Chapter 25: A 3 step plan should be easy, right?
The more Cass read up on his new family, the more he was glad he was an orphan. Parents and family lines felt like a lot of damn work. At least when it was just him and his sister, he didn’t have to pussyfoot around and guess if she liked him. They could have a civilized conversation, sometimes with their fists, and that would be the answer.
When it came to the Blackburn’s?
It felt like someone should have at least done an underground fighting ring or something. There was so much angst, rage, and betrayal in the family line that it felt insane.
Apparently, like he had heard in the novel, the Ridgewood’s, Vespertine’s, and Blackburn’s had helped the royal family form this country. That was why they were given the title of Duke, and also how they had slowly whittled away all of the power that the royal family had over time.
The Vespertine’s were involved with the official religion of the country, and several countries around them as well. They had far reaching power when it came to faith, and that was a threat.
The Ridgewood’s were a little different in the way that they were tied to the royal family as guards. Most of the heads of the family became the bodyguards of the next monarch of the country, while also having an absurd amount of military power. More than any other noble was allowed.
The Blackburn’s were a classic merchant family type. While also being book smart and knowledgeable. They often took on the position of financial backers or heads of the magic tower. It was only Cass’ generation where everything was so messed up.
Cass wasn’t the head of the magic tower, despite his level of magical prowess, Lord Ridgewood wasn’t the bodyguard of the next monarch, and Lord Vespertine wasn’t the next head of the family, i.e., the next High Priest.
This was due to the Demon King appearing, and the declaration across several religions of a noble quest being handed down to a hero of legend. That hero, of course, was Lady Fiona. Who, like Cass knew because he read the book, was secretly the bastard child of the current King.
If the Demon King wasn’t defeated then it could lead to the end of the world. That, of course, was what the ’gods’ didn’t want, and so, Lady Fiona was given the divine marker, and a group was formed.
Lord Blackburn wasn’t actually supposed to be in the original group, but he’d petitioned quite hard to join. They technically already had a magic user in Draken, but he was just a guy who had shown up with Lady Fiona that no one knew. Using that excuse, Lord Blackburn had gotten himself onto the team, and thus, the story began.
They quested, they travelled, they learned about each other, and eventually, Lady Fiona got married to the four men. This was because multiple spouses were completely fine. Either way, too. You could be a man with multiple wives, or a woman with multiple husbands.
You just couldn’t be gay, for some reason.
If you liked the same gender? Blasphemy. A big no no. But it wasn’t as if it was written into the religion, no, it was written into law by the government. The ’gods’ couldn’t care less who you boinked, as long as you did boink. Very sex positive, they were.
The Blackburn’s, like Cass had said, were merchants by trade. No one wanted to make them angry because they ran half of the country’s banks, guilds, everything. If you saw something that made money? The Blackburn’s were somehow behind it.
That included illegal organisations, but that was an open secret. No one wanted to crack down on them because they could fuck up everything very easily. It made them good and bad guys at the same time.
Until an incident right around Cassian Blackburn’s birth.
His Father had married a wealthy opera singer. She came from a good background, her Mother was a mage, and her Father was a trader from overseas. She was beautiful, stunning even, and in the beginning, everything was fine.
Then, after a few years of marriage, she became pregnant, and everything went downhill after that. She apparently went ’crazy’ and revealed shortly after Cassian’s birth that she was black mage, a user of dark magic that dealt with demons, and killed herself by jumping off the top of the manor.
Cassian’s Father went insane from grief and rage, and his Father, Cassian’s Grandfather took over the Dukedom. That was his backstory. At least, the public backstory.
Where the Blackburn family had held a bad reputation before, it was forever tainted by Lord Blackburn’s Mother’s actions. She had done a really spectacular job of fucking up her son’s life. Cass wondered if she had actually cared about him at all, but he would never be able to ask her that.
She was already dead.
It also probably wouldn’t bring Lord Blackburn any peace of mind either, so he wasn’t going to sweat the small stuff.
What it did mean was that all of the shit that his grandfather had pushed onto him was managing a multimillion dollar company, basically, and Cass was fucking terrified. He’d never had to deal with that much money in his life.
