“I suppose I do, but I didn’t want to believe it. Ronan, Sylvie? Really,Ronan?” To my surprise, he says the name with disgust rather than anger.
I’m the one who’s angry. “He’s ten times the man you are. One hundred. Ronan treats me with respect, with kindness and trust and all the love no one in this family could ever be bothered to show. He sees me for who I am, and he’ll come for me. Andwhen he does, you better hope he’s willing to show you mercy. Because I won’t ask him for it.”
“Oh boohoo, poor little Sylvie never got any love from her family.” He rubs at his eyes mockingly, smirking at me all the while. “So you fall into bed with our enemy just because he’sniceto you? Do you know how pathetic you sound? How ridiculous?”
“Less pathetic than the man who’s holding his own sister hostage. Less ridiculous than the man who has the audacity to act shocked that she’s no longer on the same side.”
“How rude of you,” he says, as if I’m the one being unfair here. “And after I went to the trouble of making sure you made it out of Faros alive—a wasted effort, I can see now.”
“That’s what you thought you were doing? Helping me?” Bullshit. He’s never helped me before. Why would he do so now?
“Is that really so hard to believe?”
“Yes.”
“You wound me.” He clutches at his chest. “I did at the time I planned your retrieval, yes. Of course, I had no way of knowing what was really going on. All I knew was that things were not going according to plan, and I thought Larus was responsible, based on what Adria said in her letters. When one of my spies found out he was planning to take you out of the city, I had them pay the crew to bring you to me instead. And this is the thanks I get?”
I’d had it wrong about what Seth had done. He hadn’t known what Larus was truly planning—he still doesn’t know.
I can’t let on what Larus’s real plans are, not while Seth can still try to stop them. “What do you think he was planning to do with me?” I ask instead. It’s a question, a question that implies I don’t know what the plans are when I do, of course, but it’s not a direct lie.
“Use you against Ronan, just as Adria would have done. Just as I will do. As you said, he’ll come for you. I didn’t need spies tofind that out. Every watering hole in the damn world is talking about your little romance. Of course, I thought it was all a farce. Thought you were in on the joke too. Now, I don’t blame you for having a little fun. I’d rather gouge my own eyes out than picture you in bed with someone, but I’m hardly a prude. A little tumble now and then never hurt anybody, and I understand that, as much as I’d rather pretend you’ve joined a temple and taken a vow of celibacy.” His face turns from mild disgust to the greenish look of someone preparing to vomit. “But of all people,him. And, according to Adria,” he says, shaking the letter, “youcarefor him.”
“I understand why you hate him. Truly, I hated him too, but he isn’t like what we thought. I know you want revenge—”
He holds his hand up to interrupt me. “Revenge? Me? Do I seem the type?”
“Yes, absolutely,” I say without hesitation.
“Well, you’re generally right about that. I am a petty bastard. But in this case, you’re wrong.”
I don’t understand. “Don’t you want revenge? For Father? For Mother? For what Selara did to us?”
“More of Adria’s thing,” he says with a shrug. “It was a war. We lost. I don’t know what she expected.”
I open my mouth to speak then close it again, shocked. “Then why are you doing all this? The war? The grain?”
Seth pulls on the skin of his cheeks, rolling his eyes back so they appear dramatically larger and more annoyed than ever. It’s exactly the same face he pulled when we were children. “Not the fucking grain again. Gods, I’m sick of hearing about the grain.”
“You’resickof hearing about it?” I know I shouldn’t lose my temper with him—he’s dangerous, and I really can’t afford to set him off. But I can’t help myself. “People are dying, Seth. Your people.”
“People arealwaysdying, Sylvie. That’s what they do. They’re born. They live. They die. Tale as old as time. Don’t tell me you’ve developed some sort of affection for the plight of the poor, innocent little commoners on top of everything else. Gods, it’s all soboring.” He leans back in the chair, looking to the ceiling as if to beg the gods to come down and rescue him from this place. “You see, this is exactly what I was talking about when I said, ‘What didn’t Adria do?’ It’s always fucking something with her. Flood the granaries, hire the thugs, write a letter to Lord Whoever-the-Fuck of Some Fucking Place and ask him for his support. Raise the armies, feed the armies, stop the ash harvest. Start it again. It’s all sodull.This whole fucking plan.”
“Then why go along with it? Why help her if you don’t even think she’s doing the right thing for us? For our people?”
“I told you, I don’t care about any of that. But have you tried defying her? Oh wait, you did. That’s how you ended up here instead of in the arms of yourbeloved.” He literally gags at the thought of Ronan. If I could get out of these chains, I’d slap him. “Adria gets what Adria wants, and the rest of us had better stay the fuck out of her way. I went along with it because once she has the throne, she’ll be half thequeendom away from me, and I can finally have some fucking peace.” He shakes the letter again in my direction. “And that’s where you come in.”
He gets up from the chair and folds the letter neatly back into its envelope, flicking through the other letters in his desk drawer until he tucks it into what must be the perfect place in his order.
I don’t understand him. I never have, but I understand him now even less than before. “If you just want Adria out of your way, why not side with Ronan? He’s more likely than anyone to stop her.”
“Is he?” Seth turns back to me, leaning against his desk. “I know you’ve been blinded by his whole—whatever it is that youfind appealing.” He waves his hand dismissively. “But if you think he can stop Adria, well…”
I’m tired of hearing him insult Ronan. “If you don’t care about revenge, then what do you have against him?”
“Are you kidding? Whatdon’tI have against him? We’re the same age, you know. You’ve known him for a season. I’ve known him my whole life. The Shining Prince of Selara. Little Lord Perfect, the golden boy. Gods, as annoying as Adria is, he’s one thousand times worse. It was never enough for him to be the best at everything. He had to prove it to everyone over and over again. Fucking show off. And then the worst of it was that after he’d beaten you, at horses or sword-fighting or climbing or whatever the fuck he made you do, he’d come over and try to act like he wanted to be friends. Like he was doing you this big favor by being such a gracious winner. But that was all part of his act. It made him feel like he was better than you. Come to think of it, he and Adria have that in common.”
I can see Ronan being a bit of a showoff when he was younger, but I can also imagine him being forced into it by his father, and I’m certain that his attempts to be friends with Seth were genuine. He was probably baffled by Seth’s response.
