Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
After my twin sister recovered and returned to Ashbourne House, my father sent me back to the Western Desert Frontier, afraid I might harm her.
The former fiancé who now hunted corrupt officials had just come over a yellow ridge when he ran straight into me, bent over the dirt with my face to the ground and my back to the sky. He stared so long he almost seemed afraid to recognize me.
“Found yourself a new pastime?”
I yanked the ragged scrap of cloth from my belt and wiped my face. “Mind your own business.”
Then I added, “And congratulations. From now on, you won’t have to keep looking at me like we can’t stand each other. Your real fiancée is back.”
The day I ran into Lucian Vale, I had already spent half a month tending nonexistent crops on the loess slopes of the Western Desert Frontier.
Not that anything had sprouted.
“Found yourself a new pastime?”
Lucian vaulted lightly over the yellow earth ridge, sheathed his blade in one smooth motion, and looked me over from head to toe without giving away a shred of feeling.
We were both standing in the same wasteland, but his raven-embroidered blackcoat was still immaculate.
As for me, I was dressed in coarse homespun, and I’d torn a hole clean through the seat of it digging dirt pits.
My mouth tightened. I fished out the least filthy corner of the rag I kept tucked behind my waist, scrubbed at my face, and turned away.
“Mind your own business.”
Lucian, to his credit, merely grunted in acknowledgment. His gaze shifted past me, tracking the heavy figure in the distance weaving away in a zigzag run like a startled snake.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“My father said I was too restless,” I replied. “He sent me here to settle down.”
Lucian glanced at the endless yellow ridges, then at the sandstorm shrieking past several hills away, and frowned faintly.
“When are you going back?”
“When I’ve settled down enough.”
What my father had really said was:
Twins are an ill omen. This family only acknowledges Vivienne as our daughter. Don’t think I don’t know you’ve been plotting against your sister. If the wealth and luxury of the capital have turned your head, then you can go back to that barren wasteland and keep reflecting there.
I let out a quiet sigh.
If nothing unexpected happened, I would probably be “reflecting” out here for the rest of my life.
Because as long as I ever returned to the Imperial Capital, I would probably still want to kill Vivienne Ashbourne.
“Where are you staying?” Lucian asked.
He had never been a man of many words. Probably an occupational habit.
Men who served as the sovereign’s chief hounds in the Night Raven Office rarely wasted breath.
I pointed toward a tiny black speck beyond two more hills and nearly burst into tears.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
But reason stopped me. Lucian hated me enough already. If I cried, he would only enjoy the spectacle.
Sure enough, he gave another curt hum, drew his blade, and turned to leave.
“Settle down, then,” he said. “I have someone to kill.”
The coarse, freezing wind struck my face full of grit. I swallowed the ache in my chest and called after his retreating back,
“Lucian Vale—congratulations. You won’t have to suffer the sight of me anymore. Your real fiancée has come back.”
That tall figure never paused. He cut straight through the gale, stepped over a dirt pit, and vanished.
A perfect Night Raven man. Fast on his feet.
I pulled out my ragged scrap of cloth and wiped at the tears that would not stop falling.
As expected, one person’s sorrow meant nothing to another.
That night, I bathed with nothing but wind and blowing sand for company.
My hair was still damp when Lucian Vale vaulted over the courtyard wall.
Compared to earlier that day, he looked a little worse for wear. His clothes were wrinkled, one shoulder torn open. He’d probably ended up wrestling someone into a pit.
That was the one thing the desert had no shortage of—holes.
“Something you need?”
Lucian paused in the middle of snapping sand out of his ragged scrap of cloth and lifted his eyes to me.
“There’s no inn nearby. I’m borrowing your place for the night.”
Fair enough. We were in the middle of nowhere. My house might be a ruin, but at least it kept out the wind.
He fetched water and started washing up. Not that I meant to stare, but the yard was tiny, and he clearly had no concern for modesty.
And really, I told myself, it wasn’t as if I’d get another chance.
So I dragged over a stone stool, propped my chin on my hand, and watched properly.
“Where are your servants?”
“They didn’t come.”
He dumped a dipper of water over himself, and my heart pinched a little. That rainwater had taken forever to collect, and who knew when it would rain again.
But then the droplets slid over the ridges of his stomach, clinging to the hard lines there before disappearing beneath his waistband…
I swallowed, very carefully.
All those years, we’d spent our time bickering. Only today had I realized that Lucian Vale was… unexpectedly blessed in certain respects.
“Why didn’t they come?” he asked. “Who takes care of you?”
Takes care of me?
They were all waiting for me to die out here quietly, so there’d be no loose ends left behind.
But there was no chance I would ever say that to Lucian.
The Ashbournes had never wished me well, and Lucian might not wish me well either.
I said nothing. He didn’t press.
When he finished bathing, he pulled on a robe and sat on the stool inside.
Neither of us spoke again that night.
When I woke the next morning, Lucian was already gone.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
I let out a long sigh, warmed a bowl of thin porridge, then headed back up the slope with the bowl in one hand and my hammer over my shoulder.
After crossing three ridges, I realized I couldn’t even find my patch of land anymore.
There must have been a sandstorm in the middle of the night. The seedlings I’d just planted yesterday had been ripped away again.
I sat in the dirt hollow clutching my bowl and cried.
As I cried, I remembered what Vivienne had said to me before I left.
“Clara Ashbourne, I can try to persuade Father to let you stay in the capital. But you need to stop spending every waking moment thinking about how to kill me.”
I scrubbed the tears off my face with savage force, lifted the bowl, and took a huge swallow. Then I shouted into the wind and blowing grit,
“Not a chance! Vivienne Ashbourne, if I ever get the opportunity, I’ll kill you sooner or later!”
The next second I inhaled half a mouthful of sand.
That only made me cry harder.
I am the daughter of Edmund Ashbourne, Lord High Censor.
To be exact, I am the younger of twin daughters.
In the last years of the fallen dynasty, its final emperor had been a twin. People claimed he was cursed, possessed by something unnatural, a monster wearing human flesh who brought calamity wherever he ruled. When the current sovereign overthrew that dynasty, he did it under the righteous banner of purging evil and restoring order.
After that, twins became an ill omen in the eyes of the new regime.
An edict went out through the lands around the Imperial Capital: if twins were born, both children were to be put to death.
Vivienne Ashbourne and I should have died with that law hanging over our cradles. But Lady Ashbourne was frail, and she had conceived us late in life. If this pregnancy failed, House Ashbourne might never have another heir of its blood.
My father was unwilling to risk that. He was close with the master of the Oracle Chamber, so he secretly asked for a reading.
The answer he received was this: of the two children, one was a blessing star and the other a disaster star. If the disaster star were cast away to a barren land and made to suffer every hardship, then the blessing star would shine all the brighter and bring fortune without end.
My parents decided I was the disaster star.
Their reasons were laughable.
Lady Ashbourne delivered Vivienne in a quarter hour. Bringing me into the world took two full hours.
And when Vivienne was born, she seemed to smile at them. I did nothing but open my mouth and wail.
To them, that was proof enough that I had been born to ruin them.