A part of her hoped Gale Castell was dead. It would make everything so much easier.
The door swung open, revealing a tall man with blue eyes and a permanent scowl.
Clearly, good fortune was not on her side.
“Well, well,” Gale drawled as he stepped back from the door. “Isn’t this a surprise? The savior of our realm deigningto knock on my door. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
It was difficult to tell if Gale was trying to be demeaning or if his voice was just truly that grating. Either way, Aya stepped inside without an invitation, her gaze tracing the ornate crown molding in the entryway.
“I see you avoided the worst of the damage,” Aya remarked as she turned to face Gale.
“By the grace of the gods,” he chuckled. Aya had never heard such a joyless sound. “It would have cost me a fortune to rebuild.”
Aya forced her hands to stay unclenched at her sides, even as she said, “I know how much you value your gold.”
It had, after all, cost her mother her life. She wondered if he would admit to it, if the realization would take hold. Would he show a single ounce of remorse?
She highly doubted it.
Gale eyed her for a long moment before something like amusement flickered across his face. “My son whines like a dog in heat, does he?”
Aya blinked. So he knew Aya and Will were together. Interesting. And yet he’d missed her meaning entirely.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?”
Gale cocked his head. “I believe they call you the Second Saint, don’t they?” he mused. “Oursalvationfrom the Decachiré.”
This time, the mockery was clear. Intentional.
Not just his voice, then.
“I am Aya Veliri. Eliza Veliri’s daughter.”
She waited for some sign of recognition to flicker across his face, but she only found confusion in the furrow of his brow.
“Who?”
Gods, Aya wished he was dead. It would tame the urge she had to kill him. Her fingers longed to wrap around the smooth handle of her knife. Instead, she clasped her handsbehind her back, if only to quell the itch.
“My mother was a Caeli,” Aya said, willing her voice to stay calm. She would be damned if she gave Gale the satisfaction of knowing he riled her. “She died on a trade assignment for you. A storm was brewing, and you sent your crew across the Anath anyway.”
Gale gave a dismissive jerk of his chin. “The dangers of trade work are not my responsibility.”
“Of course not,” Aya growled. “As long as you get your gold, right?”
Gale sighed. He leaned an arm against the swirled banister of the staircase, his brows flicking toward his hairline. “What is it that you want, Miss Veliri?”
Right. She had come here for a reason, and berating Gale for his past sins, though tempting, was not it. Aya folded her arms across her chest, her back resting against the door behind her.
“I had the pleasure of getting to know your wife Lorna.”
Gale stilling was barely noticeable to the naked eye, but Aya caught it all the same. She saw the tiny hitch of his chest, the evidence that his breath had caught in his lungs. But his voice remained impressively calm as he said, “My wife is dead.”
“Let’s not waste our breath with lies, Master Castell,” Aya replied. She shoved off the door as she took a step toward him. “I met Lorna in Rinnia. A courtesy of your son, actually. But it wasn’t until we were both prisoners in Kakos that I truly got acquainted with her.”
Gale’s throat bobbed. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I was,” Aya admitted. “Are you familiar with the Vaguer? They are—were—the most devout worshippers of the Original Saint. You can imagine how interested they would be in a Seer who was a descendant of the one who foretold the rising of the second of her kind.”
