“Do you not think so?”
Cormal pushed all his doubts down as far as he could and stared back at the other man resolutely.
“No,” he told him, putting every ounce of conviction in his voice. “All it will take is one book, one idea that we haven’t thought of yet if it’s therightone.”
A tear trickled down Kinan’s face. His eyes were latched onto Cormal’s.
“But do youreallythink we’re going to find that one idea?”
Cormal met his gaze and promised him, “I won’t stop looking until I find it. I swear to you.”
More tears spilled onto Kinan’s cheeks, and Cormal reached out, tried to do what Kinan had done for him and brush the tears away. He understood now, in a way he hadn’t when he’d been the one crying by the lake, how hard it was to watch someone cry when youcouldn’t touch them. That had been Kinan’s reality for the last seven years—and he was clearly afraid it would be like that forever.
But Cormal would keep looking, and he didn’t care if everyone else stopped. He didn’t care if he had to go to the Mages and read every book in their library one by one himself. Maybe that would be the best use of his time, once he stopped being Summus.
“Thank you,” Kinan whispered, eyes wet but a little less haunted than they had been a minute ago. “Thank you for wanting to help.”
That had never been Cormal’s problem. The way he’d gone about it had been what messed everything up, when he’d done harm instead.
“I always want to help you,” Cormal assured him. “I’m sorry I made such a mess of everything.”
“That wasn’t just you,” Kinan absolved him again. “Mother wasn’t doing us any favors.”
“I made it worse,” Cormal argued.
“Well.” Kinan shot him a look. “You didn’t make itbetter.”
Cormal barked out a laugh.
“But you know,” the Prince continued, “my mother is very stubborn, and I’m not sure that you changed her mind on anything.”
That might be true. Brannal had opposed her, and he’d won, in his way, but while she’d let him go, she hadn’t changed her stance about Perian.
Maybe that was the truth about the royal family and the Mage Warriors. They were all a bunch of stubborn idiots, and it worked when they were aligned stubbornly together, but everything fell apart when they were opposed.
Was that why his father had been so stern and absolute? Had he decided that the only way to make them function was to force everyone along his determined path?
It had worked… until it hadn’t. If he hadn’t been like that, might someone have successfully opposed him? Might Cormal have had the guts to do it?
He just didn’t know.
“Do you think you can get off the floor now?” Kinan asked.
Oh, right.
Kinan stood up and held out his hand. Cormal had to brace himself against the table, but he did his best to mimic giving the man his hand to let him “pull” Cormal to his feet.
“I’m sorry it didn’t go better with Renny,” Kinan said apologetically.
He seemed to be taking it hard.
Cormal shook his head. “Not at all. I hurt her very much, and I hurt some of her favorite people. Thank you for at least getting her to stay here long enough to listen to me. Maybe it won’t do any good at all. Maybe she’ll process it and decide that she has questions or she wants to yell at me or she wants to knee me in the groin again. But it’s better than me not even acknowledging that I hurt her. Honestly, even if I still thought I was right, I could at least have done that sooner.”
Kinan shot him a look. “I think you would have gotten kneed in the groin sooner.”
Cormal laughed. “Probably. But that’s all right. I mean, it hurt a lot, but I think I can say with assurance which one of us was hurt more.”
Kinan eyed him with concern. “I’m not sure your groin can, uh, handle all that hurt.”
