When the golem set her on the ground, Fabiana took a shaky step off and glared at him, then at Theira. “You used sorcery to cushion your ride over on one of those things, didn’t you?”
That was Fabi all over. Never missing a detail, never afraid to demand answers, and practical to the bone.
Theira’s lips curved. “Absolutely. Shall I craft a spell for your return?”
Fabiana snorted. “I’ll walk, thank you. Why am I here, Varius?”
“Our Korossian neighbors have some questions about future Aurelian policy as it pertains to this border.”
“Don’t we all,” Fabiana said. “Seems to me that’s a you problem.”
“And if you think I’m going to commit to anything without speaking to the head of the rebellion, you must think I’ve lost my wits.”
“Youhavelost your wits, Varius, you came here with a bloody sorceress.”
Her tone was tart, not accusing, so Varius said with some amusement, “Give me some credit, I did remove Sobanus for you.”
“Remove, ha! We’ll be scraping bits of him off the stone so we can rebuild.”
Theira murmured, “A beautiful metaphor.”
Fabiana snorted. “Are you asking for my backing, Varius, or my opinion?”
Whatwashe asking her?
Varius regarded Fabiana, her brash behavior disguising the bone-deep fear she had to feel standing amidst all these sorceresses without any kind of military training or shield. And yet she hadn’t hesitated, and wasn’t letting on. She’d be a wonderful leader, given the opportunity.
Then he looked at Theira, who was watching him expectantly. Theira, who’d opened a new world of possibilities for him, a taste of a different way to live that he wanted so badly hehurt.
She’d refused to rule her country. She’d passed off that responsibility—mostly.
Maybe... maybe he could too.
Maybe not everything and everyone had to be his personal responsibility anymore. Heknewthey’d all benefit from someone outside the empire’s power structure reshaping it.
Maybe, for once, he could dare to dream a little bigger—for his people, and for himself.
This, he finally realized, was actually what Theira hadn’t wanted to tell him, before. It wasn’t that she hadn’t trusted him with her plan for Tychon.
It was that when the moment finally came to decide what kind of power he could wield, she didn’t want to influence his choices. Didn’t know if he would truly be happy turning his back on it all like she had, and was giving him the space to decide, without the weight of promises or expectations between them.
Theira was, as ever, doing her best—deniably, while making sure he had everything he needed—not to back him into a corner.
Varius had promised her he’d handle his side, and that didn’t just mean his people.
It meant choosing for himself, finally, what he wanted.
Like she had.
If he wanted a different life, one with her, he had to be the one to step up and claim it.
“I’m asking,” Varius said slowly to Fabi, “if, with the patricians gone, you require immediate military support in order to take power yourself.”
Fabiana frowned, her gaze searching his. “You want to be the power behind the throne? Again?”
Never. “I want to leave and never come back, Fabi. I’m asking if you need me to stay.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise, and then her gaze softened.
