Ventillas said, “We traveled together to Brisa, Abril and I. She was good company. The journey home was hard on her.”
“Must you meet with her, dearest?” Queen Jehan asked Lena, a small frown settling between her brows. “You’ve spoken to the rest of us. Surely you have enough for your history?”
Lena hesitated. “Grandfather would have wanted me to speak with her.”
“She’s right, Jehan.” King Rayan smiled at his sister. “He was very thorough with his research, your grandpapa. You’re a lot like him.”
Lena smiled, as though he had offered her the greatest of compliments. She said, “I won’t pester, Jehan.”
Queen Jehan placed a hand on Lena’s cheek. “The last thing you are is a pest.” Her hand fell away. “It’s just . . . dear Abril, she’s become fragile. She is not the person she used to be.”
9
Cassia.”
The voice came from a figure huddled in the gloom by the back stairwell. She sat on the stone with her knees drawn close to her chest.
Sorne.
“I didn’t know.” Her voice rose just above a whisper. The flower wreath she had worn to supper lay by her slippers, the blooms torn and flattened, as though she had ripped it from her head and flung it against a wall. She was crying. She had been crying a long time.
This was not Sorne’s fault. She had not known about the ransom demand, or Faro’s deception. In this, she was as blameless as Cas. But seeing her reminded him of the men who had been lost. What Cas knew and what he felt warred with each other. “I know you didn’t. It’s done.”
“Cassia. You blame me. Everyone does. You want me to go.”
Only a few firefly globes remained. The rest of the keep had gone to their beds, and the corridor was dimly lit. His bedchamber was just there. He could see the door. Turning away from it, he went to the stairwell to crouch before Sorne. His words were low. “We were friends once, you and I.”
“More than that.” Sorne grabbed his hand. “You kissed me. I know you remember.”
He had kissed her. He did remember.
Cas tried to pull his hand away. She only tightened her grip. “Sorne, it was three years ago—”
“Does it matter?” She leaned closer, imploring. “When you went missing, I could not believe you were dead. But one year became two, then three. My heart was broken, Cassia. Then you came back, and it must mean—”
“Stop.” Carefully, he peeled her fingers from his. “You must stop. Listen to me. If someone is blaming you for what Faro did, if you are being treated poorly, I will put an end to it. This is your home. No one will make you leave.” He rose, feeling like the scum that coated the surface of a cesspool, and forced himself to say the next words. “But if you feel that you must go, start somewhere else . . . in Elvira perhaps, I will help you.”
Sorne looked as though he had struck her. “You want me to go.”
“I want you to be happy. To live your life.”
Her lips twisted. “Far away from you.”
“That isn’t what I—”
She scrambled to her feet, angrily dashing the tears from her cheeks with a fist, then whirled around and disappeared down the stairwell. She left the wreath behind.
When Cas turned, Bittor was standing in the corridor. Seeing Cas’ expression, he held up both hands. “I was heading for the stairs, minding my own business. I was not creeping. Though if you ask me—”
“I didn’t.” Cas pushed past him toward his bedchamber.
Bittor spoke to his back. “It’s a bad business what happened. I would have cut off both his hands.”
For once, his words held no trace of mockery. Cas turned, but Bittor was already in the stairwell, footsteps fading into the night.
Cas dreamt of rocks and water and woke up flailing. He threw the covers aside and sat up. The chamber appeared the same as yesterday. Fireflies on the windowsill. The bedclothes in disarray. Only this time, Ventillas was at the table by the window, ledger before him, quill in hand. Doubtless trying to complete some important task before his mad brother woke up in a sweat.
Again.
Ventillas had turned in his chair. They regarded each other across the dimly lit room.
“How long?” Cas asked. Had he slept another day away?
“An hour only.”
Which was a different sort of misery. Cas flopped onto his back. “I can sleep on the floor.”
“If you were disturbing me, I’d tell you.” A short silence, followed by “Is it the same dream every time?”
“Yes.”
Ventillas set the quill aside. Waiting.
Cas kept his eyes on the ceiling as he spoke. “They had me laying the bridge’s foundation. Moving boulders from the riverbank into the water.” He did not need to explain this to Ventillas, who, like their father before him, served as the kingdom’s chief military engineer. Ventillas was no stranger to building bridges or, when necessary, to burning them down. “I was tamping the stones when they shifted and pinned me. I made it back up eventually, but not before swallowing half the river.”
“No one helped you?”
Cas snorted. “I was an Oliveran surrounded by Brisan criminals. No one helped. The dream . . . it’s of being trapped by the rocks, and taking that first deep breath underwater. I thought that was the end for me.”
How many times had he almost died? When had he stopped counting? He could not remember that, either.
Ventillas said, in a voice Cas could not decipher, “Your nightmares are of drowning, and yet you were the first one in that lake when the prince fell in.”
Cas sat up. He had gone to bed without a shirt. His brother’s expression did not change, but Cas reached for the shirt hanging from a bedpost and pulled it on. “I wouldn’t have gone in if I’d stopped to think about it. There was no time.” Remembering the assassin in the window, he asked, “How did the archer get into the house? That’s Master Gallo’s home, isn’t it?”
“No, he moved away months ago,” Ventillas answered. “Master Dimas lives there now. With his daughter. Do you remember him?”
At the name, Cas felt his eye spasm. “I remember.”
Ventillas did not notice. “The archer broke in. It was empty at the time. Everyone had gone to see the procession.”
“What about the servants?”
“Dimas gave them the day off. I arrived there just after the family returned home. We found a broken lock on a back door. The archer had used the attic. It was that window that faced the lake.”
“A broken lock. Nothing else?”
“No. Whoever he was, he left no trail for us to follow.” Ventillas drummed his fingers along the table, scowling. “It’s unthinkable, Cassia, that something like this could happen in our city.”
A prince nearly murdered. An assassin slipping through their fingers. Cas agreed. “It’s humiliating.”
The drumming stopped. Drily, Ventillas said, “Yes, that too. Thank you for pointing it out, little brother.”
Cas smiled briefly. “Were the neighbors questioned? Maybe—”