Antonis stared for one heartbeat.
Two.
Three.
“A bedtime story,” the old man muttered.
“The bloody table and torture chamber I tore apart would disagree.” He ignored Antonis’s flinch. “Your enemy isn’t wearing the Vidalatos name anymore. He’s across our borders, quietly whispering to our lords. The only reason he hasn’t outright attacked us is because he knows thatwe knowhe was just as complicit in patricide as Orestis was. An overt war would expose his secret and burn him politically—he’ll lose every ally he’s managed to gain.”
Antonis stiffened. “Say I believe you…that doesn’t forgive Pandora’s secret. She married the crown prince and said nothing. She becamepregnant, and her solution was to run away. She should have comehome where she belonged.”
Pain shot through Dimitrios’s jaw as he gnashed his teeth together. “Maybe she would have, had she believed you’d see her as a daughter, not a disappointment.”
The old man’s nostrils flared.
Dimitrios was beyond keeping the peace, and unlocked the cage that held back every word he’d swallowed before. “Hold my blood against me; that’s fine. Honestly, I’d rather the world see me as my father’s son. I know what loyalty looks like. Sacrifice. What it costs to choose love over power. He bled for my mother. He died for her. And you— You lecture me about family.”
Dimitrios bowed his head—not in deference, but in parting. “For my mother’s sake, I’ve stayed my tongue. But I am done apologizing for the blood I carry. I’m done begging for scraps of respect from men who never earned mine.”
He turned for the door. Got halfway there. Then, softly—without facing back, he said, “And for what it’s worth, Lord Nicolea...if I become king, and you ever need help—” He paused. “It’s because I am my mother’s son that I’ll already be on my way. Whether you like it or not.”
Then he walked out, shoulders squared, the weight of entire generations off his shoulders.
The following evening, he was barely off his horse when a squire handed him a folded parchment, sealed with the Nicolean sigil. There was no greeting, no signature, but he knew who had penned the missive. Antonis Nicolea wanted the last word and had used a raven to do it.
The inquisitor’s ruling isn’t the only way to your crown. By law and with a majority vote from the provinces, you can take your rightful place. Call Court back to the palace if you must, but know one thing before you do: they will pick Alexandra. She’s spent years winning them over. You’re nothing but an outsider.
Earn my vote, and maybe I’ll help you earn the others.
Dimitrios read and reread the words until they were imprinted in his mind, then folded the parchment.
Then, to no one at all, he said, “One down.”
Chapter
Nineteen
Soon. Soon. Soon.
Selene’s heart chiseled that one word into her breastbone. The sound warred with the raucous baritone and tenors from the makeshift tables. Cups of ale clapped together, sloshing the liquid everywhere and igniting bursts of rough laughter. The soft golden lantern light highlighted the tiny rain puddles on the main deck, where the crew had gathered in wait for their evening meal.
The light, however, did nothing to puncture the thick blackness over the Paraneau Sea and the Trayterre Isles. But Selene knew they were there; that was all that mattered.
Selene poured the last of the ale into an outstretched cup, the man’s attention still enthralled in his loud friend’s bawdy tale. Typical pirates—always exaggerating their time on land with stray wives and angry husbands.
The important thing was that, for the first time, her presence wasn’t a concern. No one watched her. No one paused their conversation around her. The rigging race had all but made her and Petrina one of them. They were just another member of the crew.
As Selene turned away from the table, one man shouted down at her. “Where’s our grub, wench?”
Laughter erupted, followed by the pounding of fists on the tables.
Her knuckles whitened around the pitcher handle. She used to be so good at blocking such things out—turning it into a drop of water and letting it slide off her skin.
“It’s for them, my light,” her mother used to say with her soft smile.“It isn’t personal.”
She’d advised Selene to remain impersonal. Distant. Turn off the things she heard and felt until it was safe, especially during her years with Alexandra. It’s how she’d survived as long as she had.
Since Augustus entered her world, Selene found strength in her words and actions. He’d appeared, and everything she’d ever needed to say exploded out of her. Now, she had fewer ways of containing herself.
