Sheila really managed to sort out the details of my inheritance in just a few days. She worked fast.
“We must first go to Duval. Oh, but we’ll pass through Peylon on the way.”
“What? We’re going to enter Peylon?”
They had just been talking about how they were limiting traffic in preparation for the overflow.
“Castle Varchudar is off-limits,” Sheila calmly explained. “We’ll be using Swanille Manor.”
“We will? Isn’t it still closed this time of year?”
Swanille Manor was only opened for the annual hunting festival. Since cleaning generally got started around my birthday, I didn’t see why it would be open now.
“Actually, Quinevan is staying in Swanille Manor.”
“Really?”
What was he doing there? I had been certain he was in the royal capital. Hadn’t he been avoiding the hunting festival for ages at this point?
Sheila sighed when she noticed how confused I was. “Do you recall when Quinevan visited you at the academy not long ago?”
“Yes, I do. That was because he brought me a fiancé he had picked out, right?”
It was, uh, a lower son of some viscount, I think.
It didn’t seem like pertinent information to me, so I couldn’t remember much about the guy. Heck, partway through, I left everything to Sheila and Thand and took my leave.
“Ever since then, Quinevan has been in the care of our house.”
“Huh?”
How the hell did that happen?
Despite all appearances, that man technically was an earl. Even if they were in the same faction, I didn’t think House Aspozat had the right to abduct an earl.
Guessing what was on my mind, the look on Sheila’s face turned very grim. “If we had left Quinevan as he was, he might have taken his own life before he could cede his position to you. It was an emergency, and we had to act fast.”
“What in the world happened after I left?”
“I’ll tell you...after your succession is complete.”
Hmm. My father always seemed too dense for fear, yet something shocked him enough to make him consider suicide. That’s the bigger surprise here.
Perhaps because of my startlement, Sheila only told me what was going on at Swanille Manor.
“At first, we were keeping him in our domain. However, an unwelcome visitor showed up without permission.”
“Would that be...”
She said visitor, but I got the feeling she meant an intruder with ill intentions. As much as I wanted to ask, I couldn’t.
“In light of that,” Sheila continued, “we moved him from the house he was hiding in, to Swanille Manor. Single-use portals are wonderful things.”
That was the same thing Bear had used to come to the royal capital.
“Those who still think Quinevan is in Aspozat have been walking right into a trap. Let me tell you, it’s providing no end of amusement.”
The intruders weren’t even breaking into the right place. I started to feel bad for the ones who got captured...but then again, they didn’t really deserve my sympathy if they were up to no good.
“Some cursory investigations found that most of them were ruffians who had been paid. As I expected, there wasn’t a paper trail to follow.”
Sheila sounded quite disappointed. If she knew who was behind these intrusions, she genuinely might go banging on their door. If she did, I only hoped she’d invite me for the ride. I’d love to be part of that.
If we were going to pass through Peylon on our way to Duval for the succession, we needed a few days to make sure our schedules lined up. I was also supposed to keep this business a secret from the Aspozat siblings. If they found out we were going to Peylon, one of them would more than likely raise a fuss, asking to go along with us. Not going to Peylon was really eating away at Colny in particular.
But man, I was seriously going to take my father’s title. I thought that was something a bit more...down the road. Wasn’t this normally something that happened after one’s social debut, if not later? What was causing Sheila to hurry it along? Did it have to do with the Mystic Forest?
Sheila never gave me a straight answer when I tried asking. I was willing to believe there was a good reason for that. Probably. I just reaaally wanted to know that reason. There was a chance I’d understand it all once I took the title, but that didn’t ease my nerves.
Honestly, what could possibly be in Duval?
“I guess there’s no point in worrying about it right now.”
Whatever came at me, I’d take it head-on. Just like I always did. I was pretty confident I could overcome this, just I had overcome everything before!