Cas took a step toward him. Goose flesh prickled along his arms. “Faro?” he said in disbelief.
Faro did not look at Cas, instead smoothing some imagined wrinkle from his black tunic. He sat at the end of a long table. By this time, Ventillas had risen slowly from his chair. Eyes on his secretary.
“Faro?” Ventillas, too, had seen the sweat and the terror.
Faro jumped to his feet. “My lord Ventillas?” Sorne remained seated, a hand on Faro’s sleeve, confusion on her face.
Ventillas’ words were drawn out, deliberate. “Three years ago, did a Brisan courier deliver a ransom demand from the Cevalles Pass?”
Faro mumbled something incoherent.
Ventillas snarled, “Speak up!”
The entire hall jumped, Cas included. The only exception was King Rayan, who leaned back in his chair, hand propped on his chin.
Faro stammered, “Yes. Yes!”
“What did you do with it?”
Faro turned frantically to the chamber entrance, where two guards stood by. There was nowhere for him to run. He addressed the king. “Your Grace, I—”
“Oh, don’t look at me,” King Rayan said mildly. “I’m only a guest here. You don’t want to know what I would do, if I were Lord Ventillas.” His expression hardened. “Answer the question.”
“I burned it,” Faro confessed.
“Why?” This from Cas and Ventillas, spoken in the same breath.
Frightened as he was, the look Faro—cheerful, scholarly, gentle Faro—leveled at Cas was full of venom. “She would not look at me when he was near,” he said. “It was always him, since we were children. I only wanted her to see me.”
A stillness had gathered about the chamber. Cas could not speak. His eyes met Sorne’s horrified ones. Both hands were clamped over her mouth, as though trying to hold back a scream.
“Do you mean to tell me,” Ventillas said in a voice more terrifying for how calm it was, “that you allowed three men of Palmerin to be sent to their deaths, condemned my brother to a Brisan prison, because of a girl?”
Cas was trying to comprehend the fact that Faro had not simply ignored the demand for ransom. He had taken the time to pen a response, calling Cas a liar. The vindictiveness of it took his breath away.
Ventillas shoved his chair out of the way. It crashed to the floor. He stalked around the high table, past a frozen queen and a wide-eyed horse thief. Before he even stepped from the dais, he yanked his dagger free of his belt. Seeing it, Faro cried out and tried to flee but stumbled and landed on his knees, hard. Those closest to him scattered.
“Please, please don’t,” Faro begged. Ventillas grabbed him by the collar, exposing his throat. “Gah—!”
“Ventillas,” Cas said.
Ventillas whipped his head around to glare at Cas, who watched him blink through a haze of fury. Whatever he saw in Cas’ expression had him saying, “No. Don’t think to ask for mercy after what he’s done.”
“Not for him.” Cas stood alone in the center of the hall. He was barely aware of the onlookers. There was just him and Ventillas and a desperate, weeping Faro. But that was not true either. There were three others who could no longer speak for themselves, who demanded justice. Jorge, Sans, Arias. They had died in the north, afraid, hundreds of miles from home.
Cas walked over until he was standing by his brother and looking down at a kneeling Faro. He said quietly, “I am sick to death of death.”
“So are we all.” Ventillas was unmoved. “One more won’t matter.” His dagger pressed against Faro’s throat. There was a yelp; a line of blood appeared. Ventillas studied Cas even as rage pulsed at his temples. “What do you propose?” he said abruptly.
His question prompted surprised murmurs. Rarely did Ventillas change his mind once a decision was made.
Faro saw this. He turned to Cas, hopeful. “Please, Lord Cassia, forgive—”
“Be quiet.” Cas did not look at him. The keep had a dungeon, but Cas did not want Faro to remain at Palmerin. He just wanted him gone. He said, “Exile.”
“No.” Ventillas refused outright. Too lenient, his expression said. You will have to do better than that.
So be it. A more fitting punishment. Something between exile and death. Cas’ throat was too dry to swallow. But his words, when they came, were even. “Master Faro, your family has served Palmerin as scribes for the last hundred years. Is that not correct?”
“Yes!” Faro cried. “Faithfully, Lord Cassia! My father and grandfather—”
“In turn,” Cas interrupted, “you have been treated well by my family, have you not?”
Faro eyed the dagger hovering an inch from his throat. “Yes . . . ?”
“Compensated generously, given a home, treasures.” Cas studied the pin on Faro’s tunic. Gold, shaped into two intersecting scrolls. Embedded with a ruby.
“Yes,” Faro whispered.
“You are left-handed, Master Faro. I remember.” They had been taught by the same tutor. Long ago. They had practiced their penmanship together, sitting side by side in the keep’s archives, surrounded by books and ink.
Faro did not answer, only looked mutely from one brother to the other.
“That is the hand you used to deny my ransom,” Cas continued. “To call me a liar. To murder my friends. You will not have that power again.” He looked at Ventillas, saw the barest flicker of surprise before he nodded acceptance.
“Very well.” Ventillas sheathed his dagger. “We’ll do it now.”
“What do you mean—? Oh no! No!” Faro screamed.
Cas made himself watch. It took seconds only. On Ventillas’ order, three men stepped forward. One soldier to hold Faro down by the shoulders. Another to grab his left arm and stretch it flat along the table. The last was Jacomel. Master steward of Palmerin. A soldier in a former life. Expressionless, he unsheathed a sword and brought it down just above the wrist bone, severing the hand cleanly. It lay there, palm up, beside a platter of braised rabbit and a jug of wine, both sprayed with blood.
“And exile,” Cas said again, over the cries that erupted. Sorne screaming. Others violently ill. Supper was over.
Cas walked away. He did not look at the head table and he very carefully did not look at Lena. The guards by the door wore red, men of Palmerin. They stepped aside as he passed, wary. As though they no longer recognized him. Cas did not blame them.
Some days, he barely recognized himself.
7
Cas fled to the stables. He had stopped trembling by the time he pushed open the doors, where the scent of hay and leather filled his nostrils, along with a whiff of horse manure.
“I heard you were back.”
The voice came from his left. A man straddled a bench as he mended a leather harness. The sight of him, alive, unharmed, filled Cas with relief. Jon was the keep’s stablemaster. Eight years older than Cas, he was five feet tall and curly-haired. The late hour and task meant he had exchanged his more presentable clothing for worn trousers and a frayed shirt. He set the harness aside and stood, eyeing Cas from top to bottom, shaking his head.