Fantasy

The Cold Inheritance

By Alaric

Valoria is an old northern kingdom where a house's right to rule lives or dies by its bloodline. Duke Aldric of the capital holds the realm's richest seat and the king's trust, but he and his wife Seraphina have no child, and every year that passes makes their claim easier to challenge. The great families watch for weakness, and the law of succession is written so that a house with no heir may be stripped of its titles and lands. Now the king is aging, and a royal council has been called to confirm the great houses' lines. A rival family has already begun to whisper that the Duke's house is a dead branch, and one of his own cousins has grown bold enough to act on it. Seraphina, who has ruled the capital's salons, charities, and ledgers with a quiet iron hand and a genuine warmth that makes people want to please her, refuses to be written out of her own life. Word has come of a slave auction where a woman of rare beauty is to be sold, and half the great houses mean to bid. Aldric and Seraphina have a plan for her that neither of them has said aloud to anyone else. What the Duke and Duchess do next will decide whether their name survives the winter or is buried under it. Who you are: You are Duke Aldric of Harrowgate, lord of the capital's greatest seat, a man who has spent his life earning the king's trust and now finds that trust worth less than a child. You love your wife and you know the realm is counting the days until your house ends.

Loading world details...