“I wanted to talk to you.”
“Me?” She seemed surprised that Vhalla would seek her out.
“Yes. I want your advice,” Vhalla affirmed.
“What about mine?” Fritz squinted at Vhalla, making a show of pouting.
“Yours is always welcome, Fritz.” The Southerner would add a completely different perspective from someone who wasn’t of the West and wasn’t nobility either.
“Don’t you have an Emperor you could ask?” Elecia ignored the carcivi board entirely now, giving Vhalla her full attention.
“I do, but I know what he’ll say. I want to know what you’ll say.” Vhalla gave the skeptical woman a small smile. “What kind of Empress will I be if I ignore some of the best counsel available to me?”
Elecia seemed surprised. She tapped on one of the carcivi tokens for a moment in thought. “Very well, what is it you seek?”
“I spoke with Jax.” Vhalla let the weight of the interaction with Jax pull down her voice, taking the smile off her cheeks with it.
“I see.” Elecia heard everything Vhalla had hoped for.
“I know the truth now.”
“He told you?” Elecia seemed surprised. “The truth? Not one of his colorful lies that he uses to scare people away?”
“He told me one of those first.” Vhalla wanted to put to rest any confusion over what she really did or did not know.
“And you got the truth out of him . . .” There was a concerned glint to Elecia’s voice that Vhalla affirmed with a small nod. Got the truth out of him, that was a good way to put it, because it certainly hadn’t been graceful. “So, if you know, what do you need from me?”
“What are you two talking about?” Fritz reminded them both that he was still there.
Vhalla and Elecia shared an uncertain look. “Fritz—” they started at the same time.
“Fritz,” Vhalla took the lead. This was her responsibility now. She was the one who had dredged it up, she would be the one who would handle it. “Jax is owned by the crown as a punishment for a crime.”
Fritz didn’t seem shocked, but his expression told her clearly that this was the first time he was hearing it put so simply.
“But the crime, however heinous it seems on the surface, isn’t what it appears. He’s innocent.”
“Not quite,” Elecia interjected with a heavy sigh. “He did kill the lord—”
“But, given the circumstances—”
“I understand that.” Elecia held up a hand, indicating that she now had the floor, and Vhalla would wait to speak. “But that fact remains. And while that murder may have been in the defense of another, he killed the lord’s wife and other child in cold blood.”
Vhalla wouldn’t quite have described Jax’s blood as cold. “But only because they knew what was happening.”
“Even still,” Elecia shook her head. “It’s all a gray area mess. When his betrothed ran into the fire, his emotions were too far gone to stop the flames. He’s not as guilty as he makes himself sound, I’ll grant you that, but he’s not innocent either.”
“Did he—does he—feel sorry for it?” Fritz asked.
“Somewhat,” Elecia conceded.
“Why does he lie about it?” Vhalla quickly corrected herself, “Or tell half-truths.”
“To save her memory.” Elecia looked out the window, avoiding eye-contact for what may have been the first time in her life. The woman’s voice was soft, almost gentle, contemplative. “He loved her deeply, and he would rather endure people scorning him than try to clear his name at the cost of letting the world know how she had been violated. And the only one who knows the real truth of what happened that night is Jax; he’s the only one alive to tell the tale. The rest of us who know certainly won’t violate his trust by doing so.”
“Do you believe him?” Fritz stole the words out of Vhalla’s mouth.
“I do.” Elecia returned physically and mentally to the group. “When I first found out, I went to Aldrik, who pointed me to Erion. He told me how Jax had hand-picked through the char for her bones, carrying them in a box along with his confession, begging for a proper Rite of Sunset.”
