Page 129 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Stared at Aras’s eyes, a warm golden brown. His thick lashes, the dark gold curls in his hair, silvering behind his ears. The cut of his mouth and jaw, so like one I’d spent hours familiarizing myself with over the past year.

Aras glanced behind us. But there was no one here. Nothing but the hanging gates of iron, low enough it seemed they’d stooped to listen to our words. His heart ticked again.

“Your accent.” My eyes widened. “I thought I recognized it. You’re Cressian.” The lantern flickered quietly over our faces as I studied him in silence, logging each detail. The arch of his brows, the dark shadow of his stubble, even the crow’s feet stamped in the corner of his eyes, deeper than Kye’s but a crinkle I’d recognize anywhere.

“Maybe we should head back,” Aras said softly, the acrid tinge of worry a small prickle in my nose. When I didn’t answer, he sighed. “I didn’t realize that you didn’t know. I thought he might have told you.” He breathed a guilty laugh. “The way you’re looking at me, I’m guessing he hasn’t.”

“No,” I said. My hand found my ring. Kye’s mother’s ring. She’d given its mate to another man, before she married, so that she wouldn’t have to share thoughts with the King.

The lantern lowered. Aras pushed his lips together, avoiding my eyes. “He doesn’t like me. When I saw you in the office, I thought—I don’t know what I thought. That he’d sent you here, maybe. But he wouldn’t like to know you were down here with me.” He reached for my arm, gently, and I stepped away.

“Why wouldn’t he?” I asked. “Does he have a reason to not trust you?”

“No, no. He doesn’t really need a reason. Nikolaos blames me for his mother’s death.”

“Emilius killed Kye’s mother,” I said. The Captain of the Guard closed his eyes. My voice trailed, soft and edged. “Because she was in love with someone else.”

The Captain of the Guard rubbed his fingers over the bridge of his nose. His lantern scraped the stone floor as he set it down, the light dimming as it traveled to our legs. In the near-dark, Aras leveled me with a look of exhaustion. “I fell in love with Cemre as a boy. She was the princess of thieves. My father served as guard to the prince, her grandfather. We grew up together, and then I joined her guard. But I never touched her in Cressi. Not until she was sold to the Calderian King. I brought her here myself. But in the weeks leading up to the wedding.” He paused, shaking his head. “There was a new woman in Emilius’s bed every night. He flaunted them in front of her, draped them over his lap and against his ear whenever she could see. She never batted an eye, but the sight of it made me sick. I still might have never touched her, until she came to me days before her vows, a bruise across her cheek and two rings in her hand.”

“But you’re married,” I argued, hearing the naivety in my voice and not caring. I remembered Kye telling me about Aren’s family; his mother a cook in the royal kitchens, his father—“You’re retired from the guard.”

“I still come in, sometimes. See my son. Aren,” he quickly amended. “Aren is Junior Captain. And I love my wife. Aren is the product of…” He cringed, his face reddening in the lantern light. “I know how it sounds. Horrible. Disgraceful. Emilius used to call Cemre to his bed. Either she went and returned with bruises, or she refused, and returned with bruises. I was powerless. Tasked with protecting Cemre from every danger in the world except him. I’d watch as she’d come back to her quarters, weeping, limping. She’d cross the floor, straight to me, grabbing my arm and pulling me to her room. That was the only power she had. To tell him no, and then to choose for herself. When she gave birth to Kye, the King knew. I was moved for a time, posted in the lower floors of the King’s tower near the kitchens. One of the scullery maids was expecting, her husband dead in an accident in the orchards.”

He clicked his tongue, amber eyes rising slowly to meet mine. “Don’t think me some noble man who rose to the occasion. I love Aren, but that’s not why I married his mother.”

“Why did you, then?” I asked softly.

“To pretend, I guess. That Aren was mine. To give him my name, because I couldn’t give it to Nikolaos. To feel worthy, because in those days, I felt anything but. Selfish reasons. Aren’s mother didn’t love me. She was heartbroken and angry. She only said yes for him. All of that came much later. Long after Cemre died.”

“Does Aren know?”

Aras laughed sadly. “Of course he knows.”

“And Jonet?” I sucked in my breath a bit, wondering if the question probed too far.

Aras wet his lips slowly, his thumb rubbing one side of his chest as if massaging an old wound. “Does Jonet know, or is Jonet mine?”

“Both.”

The glow swished across his golden eyes. “Yes,” he whispered.

“That’s why Emilius killed Cemre,” I guessed out loud, a stitch between my brows.

Aras wiped the corners of his mouth with a rough hand. “He killed her because she was expecting again, and he assumed the child wasn’t his.”

I didn’t ask if it had been or not.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Aras said, picking up the lantern again, switching it to his other hand. He flexed the ghost of its weight from his fingers. “Why didn’t you just stop going to her bed? It seems easy, doesn’t it, just ignoring someone rather than loving them, if it means saving their life. I’ve hated myself for years. Nikolaos’s judgement doesn’t bother me now. I could tell you it’s nearly impossible to deny the woman you love, when she’s crying in your arms, asking for your comfort. Or when her lip is split and her teeth are bloody, but she looks at you with a certain demand, as if you’re the one thing that grants her control.”

He burnished his fingers against his brow. “But the truth is Emilius would have killed her eventually, no matter what she did. Everything that stands outside his influence eventually winds up dead.”

“I’m sure telling yourself that makes your life easier,” I said, barely louder than the hiss of the lantern’s flame.

“It does.” Aras nodded, a bit absently. He turned his head enough to fix me with golden eyes. “There is a rumor among the Guard. That you severed the hand of the King.”

I lowered my chin, holding his stare, and didn’t say a word, though every cord in my body went taut.

“I would caution you,” Aras murmured. “Emilius will only keep people near him when they serve a purpose. When he can leverage one against another. He let Nikolaos and Jonet live so he could control Cemre, but he used to torment her with the threat of hurting them. Had he believed it might work, he probably would have.”