“Theo.” Her voice was in his ear, concerned.
Her hand on his arm made him flinch. He caught her wrist. “Don’t.”
“Brother.” She withdrew her touch. “What is wrong?”
The words clamored, rising in the language of his homeland and youth. “What they did to me in the dungeon…I wouldn’t wish it upon my mortal enemy, and most certainly not upon you, Stasia. I’ll not allow you to renounce my exile at your own expense.”
“I know they hurt you badly.” Her voice broke. “Reinald said you were near death when they removed you to the ship’s hold that day.”
He closed his eyes against the sight of her anguish, the tears glistening in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. Theo couldn’t bear pity. Inevitably, it made the old anger rise inside him. Anger over what had been done to him, over everything he’d lost, over the scars it had left him with, both inside and out.
He clenched his jaw hard, forcing the emotions to wither inside him and turn to ash. “I survived.”
“But did you, truly? I scarcely recognize you as my brother. Indeed, I wouldn’t have known it but for your ring and mother’s eyes.”
Yes, he had their mother’s hazel eyes. And the ring he bore on his forefinger had been all he had been allowed to take with him, aside from the clothing on his back. He’d buried the ring in the dirt floor of the dungeon, and he remained amazed he’d possessed the presence of mind to scratch it from its hiding place before he’d been hauled from the dungeon. Mother had given him the ring. He wore it in remembrance of her.
“You see me before you,” was all he said. “I’m alive.”
“But a part of you died in that dungeon,” she whispered. “I can see it, and I hate him for it. Do you not despise Gustavson too, for everything he has done to us, to our family? To our mother, our brother?”
“I loathe him with the fires of a thousand burning hells,” he said.
For many years after his exile to London, Theo had dreamed of returning to Boritania beneath the cover of darkness. Of stealing into the palace and creeping into his uncle’s chamber. And then bringing a blade to his throat, draining the lifeblood from him. But such a death would be too merciful.
“Then return home,” Stasia urged. “You can fight him and win.”
“I won’t place you or our sisters in that kind of danger. I’d sooner go back into the dungeon myself.”
“I am betrothed to a monarch far more powerful than he is, and Gustavson would not dare to imprison me. He needs my marriage to King Maximilian far too much.”
King Maximilian was indeed wealthy and powerful, and Stasia’s betrothal to him was the reason she had been able to come to London. But Gustavson was cunning and vicious, and he was willing to commit any sin to retain his power.
“Our uncle would never honor your renouncement.” Theo shook his head. “Gustavson won’t allow anyone to take the power from him. He was planning to overthrow Father before you and I had even been born, and when Father died, it spared him the trouble. He’ll stop at nothing to keep the power he’s seized for himself. He’ll have my head if I return, and then he’ll have yours.”
“What if I promised you his head instead?”
There was no one’s death that Theo would celebrate more than their uncle’s. Not just for the torture he had ordered inflicted upon him, but because of what the bastard had done to their mother. The last true Queen of Boritania.
“You can’t promise me that, Stasia,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry you’ve risked so much in search of me during your stay in London, only to find disappointment. But I’ll not return to Boritania. When I left there, I was nearly dead, and I promised myself I would never go back.”
“I’ve already set the plans in motion.”
She was serious. Deadly serious.
His heart pounded at the realization, his palms going sweaty.
“You’ve made a plot against him, Stasia?”
“I’m not the only one who wishes Gustavson dead,” she said calmly, as if they were discussing something of negligible importance instead of a plot to have a usurper to the Boritanian throne killed. “There are many of us, united for a common goal. Our kingdom has suffered under his tyrannical rule. His soldiers plunder villages and bring the spoils back to him. The farmers can no longer bear the taxes being levied upon them. Our people are poor and hungry and mistreated, and Gustavson has turned the capital into a haven for prostitution and other vices. He has killed nearly everyone close to him. Those who are alive have been tortured in his dungeon. He has almost certainly killed Reinald. If I don’t marry as he has chosen and follow his demands, he will kill me as well, and then he will do the same to our younger sisters.”
Damn it.He didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to think about the devastation their uncle had caused in Boritania. Didn’t want to have to worry about Stasia, their sisters, their people. But he was worrying now.
“This plot of yours,” he began, his voice thick, because Deus, to have his revenge upon the bastard who had seen him cut and burned and forever hideously scarred, the bastard who had killed their mother… It would be everything he could have ever wished for and then more. “What is it?”
“It isn’t my plot alone,” Stasia said quietly. “King Maximilian has offered me his aid. I’ve accepted on behalf of our sisters and our people, but we need you, Theodoric. When Gustavson is killed, the rightful heir must ascend to the throne, or the kingdom will be plunged into chaos. I’m not sacrificing myself and my future to a union that I do not want merely so that Boritania can descend into civil war. I would have explained all to you before this meeting, but I didn’t dare to reveal the full plot before Mr. Tierney. No one can know what we are planning. Not a word of this must reach Gustavson.”
Her reason for using their native tongue occurred to him. She didn’t want to risk any of Tierney’s men overhearing and carrying tales. And he couldn’t blame her, because what she had described would be considered treason. She could be arrested by their uncle’s men, even in London, and returned to Boritania so that Gustavson could make an example of her. And he wouldn’t stop at torture in his dungeon.
