Chaol kept his face blank and his shoulders thrown back as his father surveyed him. The small breakfast room in his father’s suite was sunny and silent; pleasant, even, but Chaol remained in the doorway as he looked at his father for the first time in ten years.
The Lord of Anielle looked mostly the same, his hair a bit grayer, but his face still ruggedly handsome, far too similar to Chaol’s for his own liking.
“The breakfast is growing cold,” his father said, waving a broad hand to the table and the empty chair across from him. His first words.
Chaol clenched his jaw so hard it hurt as he walked across the bright room and slid into the chair. His father poured himself a glass of juice and said without looking at him, “At least you fill out your uniform. Thanks to your mother’s blood, your brother is all gangly limbs and awkward angles.”
Chaol bristled at the way his father spat “your mother’s blood,” but made himself pour a cup of tea, then butter a slice of bread.
“Are you just going to keep quiet, or are you going to say something?”
“What could I possibly have to say to you?”
His father gave him a thin smile. “A polite son would inquire after the state of his family.”
“I haven’t been your son for ten years. I don’t see why I should start acting like one now.”
His father’s eyes flicked to the sword at Chaol’s side, examining, judging, weighing. Chaol reined in the urge to walk out. It had been a mistake to accept his father’s invitation. He should have burned the note he received last night. But after he’d ensured that Minister Mullison was locked up, the king’s lecture about Celaena making a fool out of him and his guards had somehow worn through his better judgment.
And Celaena … He had no idea how she’d gotten out of her rooms. None. The guards had been alert and had reported no noise. The windows hadn’t been opened, and neither had her front door. And when he asked Philippa, she only said that the bedroom door had been locked all night.
Celaena was keeping secrets again. She’d lied to the king about the men she’d killed in the warehouse to rescue him. And there were other mysteries lurking around her, mysteries that he’d better start figuring out if he was to stand a chance of surviving her wrath. What his men had reported about the body that had been found in that alley …
“Tell me what you’ve been up to.”
“What do you wish to know?” Chaol said flatly, not touching his food or drink.
His father leaned back in his seat—a movement that had once made Chaol start sweating. It usually meant that his father was about to focus all of his attention on him, that he would judge and consider and dole out punishment for any weakness, any missteps. But Chaol was a grown man now, and he answered only to his king.
“Are you enjoying the position you sacrificed your lineage to attain?”
“Yes.”
“I suppose I have you to thank for being dragged to Rifthold. And if Eyllwe rises up, then I suppose we can all thank you as well.”
It took every ounce of will he had, but Chaol just took a bite from his bread and stared at his father.
Something like approval flickered in the man’s eyes, and he took a bite of his own bread before he said, “Do you have a woman, at least?”
The effort it took to keep his face blank was considerable. “No.”
His father smiled slowly. “You were always a horrible liar.”
Chaol looked toward the window, toward the cloudless day that was revealing the first hint of spring.
“For your sake, I hope she’s at least of noble blood.”
“For my sake?”
“You might have spat on your lineage, but you are still a Westfall—and we do not marry scullery maids.”
Chaol snorted, shaking his head. “I’ll marry whomever I please, whether she’s a scullery maid or a princess or a slave. And it’ll be none of your damn business.”
His father folded his hands in front of him. After a long silence, he said quietly, “Your mother misses you. She wants you home.”
The breath was knocked out of him. But he kept his face blank, his tone steady, as he said, “And do you, Father?”
His father stared right at him—through him. “If Eyllwe rises up in retaliation, if we find ourselves facing a war, then Anielle will need a strong heir.”
“If you’ve groomed Terrin to be your heir, then I’m sure he’ll do just fine.”
“Terrin is a scholar, not a warrior. He was born that way. If Eyllwe rebels, there is a good chance that the wild men in the Fangs will rise up, too. Anielle will be the first place they sack. They’ve been dreaming of revenge for too long.”
Chaol wondered just how much this was grating on his father’s pride, and part of him truly wanted to make him suffer for it.
But he’d had enough of suffering, and enough of hatred. And he hardly had any fight left in him now that Celaena had made it clear she’d sooner eat hot coals than look at him with affection in her eyes. Now that Celeana was—gone. So he just said, “My position is here. My life is here.”
“Your people need you. They will need you. Would you be so selfish as to turn your back on them?”
“The way my father turned his back on me?”
His father smiled again, a cruel, cold thing. “You disgraced your family when you gave up your title. You disgraced me. But you have made yourself useful these years—made the Crown Prince rely upon you. And when Dorian is king, he’ll reward you for it, won’t he? He could make Anielle a duchy and bless you with lands large enough to rival Perrington’s territory around Morath.”
“What is it that you really want, Father? To protect your people, or to use my friendship with Dorian to your gain?”
“Would you throw me in the dungeons if I said both? I hear you like to do that to the people who dare provoke you these days.” And then there was that gleam in his eyes that told Chaol just how much his father already knew. “Perhaps if you do, your woman and I can exchange notes about the conditions.”
“If you want me back in Anielle, you’re not doing a very good job of convincing me.”
“Do I need to convince you? You failed to protect the princess, and that has created the possibility of war. The assassin who was warming your bed now wants nothing more than to spill your innards on the ground. What’s left for you here, except more shame?”
Chaol slammed his hands on the table, rattling the dishes. “Enough.”
He didn’t want his father knowing anything about Celaena, or about the remaining fragments of his heart. He wouldn’t let his servants change the sheets on his bed because they still smelled like her, because he went to sleep dreaming that she was still lying beside him.
“I have worked for ten years to be in this position, and it’ll take far more than a few taunts from you to get me back to Anielle. And if you think Terrin is weak, then send him to me for training. Maybe here he’ll learn how real men act.”
Chaol shoved his chair away from the table, rattling the dishes again, and stormed to the door. Five minutes. He’d lasted less than five minutes.
He paused in the doorway and looked back at his father. The man was smiling faintly at him, still taking him in, still assessing how useful he would be. “You talk to her—you so much as look in her direction,” Chaol warned, “and, father or not, I’ll make you wish you’d never set foot in this castle.”
And though he didn’t wait to hear what his father had to say, Chaol left with the sinking feeling that he’d somehow just stepped right into his father’s snare.