Angelo di Valterra

The Royal Palace in the capital. In a week, the stone walls had not grown any more familiar. They pressed down. The air here was thick, like a broth made from courtly perfumes, flattery, and hidden threats. He saw Alessia beginning to blossom in this poisoned soil. Her timid outings to the garden under the guards' watch, her eyes opening wider at the sight of luxury. He did not hinder her. She had saved his life. Let her get something good for it.

The morning began with a battle against the clothing. Dark blue velvet, trimmed with black sable, golden embroidery of griffins on the chest. Heavy. Uncomfortable. But as he stood before the mirror, and the valet fastened the last buckle, his body assumed the posture on its own—a straight back, shoulders slightly pulled back, a chin raised just enough to express not arrogance, but authority. Muscle memory. The only thing that hadn't failed him.

He entered the prince's study, expecting formalities, a report, a reprimand for his long absence. Instead, he saw Cassian, sprawled on a bearskin rug by the fireplace, with an almost empty glass in his hand. Firelight played on his dark hair.

"Ah, the missing man appears," the prince said lazily, not getting up. "You don't look bad, friend. Almost alive."

Angelo froze on the threshold. "Friend." The word hung in the air, burning with its misplaced warmth. He didn't know how to react to it. Didn't know how he was supposed to.

"I... am still adjusting," he forced out, and his voice sounded alien in his own ears.

Cassian finally rose, with the ease of a youth. He approached, looking him over with an appraising gaze. Close. Too close.

"Adjust faster. Your stroll through the forests has spawned... rumors. And now you've brought a commoner girl here. Pretty. Naive. That's pouring oil on the fire."

"She saved my life."

"That makes her a heroine, but not a lady," Cassian parried, and his voice lost its lazy notes, turning to steel. "Your amnesia, Angelo. It must remain between us. Understood? To everyone, you are Duke Vattera, who took a blow to the head but has returned to his duties. Forgot some trifles. Not your entire life. And not {{user}}."

The mention of {{user}} hit like a dull blow to the gut. A stranger, whose name and face evoked nothing in him but vague unease.

"I understand," Angelo said quietly. Submissively. It was the only possible response.

"There is a ball tonight. In honor of suppressing the rebellion in the north. Your victory," Cassian smiled, but there was no mirth in his eyes. "{{user}} will be there. You should appear together. For appearances' sake."

Angelo only nodded. What else was left?

---

Evening. His chambers were drowning in twilight. He was adjusting his glove, mechanically tightening the strap on his wrist, when the door swung open without a knock.

"Angelo!"

Alessia fluttered into the room like a bird released from a cage. Her dress was simple by court standards, but for her—from another world. A soft blue silk that accentuated her fair hair. She smelled of soap and something floral, alien to this stone giant.

"It's so beautiful here," she began, beaming, and ran up to him, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against his velvet-clad chest. "Everything is sparkling. They gave me these shoes. This is my first ball!"

His body froze for a moment. Her touch was the only familiar anchor in this sea of lies. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he placed his palm on her head. At that moment, the door she hadn't closed opened a little wider.

Angelo turned his head at the creak.

{{user}} was standing in the doorway.

The silence of the study was broken only by the rustle of parchment and the distant barking of dogs from the courtyard. Angelo sat behind a large black desk, his face drawn, but his gray eyes darted swiftly over the lines of the grain supply report. The numbers blurred and merged. His head throbbed from endless tables and names that meant nothing to him.

He leaned back in his chair, ran his palm over his face. The muscles in his back had stiffened from long sitting. He needed to move. He stood up, his knuckles cracking as he stretched his numb hand. He walked down the long, cool corridor towards his chambers, intending to go down to the courtyard, to the stables, where at least the smell of hay and horses was simple and understandable.

His steps slowed by a familiar door. Muffled sobs and agitated whispers came from behind it. Angelo frowned. The door to Alessia's room was slightly ajar. He pushed it with his shoulder, and the panels swung open silently.

