AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll find out,” Lio promised.
He rejoined Cassia and their companions leaving the great hall. As they made their way to their chambers, Mak said, “We should come with you. This could get dangerous.”
“Thank you,” Solia replied, “but I dearly hope we’ll be safe from one lord and lady, even without the Stand’s protection.”
Kella cast glances at the courtiers passing them in the corridors. “We Ashes will stay with the Stewards. You’ll have a better chance of prying information out of them with fewer people listening.”
“I would like Cassia and Lio to join me in my weaving room,” Solia said. “Cassia, you can recommend Segetians to invite after this.”
Lio was grateful Solia did not seek to exclude him. If there was to be a reckoning with Pakhne’s sister, he should be there. “I will step to you in a moment, to avoid gossip.”
Solia nodded. “And stay veiled, unless we need you.”
They made sure to all be seen returning to their respective chambers, then with some stepping to and fro, Lio found himself alone in the weaving room with Solia and Cassia.
Cassia took the opportunity to wrap her arms around him and give him a quick kiss on the mouth. That sip of her affection warmed him through and through. He rested his hands lightly at her waist, mindful of not antagonizing Solia. She kept her eyes on the door, ignoring the two of them.
Cassia murmured, “We can tell you over and over that you are not to blame, but you must choose to believe it.”
“I don’t blame myself. But I do take responsibility.”
“I worry that you don’t know the difference, my Grace.”
“Perhaps if I can earn Nivalis’s forgiveness, I will be able to find some peace.”
The furrow on Cassia’s brow suggested she did not think this a likely outcome.
“I hear their footsteps in the corridor.” Reluctantly, Lio withdrew from Cassia’s arms and drew a veil spell around himself. Cassia and Solia each took a chair by the fire, their shadows reaching long across the room.
Lord Deverran and Lady Nivalis entered, and the door shut behind them, closing out the distant footsteps of the councilors returning to their chambers.
No one attempted pleasantries. Solia gestured to the two other chairs. “We have much to discuss. Will you join us?”
“That remains to be seen,” Lord Deverran replied to the double meaning in her words.
“How is Caelum?” Cassia asked.
“Not up for negotiation,” Nivalis said fiercely. “Those are our terms. No matter what Lord Adrogan says, Caelum is still a child.”
Lio was entirely confident in his instincts on this. What radiated out of Nivalis’s aura was clear. Love.
“He may not be my own flesh and blood,” she said, “but I intend to be as much of a mother to him as he’ll let me. If you attempt to harm him, we’ll—”
Deverran rested a hand on her arm. “My men are in place and ready to remove him from Solorum Palace. I will not tell you where I am taking him to safety. However, I will announce before the Council that he is not Lucis’s son, but mine. Not for Lord Flavian’s sake, nor for yours, Your Highness. For the boy.”
“Thank you,” Solia said with sincerity. “I will not have him suffer for our father’s crimes.”
“Won’t you?” Deverran asked. “He is a greater threat to you than to Flavian.”
“As I indicated before the Council, I do not consider Caelum a threat. I do not base my claim on Lucis’s line, therefore the boy he calls his son does not stand in my way. I am not interested in whether Caelum is yours or Lucis’s. I only want him not to be a victim, as I was. As his mother was. I am deeply sorry that the king took your betrothed as his second wife. I understand that she met the same end as my own mother trying to give him heirs.”
Lord Deverran’s face seemed etched in stone. Old grief lingered in him, but a newer anxiety. Lio got the impression he did not wish to discuss this in front of his new wife.
But Nivalis drew closer to him and said softly, “You know I understand.”
“Even I do not know if he is my son,” Deverran confessed, “but he could be.”
“And we will treat him as though he is,” Nivalis said.
