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CHAPTER28
VORIAN
Vipha was not happy to see me at the palace.
Or perhaps that was an understatement.
Still, I wasn’t going to have him in Beau’s beautiful room, sneering at Beau and his beautiful things, especially without Beau in it, so I led him into one of the palace’s internal stone hallways and turned to face him, then waved for him to speak.
“What do you think you’re doing here, playing mates with some human? You need to be with your father, protecting him. After your failure to—” Casually, I brought my arms up to cross my chest, giving the traitorous council member a hard stare as I did so. He was so distracted staring at my marks that for a moment, he forgot to berate me.
“My failure to what?” I asked, refusing to break eye contact.
“You should have defeated that weakling,” he hissed back, looking around to make certain no one heard him. “If you had done as your father bade, this would be over now, and you would be rightfully living in the palace.”
As though it were that simple.
“You mean you and Crux would be pleased if I had killed Kaelum,” I announced aloud. I didn’t know if anyone would hear me, but it was worth it to watch him cringe and twist to look around again.
“Keep your voice down!”
I stayed silent for a moment, watching him, this worm of a man, owned by Crux, and trying to undermine the government of our people to his own ends. I leaned forward, toward him, as though I would whisper, and simply, with finality, told him what I thought of him and his plans and everything to do with both of them. “No.”
Perhaps my life was over. Crux would renounce me publicly, and since Xyren would never allow me to challenge to form my own house, I would be forever no one in the eyes of my people.
It was a tricky thing, being renounced. For most Thorzi, it was a death sentence. It meant that no other Thorzi would speak to or acknowledge you ever again. It was impossible to work most jobs or have any friends, since no one would break the law in order to speak to or work with someone who had been renounced.
But in truth, how was that different than my everyday life?
No one spoke to me. I had no friends. The only person who acknowledged me most days was Crux, and losing him would be no loss at all.
On the other hand, if Beau ignored the laws regarding my lack of being, it could get him in trouble. Thorzi laws were deliberately soft on humans, but mating someone who didn’t exist might cross the line of what would be ignored by Thorzi society.
And yet.
I was without options. I would not ask Beau to return to Crux, not ever. I would be hard pressed to return myself, having had just that one night, a taste of life without him.
Vipha was still staring at me, wide-eyed, and I gazed back, this time impassive. “You may do as you will, Vipha. But I will never act upon your orders again. And I will not harm Kaelum, however convenient it might be for you. Perhaps he hates me, as the rest of his family does, but that changes nothing. He is my brother. Even if he wants no part of me, he is more my family than you are.”
Vipha stared at me, as though I were a strange and foreign creature, eyes wide and leaning away. “And your father? What of him? He is the one who gives your orders. The one you are bound to obey.”
My lip curled back almost involuntarily in something between a snarl and a sneer, almost as awkward and uncomfortable an expression as the smile to the tailor the day before. “Myfatheris lower than a pile of refuse. Lower even than you, traitor to your own council that you are. He hurts humans and children, and deserves nothing. I would rather be renounced than ever have him call me his son again.”
Vipha gasped and took a step back, staring down at me in horror as his shoulders hit the wall behind him. He startled at the touch of the wall as though I were behind him as well as in front of him, and a second later he turned and fled.
I watched him retreat down the hall a moment before turning back toward Beau’s room, and there, standing at the end of the hallway, watching me, was my mother. She stared at me for a long, silent moment, then without a word, spun and walked away.
It seemed everyone was fleeing me today. Ah well, nothing much different from usual.
I took a stroll along the outer balustrade, looking out over the jungle. I would never be invited to live in the palace, but it was a beautiful place. Perhaps I would be allowed to visit Beau in his rooms, but turned out at night. That would be acceptable.
I took my time, meandering like a man who had nowhere to be, and had not yet reached the door to Beau’s room when two of the king’s guard approached. “Son of Crux,” one said, and I had to hold back my cringe at the title. “Xyren the Imperator requires your presence in his throne room. He has discovered your family’s duplicity.”
I turned toward them, once again crossing my arms and waiting. “Duplicity?”
“The Zathki are coming,” the other sneered at me. I should have taken lessons from him, he was excellent at sneering. “It seems they have much to say about you.”
I snorted in a rather human fashion, and shrugged. “Take me to the king, then. I cannot imagine a Zathki having anything to say about me, as I have never even seen one.”