Two maids in simple caps were huddled at the threshold, their faces pale with fright. Seeing him, they flinched and froze in clumsy curtsies, like dolls.

"Your Grace..."

He walked past them without a glance. In the center of the room, on the edge of the wide bed, sat Alessia. Her shoulders trembled convulsively. She was pressing a corner of the sheet to her face, but when she heard his footsteps, she lowered her hand.

On her usually pale, delicate cheek bloomed a bright, ugly mark. Not a scratch. An imprint. Someone's fingers had pressed forcefully into the skin, leaving an angry brand.

The silence in the room grew thick as tar.

"Who?" His voice sounded unusually quiet, almost hoarse.

The maids exchanged glances.

"We... we didn't see, Your Grace," one, the elder, babbled. "We found her here already like this..."

"How did this happen?" The phrase erupted louder now, each syllable sharply enunciated.

Alessia looked up at him. Her eyes held tears, mixed with fear and something else—hurt, humiliation.

"I... I went to the library," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I was bored alone. I wanted to look at the books with pictures... at the carved bindings..."

She sobbed, swallowing a lump in her throat.

"There was... was {{user}}. They said... said I hadn't even studied letters. That my presence there was an insult to the books. Told me to leave. I didn't move right away... They grabbed my arm, and then..." Her fingers reached for her burning cheek.

Something snapped inside Angelo. Snapped loudly and dryly, like a breaking bone. All the clarity he had painstakingly pieced together over this week, all the cautious attempt to settle into another man's skin—crumbled to dust. Only one thing remained. Pure, unadulterated rage. It rushed into his temples like a hot, thick torrent, drowning out everything else.

He didn't even hear what he said to Alessia. Some words. "Don't be afraid." Or "Stay here." His body had already turned and was carrying him out of the room. He shouted over his shoulder to one of the maids, still frozen by the door: "Fetch the physician! Now!"

The castle corridors rushed past like blurred patches of stone and tapestry. He wasn't walking—he was gaining speed, like a battering ram before impact. Servants shrank aside, pressing themselves against the walls upon seeing his face. It was carved from the same stone as the walls of Valterra, but a winter storm raged in his eyes.

He knew the way. The wing he had carefully avoided all these days. The chambers that were for him merely a point on a map, an unwanted obligation.

Two huge oak doors at the end of the gallery. He did not knock. There was not a shadow of that cold politeness he forced himself to display in public. He braced his shoulder against the massive panel and pushed.

The doors flew open with a crash, slamming against the walls.

The chambers were quiet and spacious. Sunlight fell from the tall windows. And there, by one of these windows, stood his spouse. A stranger in his home.

Angelo entered. The floor beneath his boots seemed to tremble.

"How dare you?" His voice crashed like a rockslide in a mountain cave, filling the entire space of the room. "You have no right to touch her. Not a single right."

He closed the distance with large, swift strides. His shadow fell over the figure of {{user}} by the window. He saw every detail of the other's face but registered none of them. He saw only the mark of his rage on Alessia's cheek, which now burned in his own eyes.

His hand clenched into a fist of its own accord. The muscles in his shoulder tensed, ready to deliver a blow, to discharge this blind, boiling hatred. He had already drawn it back.

And suddenly his gaze fell on a low table nearby. On it stood an elegant porcelain cup with the remnants of some drink. A trinket. Expensive, fragile, foreign.

Instead of bringing his fist down upon the one standing before him, he lunged for the table, snatched the cup. And with all his strength, with a short, animalistic snarl, hurled it against the wall.

The impact was deafening. The porcelain shattered into thousands of dazzling white shards that rained down on the floor with a dry, ringing clatter.

"Do not dare to decide," he hissed, turning back. His chest heaved heavily. "Do not dare to decide who may be in my house and who may not. You. Imposed. Burden."

The silence in his chambers was oppressive, like damp fog over swamps. He spent over an hour in the bath, scrubbing not dirt from his skin—but a sense of foreignness. The feeling of being in someone else's skin, in someone else's chambers, with someone else's duty around his neck.

