in place, taking it all in.
The wind mage responsible for sealing the windows had truly outdone himself. Outside, the summer heat lay heavily over the land, distorting the distant horizon and turning the castle courtyards below into pale, shimmering shapes.
Up here, however, the air remained pleasantly fresh. Just cool enough to lift the lingering warmth from her skin.
There had to be a powerful wind sweeping around the tower at this height. She could see it in the way the treetops bent beyond the castle walls and in the clouds moving steadily across the bright sky.
Yet only the faintest breath of it entered the room.
A gentle current brushed across her face and stirred the loose strands near her temples, but it wasn’t strong enough to disturb the documents arranged along the waist high shelves or send anything flying across the chamber.
Even the dust seemed reluctant to hurry. Tiny particles drifted lazily through the shafts of sunlight, catching the light whenever they moved.
For a moment, Mirabelle thought it looked as though someone had scattered glitter into the air.
And in the middle of it stood the true reason this tower existed.
A table.
Though calling it a table felt almost insulting.
It was enormous, occupying most of the chamber’s center, and had been carved into the exact shape of Luchsenstein’s territory.
Not merely an outline. A complete three-dimensional model.
Mirabelle approached it slowly. From a distance, she had assumed the surface had simply been painted.
Only when she reached the edge did she realize how intricate it truly was. Every hill rose from the table in miniature. Every valley dipped beneath her fingers.
Rivers cut silver-blue lines through the landscape, their beds slightly recessed into the model. Forests appeared as dense clusters of individually carved trees, their surfaces rough beneath her fingertips. Roads wound between settlements in thin, raised lines, while the villages themselves had been recreated through tiny groups of buildings.
Some consisted of no more than a handful of houses clustered around a well.
Others had small market squares, bridges, walls, or watchtowers.
Mirabelle couldn’t stop touching it.
Her fingers traveled across the land again and again, tracing routes she had already taken and discovering countless others she hadn’t even known existed.