His breathing ragged, Bastien swallowed hard. “Tell me I’m wrong. But it’s you, Julie, isn’t it?”
He watched an impressive debate play across his cousin’s face. Obviously, Jullien was desperate to deny it with everything he had.
Yet after a long pause, he slowly nodded. “Yeah.”
Unable to believe that something good had finally happened to either of them, Bastien stared at him as if he were a ghost. Then he laughed and reached out to pull him in for a hug. “Damn, if you don’t look good, cousin! Running looks much better on you than it does on me. You wear banishment well.”
“You wouldn’t have said that two years ago. Trust me.”
Clapping him on the back, Bastien released him. “Thanks for not cringing when I touched you. Believe me, I know I’m disgusting and it’s more than I deserve.”
“It’s all good, m’drey.”
Bastien knew better. “No, it’s not. And for what it’s worth, which isn’t much, I tried to get my father to harbor you after you were cast out. It sickened me how they did you. I’m really sorry.”
Jullien gestured at him. “I’m sorry for this. What happened to you after I was exiled?”
That was a long story he didn’t want to even begin to relive. So he shortened it to the pertinent facts only. “League. I’m a Ravin. Been running since Barnabas murdered my family and stole our throne.”
Jullien cringed in sympathetic pain. “I figured you were dead by now.”
“Same here. Thank the gods for my Gyron Force training.” He narrowed his gaze on the new lean and trim Jullien, who looked like he could take the Iron Hammer in a Ring match, instead of his old foppish cousin who’d relied heavily on his servants for every task. Which probably had included wiping his nose and chin.
This was definitely an improved version. “So how the hell have you survived?”
To become a Tavali officer, no less. That had to be one hell of a story there.
Jullien smirked. “Thank the gods for Gyron Force training. Had your uncle and father not been such bastards those times I visited, I wouldn’t have lasted a week on my own.”
Bastien snorted. “Ain’t it a bitch? Barnabas had no idea he was doing us a favor. One I pray I get to return to him by planting my Gyron axe in the center of his skull.”
“Gealrewe!” Jullien clapped him on the back as he finally smiled. “Well, since you know who I am, you want me to drop you somewhere? Get you off this rock?”
More than Jullien could imagine. But that was only a pipe dream. Sadly, this was where he was safest.
He let out a long, tired sigh. “Yes—but no. Not unless you know how to pull a League chip out of me.”
“No.” Jullien glanced at his friends.
“Sorry,” the woman said. “Not a clue.”
Thrāix shook his head. “Beyond my abilities. I could try to do it with my powers, but it’s as likely to explode the chip, which could cause internal damage, and depending on where it’s located, that could paralyze or kill him.”
Eyes wide at the mere prospect that shriveled his gut, Bastien held his hands up and backed away. “Rather not chance death. My life sucks enough without a maiming or fatality.”
Thrāix nodded. “Figured you’d feel that way.”
Which made him wonder something about the Trisani … “Were you really going to kill me?”
“Had you not been his cousin? Yeah. Still might. If you give me any reason to.” Thrāix headed for the stairs with the woman.
“Duly noted.” Bastien opened the pack and ripped into one of the meals as he followed after them. “So what brings you here. Really?”
Jullien glanced at him over his shoulder. “Looking for the files Bredeh ran on my family back when he was trying to kill Nyk. I’m hoping I can find something to lead me to my grandmother and the rest of my cousins who’ve sided with her.”
Interesting … Nyk, or Nykyrian, was Jullien’s twin brother, who was supposed to be dead. From this conversation, Bastien would presume that those old rumors had been right and Grandma must have been the one to put a hit out on Nykyrian all those years ago. Somehow the boy had survived. Made sense, actually. The Andarion queen had killed off most of her family. But why she’d have it in for her own grandkid, he could only imagine.
Then again, she was an Andarion queen. That tended to go with the crown.
“To what end?” he asked Jullien.
“Theirs, I hope.”
Bastien chewed, then swallowed the nasty dehydrated bar as he considered that unexpected declaration. “I thought you and Grandma were always tight?”
Jullien froze and gave him a bone-chilling glare that caused him to take two steps back. Obviously, he’d been wrong about that and had struck one hell of a nerve.
“Sorry,” Bastien said quickly. “That’s what your father always said whenever he came around. He thought it showed an utter lack of judgment on your part.”
“What in the Nine Worlds could ever make him think that? I never could stand the old bitch.”