“Becauseyouasked.”
“Bullshit,” I say. I know there’s some truth in what he’s saying, but I’m too furious now to see it. “You ran because you were afraid that if you stayed, you would have had to care for Taran. And if you did that, you wouldn’t have been able to deny what you feel for him any longer. There’s more than ‘something’ going on between you. You think I haven’t seen the way you look at him? The way you acted when he was about to die? You care for him, Seth. Maybe you even love him in your own twisted way. And gods, do I pity him for it. Because he’s fool enough to loveyou too, even though he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t because you’re a coward. You’re a coward, and you don’t deserve him.”
I’m breathing so hard I’m shaking as I finish yelling. Seth stares at me for a long while and then releases his grip on my wrist. “Maybe I am. But so are you.”
“I was once, but not anymore. I love Ronan.” I choke on the words. “I’d giveanythingto go back up there and tell him I’ve made a huge mistake.Anything, Seth. If I could go back in time and never go into that damn tomb, I would do it in a heartbeat. You didn’t feel it, the power.” I can still feel it residually, my connection to Ronan not completely severed even after everything that just passed between us. Maybe it will vanish with distance and time. Or maybe it never will. “It felt like death. I had a chance to save him from that, and I took it. Maybe you wouldn’t do the same for Taran, but that’s the choice I made.”
Seth almost says something but changes his mind. “It doesn’t matter what I would do,” he mutters. “Like you said, I’m a coward.”
And suddenly, I see another side to Seth leaving Taran. A version where he does this not because he’s afraid but because he knows he can’t be what Taran needs, knows he isn’t good enough for him, and he’s walking away to spare him the pain.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I rest a hand on Seth’s shoulder, and he doesn’t brush it away. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” he says with half a smile. “I could tell, remember?”
“Howdoyou know when I’m lying?” I truly want to know.
His half-smile turns sly. “That’s a secret I’ll take to my grave.”
“And the other secret? The one Taran told you? It could get him killed too, you know.”
“You already know that answer.”
“Say it, Seth.”
He groans, rolling his entire head in exasperation. “Gods, you’re so boring. No, I won’t tell anyone their dirty little secret. Are you happy?”
“Far from it,” I say, looking back up the hill where the men we love lie heartbroken. “But we’re doing the right thing. You’re a good person, Seth.”
“Gods, stop,” says Seth, plugging his ears. “You’re making it worse.”
Instead of heading directly to the docks or to Karis to ask for help getting into Faros, I convince Seth to come with me to the inn to tell Larus and Octavia where we’re going.
The inn’s dining room is filled with the lunch crowd, but we don’t spot them anywhere among the packed tables. Larus doesn’t tend to roam much around Pyka, having received permission to stay at the inn only after some intense negotiations with Karis, so we try his room next.
“Busy in here,” comes a woman’s voice through the door. Seth and I look at each other in surprise—it’s an older woman, not Octavia. Has Larus finally found someone?
“It’s Sylvie. We need to talk.”
The door flies open, and there’s a woman there, that’s for sure. But it’s not Larus’s lover.
It’s his mother.
I can tell immediately. Her hair is silver and densely curly, and her face is heavily wrinkled, but her body moves as spryly as someone half her age. She appraises me for a moment and then pulls me into her arms, my face slamming into her ample bosom and pressing against the hilt of a dagger she has strapped there.
“Oh, you did not do herjustice, Larry boy.Thisis a woman you go to war over! Look at how beautiful.” She pinches at my cheeks as if I were still a child, checks my teeth as if I were a horse, and then finally squeezes the muscles in my arms like…I don’t actually know anyone that typically does that, but she seems reasonably impressed by what she finds. “And strong! You have trained her well; I can see it.” Before Larus can respond, she sees Seth. “And this must be the brother. Septimus?”
“Seth.” Seth crosses his arms, annoyed but unsurprised by his poorer reception.
“Well, he is pretty too, I suppose. Maybetoopretty. You could stand to eat more, boy. Come on in and let Mama Adama fix you up.”
We follow Mama Adama into Larus’s room, and I notice several surprising things at once. First, the entire area around the fireplace has been turned into a makeshift kitchen, complete with a dresser converted into a countertop and drawers overflowing with enough vegetables to stock a market. Over the fire, no fewer than five roast chickens are turning on a spit manned by Larus, who shakes his head in apology. “Let them talk, Mother, for God’s sake.”
Second, his simple bed has been pushed to a corner, and another bed has been brought into the room, this one covered in plush silken fabrics and pillows in an assortment of bold colors. Mama Adama’s, I presume.
But it’s the third thing I see that genuinely shocks me. Chained to a low table near Larus is Felix March, the leader of the Third Navy of the Enez Islands, a fleet that remains sworn to Adria’s service while she builds her own naval forces.
Felix looks much like when I saw him last: handsome face, ridiculously ostentatious maritime clothes, and a signature smirk, but with the addition of two black eyes, the bruising andcuts on his brows clearly visible against his dark skin. “Is she my reward for good behavior?”
