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“I didn’t expect you to come voluntarily, Honor. And I certainly wouldn’t expect you to come unarmed.” Kallus’s voice was amused. “Please remove your weapons.”
“They can’t hurt you anyway, can they?” I asked. He carried that piece of Ebba’s power. It had kept him alive while other kings in other kingdoms rose and fell.
“I admire that you are fearsome and resourceful. I’m not taking any chances. Take them off.”
I carried both my sword and dagger on my belt over my tunic, so I unbuckled it and threw it at his feet.
He looked amused. “And the rest?”
I pulled Arren’s mother’s dagger from my boot. It had brought me good luck. I tossed it carefully onto the pile.
“I said the rest, Honor.”
I took one of Branok’s explosive playing cards from my pocket and let it drift down onto the rest of the weapons. The nobles behind Kallus shifted uncomfortably. Kallus gave me a stern look, and I pulled the dice from my pocket and dropped them with the others.
“You don’t need to have me kidnapped, Uncle,” I said. “I’ll always come if you need me.”
“You value family. As do I.”
“Do you? When you’ve pretended to be my mother?” My voice came out harsh.
“Let’s talk about it in my command center, such as it is. For this war I’m losing.” He sounded amused, as if the war itself wasn’t what mattered to him. As if he were pleased with my defense of the Isle.
He needed something else. Not the Isle.
“Sit,” he said. He gestured to a servant. “Make sure her weapons are held safely for her… out of reach. Hidden. They can’t stay in this room.”
I crossed my arms. “You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t,” he confirmed. “But I also admire that about you.”
“I don’t understand what you want from me, Uncle. What you want fromus.”
“You weren’t the one who brought Ebba back into this world. But now that he is active again, he must be dealt with.”
I cocked my head to one side.
“I’m sure the next phase of your plot is already in motion, Honor,” he said. “But hear me out, and your schemes may change.”
“You’re going to talk to me about schemes?”
The way he’d imitated Amily wasn’t the most important matter at hand.
But it was the one that pressed at my heart.
He looked, for the first time, pained. As if he was choosing his words carefully. “I am sorry for that deception. I can see now how it felt cruel when you miss her. But I…” He faltered, then went on, “For the first time, I had someone to share my memories. Someone who loved her as well.”
“So glad I could be of service. Meanwhile, I thought I got to see my mother again, to hear her words…” My eyes welled with traitorous tears, and I blinked them away. I was angry, damn it. Not… gutted. No matter how much my grief felt like a physical thing at the moment, weighing on my shoulder. “To hear her say she loved me.”
“She loved you so much. I was telling you the truth, Honor, even if I wasn’t… her. I was still saying her words. She would’ve wanted you to hear that from her.”
“You really can’t see how you were so evil?”
Kallus’s pain was etched across his face, a mirror of my own. “I was so selfish, and I’m sorry. I loved having those conversations with you. I loved getting to know you.”
The confession surprised me. It threatened to tamp my anger, and I blinked, the tears spilling over onto my cheeks. “Well, as long as you were happy.”
“I was happy because I could get to know my niece, who was brutally taken from me the same night my sister was,” he said. “To love you again.”
