Cassius tilted his head, which sent his tousled hair cascading over his shoulder in a distracting way. “I…” He hesitated, chewing his lip some more.
“What? Say it.” If she felt sorry for being dictatorial, she decided it was justified. (Even if he’d been good to her. Even if he was…gods help her,attractive.)
He huffed out a breath and said, “I spoke with some of the other sl—” He faltered, frowned. “I spoke with the slaves. They said that they were trying to bring your cousin’s temperature down with snow baths.”
“Snow baths?”
He tipped his head, a conciliatory gesture. “The drakes go up into the mountains and bring it back. He…” He bowed his head. “Yes, he’s fevered. When his temperature spikes, they pack him in snow from the peaks, brought down by dragon riders.”
“It will break eventually. Or, well, it always has, in the past.”
He nodded.
“Is he really the emperor’s grandson?” Romanus had informed her and Tessa of the fact over dinner, and it was the thing that had finally loosened her hand on her fork. She and Tessa had locked eyes, and then looked together toward Oliver, whose face had remained slack and impassive as he picked listlessly at his chicken. “Or is he manipulating Oliver? It doesn’t seem possible. His mother died when he was very little. I never even met her.”
Cassius uncrossed, and then recrossed his ankles. He sounded reluctant when he said, “I can’t know for sure. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
His lips quirked, almost a smile. And then smoothed. “Slaves are ordered not to gossip, especially not about the royal family. But there were rumors. Romanus had a daughter, his eldest child, and she fled Seles. So it’s possible.”
“Gods.” She tipped back her goblet, and found it empty. She turned and refilled it. It gave her a chance to think back about something he’d just said.
She turned back around, and decided the table didn’t make for an effective seat. She plopped down on the end of the sofa and said, “You said ‘dragon rider’ before.”
“I did. Prince Marcellus has a mount of his own. That’s how he managed to snatch your sister, as it happens.”
“He attacked them in the air?”
“Yes.”
“Gods. And Oliver, too, I suppose.”
He shook his head. “Oliver was taken in the tunnels under the mountain. He wasn’t flying with your sister.”
“She wentalone?” She swatted a hand through the air, dispelling the question. “Nevermind, that’s not what I asked. So Marcellus has a drake of his own.”
“He does.” He raked a hand through his hair, pushing it back where it had fallen over his shoulders, an unselfconscious, human gesture she found fascinating. The candlelight caught his eyes, a new glimmer that might have been excitement. Muted, but there. “But not in the way that you do. He rides it just as anyone would ride a horse. There’s no mental connection, like you have with Alpha.”
“No magic.”
“That’s right.”
She took a long swallow of wine and scooted lower on the sofa, one elbow hooked over its arm. “And Romanus thinks that my blood will produce a child that combines both families’ magics.”
“Precisely.”
Amelia drained her goblet in a few long swallows, gasping for breath afterward.
Unasked, Cassius stood, and hovered his hand beside the empty goblet. She passed it to him, and he went to the sideboard to refill it.
The two cups she’d downed in quick succession were hitting her now, head pleasantly heavy, her stress melting into a manageable puddle. When Cassius returned with her fresh goblet, she even smiled at him, and his brows jumped in quiet surprise before he smiled back, slow and a little shy, and…well. Damn it.Pretty.
When he settled into the chair opposite her, she nearly patted the sofa beside her and invited him closer. But she wasn’tthatdrunk, thankfully.
She sipped. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have arrived at a hypothesis.”
Maybe shewasthat drunk.
