Curse his tongue. Curse everything.
“Jo!” he cried, pounding once on the door. “Please come out.”
“Soon!”
“No,now!”
“Just a minute!”
“I can hear you crying,” he said softly.
The door opened at once.
“Then take your big Bear ears someplace else, you eavesdropper,” she spat, and began to slam the door.
He caught it and pushed inside.
Jocasta was half-undressed, her gown off, and some sort of thin underdress clung to her body in the steam. “I’m sorry. I am not good with words,” he apologized.
“Oh, you're better than you think. Don’t worry, Girion, this is my fault, not yours. I lied to myself. Told myself I wouldn’t have feelings, but I grew them so swiftly, and when I believed you returned them, I...” she sighed, and her shoulders sank. Jocasta crossed her arms over her glistening chest. “I wish you’d leave and let me hate myself in private.”
“I don’t want you to hate yourself, or me! Oh, Jo, I... Listen. Listen to me. I’m going to tell you something no one else knows. Only my father knew, and he took the secret to his grave, not believing it anyway. Once you know it, then you’ll know why I have never wanted love or marriage, why I am so bad at letting myself get close. But I am close to you. Not even Cole knows, and he’s always asked. Please?”
Jocasta reluctantly nodded, returned the lever to its stopped position, and let herself be led from the steamy room.
Girion put her in front of the hearth and hurried to pick up the cloak he’d thrown, wrapping it over her shoulders. “My mother died, very suddenly. I was nine. My mother was... She was the dearest person, and she loved my father. She loved me. She loved Caledon and all the household. She was everyone’s queen. Everyone adored her.”
Jocasta nodded, a puzzled frown on her face. “I know how it hurts to lose someone who was a huge chunk of your world. Of your heart.”
“Oh, that was bad enough, but it didn’t stop there. After a year of mourning, Countess Ciara came to visit my father. My father had been a shadow of himself—until Ciara came. It was obvious she wanted him. It was obvious that she intended to use any means to get him, even lust. My father didn’t love her, but once he’d bedded her—well, he believed it was love and that she had to become his wife.”
“People react in strange ways when they lose someone.”
“It was more than that. You know the difference between a mage and a witch. A mage has magic they control. A witch forces magic from other sources to do their bidding. I knew Ciara was a witch, and I knew she had been giving my father potions to make him crave her. She would place the potion in his glass each night and tell him it was a health tonic, said it would make him virile—and they would laugh as if it were all a lover’s secret jest.”
Girion kept pacing as he talked, each step pulling a word from the locked vault of his soul. He cast a look at Jocasta’s face, waiting to see her disapproval, to accuse him of being a jealous child, or one too close to the memory of his mother. She didn’t. She looked eager to hear more, eyes wide and face worried.
“She tried to win me to her side, but I disliked her and made it known. My father told her I needed time. He admitted to meonce that he didn’t love her like he loved my mother, that he felt as though he were still in a fog. Once, he even told me he could barely remember courting Ciara. He just... woke up married to her. In his grief, his guards and advisors gave him greater latitude, and of course, they hoped for another heir. They loved my mother, but to die having produced only one son to keep the line going was worrisome, especially since the royal house is what keeps the hot springs flowing. We are the lifeblood. Father probably thought of that, too. He was in a fog, but he thought he was doing what was best for his people.”
Another nod. Jocasta’s silence was waiting for him, unhurried. Accepting.
He still had to ask, “Do you believe me?”
“Of course. I believe everything you say.”
So she believed that I loved her. And perhaps this feeling is what love is. Or else why would I have said it?He winced at how his words had betrayed her, and now he needed her to believe him.
“When my father was away with a company of his guards, checking for signs of raiders off the coast, Ciara started to pressure me to sit with her, to keep her company. She would press all kinds of treats and sweets on me, but I didn’t want to be near her, and I didn’t trust her. I noticed she never let the servants take the food back to the kitchen, but I didn’t think she was eating it herself, either. I knew all the passages in the palace, and she didn’t. I even knew the ones that led to the tower she claimed as her own. There was only one, and it was a tight squeeze. I went up there, and I watched her making powders and potions, and putting them in the foods she would offer me. I watched her burn the ones I hadn’t touched, and the smoke that came from the burnt food was enough to make me feel groggy and stupid. I should have told my father, but remember, he was gone. I thought... Well, I was almost twelve by then, and Ithought I was man enough to confront her and demand answers. What I got was a blast from her, a blast of fire that cut like a knife.” He touched his eye and blinked away the memory of the pain. “She thought she had me. I was down on the floor, moving sluggishly. She brought one of the cups to my lips and whispered for me to be a good boy and drink it all up, to go—to go see my mother, who missed me.”
Jocasta, who had sat on a chair by the fire, now jumped to her feet, hands to her mouth. She hurried to his side and touched his arm. “She was evil,” she whispered.
Relief flooded him.
Someone believed him. Someone saw the truth.
“She said that as soon as I was gone, she would give my father all the children he could want. He would never miss me. Then, she said, since he was so much older, soon her son would rule Caledon. I remember being confused, wanting to see my mother—wanting to meet these new, surprise brothers, but the first sip of liquid scalded like fire, and I flung out my arms. I think now that it hadn’t been mixed with whatever she intended to slip it into. It was pure poison, and the cup was thrown into her face. She scrambled and cursed and screamed, flailing around blindly—and went through the tower window. She had it open, you see, so that the fumes wouldn’t affect her while she was burning the discarded food, or perhaps the new potions were so vile she needed fresh air. It doesn’t matter. She went down. She died. Her bones were broken, and her face was marred. People thought it was some kind of attack until they saw all of her equipment in the tower room. Then, they decided she had a potion go badly, blind her, and she had fallen through the window.”
“No one knew you were there? Or how your eye was injured?”
