“Oh, that was merely a test.” The Admiral’s teeth shone bone white. “I wanted to see what I could push that girl of yours to do.”
Something hot and loose uncoiled in Ramson. He held very still, reminding himself that he had been through this many times before; that his father possessed the unique ability to hide threats in the most innocuous words to undo his enemies.
“I always knew you’d be back,” Admiral Farrald continued, moving to the cherrywood cabinet by the wall. “You’ve always loved yourself too much and been too cowardly to die, I reasoned, and whatever you’ve been through in the past seven years can’t be worse than the scars from here—that boy Jonah, your mother, what-have-you.” His father flashed him a smile from across the room and held up a bottle of Bregonian liquor, the large gold ring on his finger scraping against the glass. “Brandy?”
To hear his father talk of his past so casually—each word felt like a cold knife against his skin. Ramson’s voice sounded distant to his own ears when he said, “No, thanks.”
“Shame. It’s very good brandy.”
The smell of liquor wafted across the room, and memories came flooding back: the slip of an arrow, the sigh of a lost life, the explosion of crimson against a wall. It had been hot chocolate mixed with brandy, Ramson suddenly remembered, in the cup the Admiral had handed him after Jonah had been murdered. His father had attempted to buy him off with a cup of hot chocolate and brandy.
He would not fall into the same trap again.
Ramson narrowed his eyes. The hot, molten anger flowing inside him just moments ago cooled. “I imagine you’ve had your fill of it since I’ve been gone,” he said. “The Kingdom of Bregon is quite different from the version I left seven years back.”
There was the clink of glass, the sound of liquid pouring, and then the thud of a bottle. Slowly, deliberately, the Admiral turned. “I couldn’t have Bregon sit still and watch as Cyrilia grew powerful beyond our control.”
Ramson thought of the new searock walls, the ironore doors, the trained magen in the Royal Guard. So his fatherhadbeen behind it all.
What else had he done?
“You judge me,” the Admiral said softly. “But someday, when I am gone, look from the sky to the shining sea, across the magnificence of this kingdom our ancestors have built from the ground. And perhaps, then, you will know a little of how it feels.”
Ramson looked at the man who was his father, twilight shadows cutting his face into sharp edges. For a moment, he tried to imagine Roran Farrald as not the cruel father he had known but a man who helmed a great kingdom and had to make difficult decisions.
But the raven-black eyes of Jonah Fisher came back to him. The soft hazel ones of his mother. All gone now, not out of necessity but out ofgreed.Out of a lust for power.
Ramson swore to himself to never become like him. “Why are you here?” he replied tonelessly.
The Admiral raised his tumbler to Ramson. “I have a proposal for you. It’s about that girl of yours.”
Cold spread through his veins. “She’s not my girl,” Ramson said quietly.
“I see the way you look at her. The way you communicate with just a touch, or a glance. I have, after all, experienced it myself.”
Something drew taut in Ramson. “Don’t speak as if you’ve ever loved anybody in your life.”
The Admiral’s smile was indecipherable. “You can hide nothing from me. As much as I despise it, you are, after all, my son. My creation. And you seem to have forgotten the most important lesson I’ve taught you.” He swirled the brandy in his glass. “Love makes usweak,boy.”
Ramson forced his face into the cold, cruel mask he’d worn so often that he wondered whether it had become a part of him. “Fitting, then, that I’ve never loved anyone but myself,” he said. “It seems I am your son, after all.”
“Oh, good. Then perhaps you’ll do what’s logical for our kingdom.” The Admiral’s gaze sharpened. “It seems this Blood Empress has quite a talent. A rare magek.”
Ramson kept silent.
The Admiral set down his glass. His next words surprised Ramson. “I am prepared to accept her offer of alliance. Undoubtedly, she will make a bid for Cyrilia’s throne, and I am prepared to negotiate. The Cyrilian Empire has shown itself to be a threat of increasing magnitude. Even more so, with the latest events and the current Empress, I want to hedge against that threat. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the trite saying goes.”
Ramson’s mind spun. His father was not one to give without taking, and most often, his offers came with a steep price. “And what do you get from this alliance?”
The Admiral paced to the open-air doorway. The evening light struck his lined face, his eyes distant like cold black waters. “The magen, Ramson, are the true lodestar to our developments and defenses. You’ll have noticed their addition to the Navy, to the Royal Guard. I aim to create a generation of magen more powerful than any. I aim to harness their power as the world has never before seen.
“In return for our alliance, I will ask the Blood Empress to let us study her magek.” He turned to Ramson, and at last, the full meaning of it all blossomed on his face in a smile. “I want you to speak to her about it, before the official negotiation. Persuade her, if you will. My alliance—for her power.”
Ramson studied his father, considering. Roran Farrald wanted something from him—and Ramson had learned to never give without taking. Perhaps there was a way for him to get information for both his and Ana’s missions. Two fish with one hook.
“So you’ll work with her to protect the artifact she spoke of today?” he asked. “She won’t agree to any deal without that. And don’t even try denying it,” he added as his father opened his mouth to respond. “We have good information on its existence. I’ve heard of the magen with multiple powers.”
It had been a gamble—they didn’t even know whether the artifact Tetsyev had spoken of was in the Blue Fort, or whether the Bregonian government was aware of it. Yet as the Admiral’s eyes narrowed, Ramson felt a spark of delight deep inside. He’d hit gold.