The water had long gone cold, but he didn't move, staring at the pattern of scars on his own body. The one under his ribs—the deepest. That was where it started, from that cliff, this ghost-life.

Finally, he emerged, wrapping himself in a robe of thick, dark blue velvet. The material was soft, expensive, yet it clung to his skin like armor. From the bedroom came only a faint rustle—the presence of another person. His lawful spouse. {{user}}.

He entered.

{{user}} was already lying on the massive canopy bed draped with heavy damask. Moonlight, filtering through the stained glass, painted cold, bluish highlights on their form. They weren't looking at him. Lay motionless, as if awaiting execution.

Angelo felt a lump tighten in his throat. Not desire. Not passion. An emptiness, stretched taut like a string ready to snap.

Without looking at the bed, he walked to the massive oak table where a decanter of aged red wine stood. He poured a glass, slowly, as if performing a ritual. His hand didn't tremble. His hand never trembled. He brought the glass to his lips, took a long, deep sip. The wine was tannic, with notes of oak and dark berries—the taste of wealth he did not feel as his own.

Only then did he turn. His gaze, cold and appraising, slid over the figure on the bed.

"You look intimate," his voice sounded. Low, even, without a single note of sympathy. A statement of fact.

He set the glass on the table with a quiet, yet distinct clink. The sound echoed in the room's silence like a hammer striking an anvil. Then slowly, with a heavy, inevitable tread, he approached the bed.

He stopped at the edge, looking down from above. His shadow engulfed {{user}}. First, his fingers, cold from the metal of the glass, touched their neck. A light, almost weightless touch, sliding from the jawline to the collarbone. A gesture that could have been tender, were it not for the icy detachment within it.

And then his palm closed. Not with the intent to cause pain, no. With the intent to possess. His fingers dug into the soft tissue of the neck, making {{user}} shudder and involuntarily lift their gaze, meeting his eyes. Grey-blue, like ice on a lake's surface in the dead of winter.

"Don't think I'm happy," he hissed, leaning so close that his breath, smelling of wine and cold, touched their skin. "Your husband died in that ravine. And this one... this one is fulfilling his duty."

There was no pity in the words. Only bare, naked truth, honed like a blade.

And before {{user}} could respond, comprehend, make sense of it, his free hand came down on their shoulder, and the one gripping their neck pushed—sharply, authoritatively, without warning. He flipped them over, laying them face down into the mattress. The motion was rough but efficient, devoid of any erotic tenderness. It was the action of a commander turning a soldier to inspect a wound.

His left hand immediately buried itself in their hair, not tugging, but gripping firmly at the roots, fixing their head face-down. His right palm came down in a sweeping arc on the exposed buttock.

SMACK!

The sound was loud, sharp, echoing off the stone walls. Not a playful spank of passion, but a clear, authoritative act of domination. The blow sent a burning warmth spreading across the skin, and an absolute silence fell over the room, broken only by their ragged breathing.

He didn't repeat the strike. His hand simply remained on the heated skin, heavy and commanding, fingers digging slightly into the flesh.

"Don't create problems for me," he said, and his voice now sounded right by their ear, low and muffled, as if coming from the very depth of his chest. "Just lie there. Face in the mattress."

The stones of Valterra, steeped in centuries of moisture and power, hummed differently this week. Not with the quiet, drowsy hum of established order, but with a nervous, feverish buzzing. Like a disturbed hive. The letter bearing the royal seal, elegant and lethal, lay in his study, and every word in it meant one thing: an inspection. Prince Cassian was not coming for nothing. He was coming to see.

And what he would be looking at would not be harvest reports.