It also explained all the black. Apparently, black was an expensive material, along with the silver. So Lord Blackburn walking around decked out in both colours proved he was wealthy without having to say a word. It disgusted him, but it was one way to say what he needed without opening his mouth.
Cass hated that he would have to do something similar, but he’d bite his tongue. He was willing to put up with a little bit if it meant he could finish this quickly.
Cass didn’t know where he was in the story yet. He had a feeling that they were past the halfway point since he was married already and that happened about a third of the way through the original book, but until he found out Lord Blackburn’s plans, he wouldn’t know for sure.
Dates weren’t as important in the book as he remembered them being, so that wasn’t going to help him in the slightest. Events should have helped, but it turned out that Lady Fiona was terrible at remembering them.
She only remembered the end of the year ball because she and Lady Ava got very dressed up together, but that was it. That happens every year. It wasn’t something Cass could use to figure out where they were in the book since the quest for the Demon King took over 3 years to complete!
So, with little information on that side, Cass needed to find out what Lord Blackburn was up to. He decided, from his own capabilities, and Lord Blackburn’s previous actions, that what the ’gods’ wanted him to do was rehabilitate Lord Blackburn’s image.
That was his first quest. Try to at least make the Blackburn family look as good as they had before his Mother tainted the family name. If he made it look better than that, that would be great.
But it had been over 20 years since she had died, and the Blackburn name was still tainted. It was going to be a long fucking road to redemption.
The second thing on his list was to get a divorce. Reason being, he was already doing all the work of a Duke, without the title. He was bound to get it sooner or later, and it wasn’t urgent for him at the moment.
Honestly, his Grandfather should have handed it over as soon as he had gotten married as was written down by the noble code of inheritance, but hey, Cass couldn’t blame the guy. Without solid evidence that he was boinking Lady Fiona, who would hand over a title?
Cass had no plans to do so, so that was his second mission.
He hoped that if he divorced her, that would bring down the animosity levels of the men around him. He could tell that they were already at each other’s throats for the affection of Lady Fiona, who for some reason, paid none of them that much attention.
Honestly, it felt like she spent more time with Lady Fiona then her husbands, but who was Cass to judge? He’d never even been in a relationship before. Maybe that’s just how it was? His sister was pretty close with her friends, but it wasn’t like he could use her relationship as the standard.
Her husband travelled for work quite a bit, and was dispatched to different countries all the time to help with wars. He wasn’t exactly a ’normal’ guy.
Granted, Lady Fiona had married three heirs to some pretty big houses, and a fucking-
No. it was fine. He couldn’t judge. He was hoping that, either way, the divorce would help his reputation with the men, and that they might be able to get along. He’d liked Lord Ridgewood the most out of the four husbands, besides Lord Blackburn. Lord Ridgewood seemed to have a good head on his shoulders. He was calm, collected.
Lord Vespertine was a snake in sheep’s clothing. Cass didn’t believe for one second he wasn’t cheating on his wife behind her back. He was just too slimy. He was also too handsome. His good looks made Cass distrust him greatly. Like a pretty doll, Cass got a strange feeling from him when he spoke with him.
Then there was Draken. Fucking Draken. Crass, rude, powerful, he barely wore the veneer of being a human, and even then, he behaved more like a vagabond than the noble he was pretending to be.
In fairness, even the royal family recognised that he was a powerful creature, and often used his own pride against him to hold back the others of his kind. It should have been sad, but Cass could remember the story he told Lady Fiona of how he once was so bored at a party that he’d roasted half of the attendees and eaten them, then made the others into his slaves.
He’d been laughing in the book. Lady Fiona probably made it sound a lot better than it actually was, if Cass was honest with himself.
Cass’ third thing he needed to do was change the ending. It was something vague, but he assumed it meant not stealing the relic. Which meant, he just needed to not know where it was. Thus, leaving the hero’s party as soon as he could without hurting them was the best option.
Basically, it went like this.
1. Get a divorce.
2. Rehabilitate the Blackburn name.
3. Leave the hero party
Not necessarily in that order, but that was the gist of it. He needed to get out of this castle, away from everyone else, and then maybe the story would change. It would mean he wouldn’t die at the end of the book, and he didn’t steal the relic.
Hopefully, this wasn’t going to be a hard thing to do. It was a short list. It would probably be fine.