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Ana nudged her forehead gently against the wall, phone at her ear and bare feet on cold stone. ‘You’re not wrong.’
‘It’s not too much to ask for. This I believe. Will he give that to you?’
‘No.’
‘Negotiate,’ said her mother, and this time Ana laughed helplessly.
‘With what?’
‘Yourself.’
‘You mean the one he left all those years ago? Couldn’t hold his attention for more than a week?’
‘His mistake. He didn’t realise what he held.’
‘Maybe he did.’
‘Or you can take a good look at him without the rose-coloured glasses of youth and this time you look for the flaws in him.’ Her mother’s voice had firmed. ‘Embrace him or not, but see him for who he is and bargain hard for your future and Sophia’s. I raised a daughter with brains as well as heart. Don’t prove me wrong.’
‘So find his weakness and exploit it?’
‘Well, that’s another way of putting it,’ her mother said drily. ‘That or make him see you and want you and love you the way you should be loved.’
‘How is that easy to do?’
‘It can be.’ Her mother sighed. ‘If he’s the right one for you, it’s as easy as breathing.’
‘I’m not breathing, Mama. I’m holding my breath.’ She looked around the room, at the ceilings high above her with their intricate plasterwork, at the silk wallpaper and the paintings on the walls. ‘I don’t know how to do this.’
‘You’re not alone. Remember that. There’s strength in that. You have us, and Sophia. You know love and that is the strongest force in the world. Does he know love?’
Ana thought of the man and his history. His duty and his resolve. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Step one,’ said her mother. ‘Find out.’
CHAPTER FOUR
CASIMIR’S FATHER DIED sixteen hours after Casimir reached the royal palace. Casimir had sat at his father’s bedside and occasionally held the older man’s hand and tried to feel something other than bone-deep weariness. His father had rallied at one point, enough to realise that Cas was there, but beyond that there had been no real communication.
Cas would never know what words his father spoke at the very end; they’d been unintelligible. He didn’t need to know. His father had never spoken any words of love in Casimir’s presence and Casimir would have been astonished to hear any, even here at the end of things.
When his father took his last breath, Cas felt nothing.
No sorrow. No grief. He knew grief and this wasn’t it.
He just felt blank.
He waited five minutes before calling the physicians in. Five minutes that he spent with his head bowed and his hand still clasped in his father’s until finally he felt a small stirring of some kind of feeling, even if it was only relief for the end of his father’s suffering.
His father was at rest now. No more brutal physical pain for the man who’d once been king. This was a good thing.
When he opened the huge double doors of his father’s bedchamber and stepped out into the anteroom, every man and woman waiting stood and snapped to attention.
‘It’s finished,’ he told them. ‘The king is dead.’
Rudolpho was the first to respond. ‘Long live the king.’
And there it was. Another king for the Byzenmaach throne.
His father’s endgame finally realised.
Casimir rubbed at his face, beyond tired and way beyond lucid. Sixteen hours at his father’s bedside. Twelve hours of travel before that, with collecting Ana and Sophia somewhere in the middle of it. A full day’s work before he’d even left to go and get them. Thirty-six hours since he’d last slept and still more to do before he could rest. ‘I’m going home,’ he said.
‘Your Majesty.’ Rudolpho again, eyeing him as cautiously as one might survey a ticking time bomb. ‘There are rooms here. Surely—’
‘I’m going home,’ he said again. He’d stood vigil to the bitter end and no one could fault him. Duty had been served and all he wanted was to get out of this place and breathe for a while before he had to return.
