The corridor outside Sheila's room was empty when Duke Karmis stepped through the door.
The hospital was quiet at this hour—the nurses had made their rounds, the doctors had retreated to their offices, and the only sounds were the distant murmur of voices and the soft tap of rain against the windows. The gas lamps had been turned down, their flames low, casting long shadows that stretched across the floor like reaching hands.
He walked slowly, his footsteps echoing on the polished stone, his hands clasped behind his back. His body ached—the old injury in his knee, the stiffness in his shoulders, the weight of two months of sleepless nights spent in a chair by his granddaughter's bed. He was sixty-three years old, and he felt every year of it.
She's alive, he thought. She's awake. She's going to be all right.
But for how long?
The question gnawed at him, a worm in the fruit of his relief. The King was still on the throne. The Crown was still hunting for scapegoats. And Sheila—young, fragile, barely twelve years old—was caught in the middle of a game she didn't understand.
I should have protected her better.
I should have—
He stopped walking.
The corridor had ended, opening into a small courtyard at the center of the hospital. The rain was falling harder here, drumming on the cobblestones, filling the air with the smell of wet stone and damp earth. A single tree grew in the center of the courtyard, its branches bare, its roots breaking through the flagstones.
Duke Karmis stepped into the rain.
He stood beneath the bare branches, the water soaking through his coat, his hair plastered to his forehead. The cold was sharp against his skin, a reminder that he was still alive, still breathing, still capable of feeling.
The Karmis household, he thought. The great House Karmis. Once one the most powerful family in the kingdom.
Now...
Now they were shadows. Ghosts. A cautionary tale whispered in the halls of the palace.
It hadn't always been this way.
He remembered his father, old Lord Karmis, a man of stone and iron who had ruled the household with an unyielding fist. He remembered his mother, a quiet woman with kind eyes who had died when he was young, leaving him to be raised by tutors and servants and the cold, distant affection of his father.
He remembered taking power at twenty-five, when his father's heart finally gave out. The household had been strong then—allies in every corner of the kingdom, wealth in every bank, respect in every court.
And now?
Now the household was a ruin. A hollow shell. A name that once commanded fear and now commanded only pity.
It had started with his wife.
Eleanor. He had loved her—truly loved her, in a way that he had never loved anyone before or since. She had been beautiful, with pink hair and bright eyes and a laugh that could fill a room. She had been kind, generous, compassionate—everything he was not.
They had been married for six years. She had given him a daughter—Sarah—and for a time, they had been happy.
Then the Black Death came.
He remembered the day she fell ill. The fever. The cough. The way her skin had turned grey and her eyes had gone dim. He had summoned the best doctors in the kingdom, had paid for the most expensive treatments, had prayed to every Source he could name.
Nothing worked.
She died on a Tuesday, in the spring, while the flowers were blooming in the garden. He had held her hand as she slipped away, her fingers cold in his, her eyes fixed on something he couldn't see.
I should have been there more.
I should have spent less time on politics and more time with her.
I should have—
But there was no point in should-haves. She was gone. And he had been alone.
Sarah had been seven years old when her mother died.
He remembered the way she had looked at the funeral—small and pale in her black dress, her eyes red from crying, her hands clasped in front of her. She hadn't spoken. She hadn't wept. She had just stood there, staring at the coffin, as if she couldn't quite believe what was happening.
She blamed me, he thought. She never said it, but I knew. She blamed me for not saving her mother.
Their relationship had never recovered.
He had thrown himself into his work, using the household's affairs as a distraction from his grief. She had thrown herself into her studies, burying herself in books and music and art. They had lived in the same house, eaten at the same table, breathed the same air—but they had been strangers to each other.
I should have tried harder.
I should have reached out.
I should have—
But he hadn't. And the distance between them had grown.
The engagement to the King had been his idea.
He remembered the day he had proposed it—sitting in his study, the fire crackling in the hearth, the weight of the household's future pressing down on his shoulders. The Crown needed allies. House Karmis needed protection. A marriage between Sarah and the King would benefit everyone.
I thought it was a good match.
I thought she would be happy.
I was wrong.
Sarah had been furious. She had shouted at him, accused him of selling her like cattle, of caring more about politics than about her happiness. He had tried to explain—tried to make her see reason—but she wouldn't listen.
She was young. She was stubborn. She was her mother's daughter.
Three days after the annunciation of her engagement, she had run away.
He remembered the note she had left on the kitchen table—short, cold, final.
"I'm sorry, Father. I can't do this. I can't be what you want me to be. Don't look for me."
He had looked anyway. He had searched for months, hired detectives, offered rewards, followed every lead. But Sarah had vanished as if she had never existed.
She didn't even say goodbye.
She didn't even give me a chance to explain.
She just... left.
He had heard from her only once in the years that followed.
A letter, delivered by a messenger he didn't recognize, postmarked from a small town in the northern provinces. The handwriting was hers—he would have recognized it anywhere—but the words were cold, distant, formal.
"I am well. I am married. I have a family. Please do not contact me."
He had written back, of course. Dozens of letters, each one more desperate than the last. None of them had been answered.
She didn't want me in her life.
She didn't want me to know her children.
She didn't want me to be her father.
The thought still stung, even after all these years.
And now—now there was more.
Sheila had told him about Leximus. The adopted son. The brother she had grown up with, the brother she had loved, the brother who was now a wanted criminal.
Sarah took in a child, he thought. A child who wasn't her own. A child with no family, no history, no past.
And she never told me.
She never gave me the chance to help.
He didn't know why the Crown was after the boy. He didn't know why the Audit had declared him a terrorist. He didn't know why the King had decided to make him the scapegoat for the bombing.
But he knew one thing: the Karmis household was cursed.
It had to be.
What other explanation could there be? His wife had died young. His daughter had run away. His granddaughter had nearly died in an explosion. And now his daughter's adopted son—a boy he had never known, never met, never even heard of—was being hunted by the Crown as a mass murderer.
The Karmis household is cursed, he thought again. Cursed from the moment I took power.
Cursed by my ambition. My pride. My failures.
He looked up at the bare branches of the tree, the rain dripping from the twigs, the grey sky pressing down.
I should have been a better husband.
I should have been a better father.
I should have been a better grandfather.
But I wasn't. And now...
He sighed.
The sound was soft, almost lost in the rain, but it carried the weight of decades of regret.
"The Karmis household is cursed," he said aloud. "Cursed, and I don't know how to break it."
He stood in the rain for a long time.
The water soaked through his coat, through his shirt, through his skin. The cold seeped into his bones, a familiar ache, a reminder of his mortality. The tree above him offered no shelter.
I need to be strong, he thought. For Sheila. For the household. For the memory of Sarah.
But I'm so tired.
I'm so very tired.
He turned and walked back toward the hospital, his footsteps heavy on the wet cobblestones.
The rain continued to fall.
The grey sky pressed down.
And Duke Charles Karmis, head of the once-great House Karmis, felt the weight of his household's curse pressing down on his shoulders like a mountain.