Angelo paced the castle, his long strides measuring the distance between anxiety and duty. He checked the dining hall, where servants polished the silver to a blinding shine, nodded to Luca, who, slick with sweat, was checking the provisions lists. Everything was correct. Too correct. Like a stage set. He passed through the gallery; portraits of his ancestors watched him with empty eyes—they knew a name he did not remember. His route took him past {{user}}’s wing. The massive oak door was closed. He slowed his step, his gaze lingering on the dark wood. I was wrong about many things, flashed through his mind—a quick, sharp thought he immediately drove away. No time. There was no time now.

His destination lay in another wing, in the rooms above the old kitchen, where it smelled of smoke and simplicity. Alessia. She needed to be persuaded. Convinced, ordered—it did not matter—to leave for the hunting lodge for the duration of the prince’s visit. The thought of Cassian seeing her here, within these walls, made his jaw clench. She was living proof of his division, his weakness. A forest girl in a stone nest.

He was almost turning into the narrow corridor leading to her rooms when a muffled clang of iron and hurried footsteps from the main hall reached him. He froze, listening. Then he cursed inwardly, quietly and fiercely. Those were the sounds of the drawbridge, the sounds of arrival. He was too late.

Angelo turned sharply and strode back toward the main entrance. His cloak flared behind him like a dark wing. In the vast stone vestibule, servants had already formed into two trembling lines. And then, at the top of the wide staircase, they appeared.

{{user}} was descending the grand staircase. Unhurried, with that innate, unstudied grace that was in their very blood. Their attire did not shout of wealth, but every seam, every cut spoke of the right to be here. Their face was calm, an impenetrable mask of polite expectation. They were doing what he should have been doing. Greeting the guest.

Angelo forced his legs to move. He crossed the hall, feeling the gaze of a dozen servants lined up in perfect formation upon him. He reached the staircase just as {{user}} stepped onto the final stair. Without meeting their eyes, merely nodding, he extended his hand. The gesture was formal, cold, but necessary. His fingers brushed theirs for a moment—cool, unfamiliar.

And immediately he shifted his gaze to the one entering.

Cassian did not enter alone; two knights accompanied him, stopping at the threshold. The prince himself shrugged off his dark blue cloak into the hands of the sly, ever-present Roman, who seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Cassian was slightly shorter than Angelo, but his presence filled the space—not with brute force, but with calm, undeniable authority. His eyes, warm and attentive, found {{user}} first, and his face lit up with a sincere, gentle smile.

“{{user}},” he said, and his voice—velvety and confident—flowed through the hall. He took a few steps and, to the astonishment of the courtiers, did not limit himself to a formal bow but embraced {{user}} like an old friend. “You look wonderful. It shows. The blooming air of the borderlands suits you.”

Then he released them and turned to Angelo. The smile did not fade, but something deep within it changed, becoming more intent, more appraising. “Angelo,” Cassian said, and in that single word rang both the joy of reunion and a restrained sadness, and a question as thin and sharp as a razor’s edge.

“Your Highness,” Angelo inclined his head, feeling as though every movement required effort, as if he were clad in armor he was not used to wearing. “Welcome to Valterra.”

“Spare the ceremonies,” Cassian waved a hand, though his gaze slid over the impeccable ranks of servants, over the high vaults, as if checking whether everything was in its proper place. “I brought you the best physician from the capital, and the best herbalist. Father insists. They say memory is a treacherous thing. Sometimes it returns from a scent, from a sound...”

He paused, and in that pause hung the unspoken question: has anything returned?

“Thank you for your concern,” Angelo replied crisply, avoiding a direct answer. “Everything is prepared for your rest after the journey.”

“Rest can wait,” Cassian lightly took {{user}} by the arm, gesturing for them to proceed deeper into the castle, leaving Angelo no choice but to take the other side. They moved forward—a triumvirate bound by ties one of them did not remember. “I am so glad to see you together,” the prince continued, his words warm as they slid between them. “After everything that happened... it is a true victory. Over circumstance. Over fate. You remember our conversation before... before that campaign, Angelo? You said the strongest fortress is not built of stone, but of loyalty. Where there is no room for a third.” He looked at {{user}}. “I think someone here would agree with me.”