Ronan drops his voice so it’s very low and soft, the same sort of intimacy he offered me on the night we met. “We have lived with these feuds all our lives. There are scores being kept that have been kept since long before we were born, and if we don’t do something to change it, they’ll keep going long after we die. We can tally them all up, measure whose loss hurts the most, find out who is owed the most in repentance. A point here, a point there. Weigh the missing grain, count the parents taken from their children. Gather up all the blood, sweat, and tears and see whose make the deeper ocean. But to what end? Where does it stop? Are we doomed to repeat this pattern for all eternity?”
It's easy for him to say this from the top. He won. If we let the feud end here, he’s triumphant. Would he feel the same way if our rebellion had been a success?
A wrinkle forms between his brows. “You don’t believe me?”
“It’s not that I don’t. It’s just that I think it’s a lot easier to say what you’re saying when you’re the winner.”
“It didn’t feel like victory.” There’s a raw edge to his voice, the same bare, painful look on his face as when we first met. “What I’m saying is that there is no winner. There shouldn’t be. This world was built on violence. On slavery, on conquest. On the backs of the other, the outsider, the stranger. The enemy. There’s always an enemy. The alchemists tell me it’s in our nature. The strong over the weak. The pure over the tainted. The priests tell me it’s destined by the gods. The righteous will triumph over the unworthy.
“But the gift I was granted has taught me one truth: there are no others. Whatever it is that we are, we’re the same. And this beautiful, terrible world has enough for all of us, or it did until we destroyed it. Until my family destroyed it, and yours too.”
My family didn’t destroy anything. What little we had was taken from us. Hisfatheris the one who destroyed it all.
“But I believe it can have enough again, if we nurture it. If we work together to build something better than what was given to us. This festival isn’t just for fun. We were born into a fight that doesn’t have to be ours. We can choose another path.”
What is this? Some kind of trick? A pretty speech to make me feel like he cares so I won’t do what I came here to do?
If it is, he’s a better actor than even Adria. He’s wasted on the throne. He should have been on the stage.
And if he’s being genuine, if he really believes what he’s saying, what does he intend to do about it? Pretty words won’t save my people. Pretty words won’t feed them. It’s nice that he wants to build a world where we all have enough one day, but what about right now?
And what amImeant to do about what he says, anyway? “Why are you telling me this?” I ask him. “I’m not the head of House Verran. I’m not even the heir.”
“Because I know you’ll listen. Because I know you’re smart enough to see I’m right. And I’m hoping it makes a difference.”
I shake my head. “You don’t know me, Ronan,” I say again.
“Maybe not,” he says. But this time, he adds, “But I want to.”
Chapter Thirteen
Istumble through the courtyard in a daze, not sure which of the things that has just happened to process first.
But I know exactly who I need to talk to in order to work it all out: Larus. He’ll know the truth of the grain situation, and better yet, he won’t judge me for slipping something potentially damaging to Ronan.
I head to his rooms to find him, but instead, I find Adria, on her way from our wing of the palace in a hurry.
“Have you seen Larus?” I could ask Adria about what Ronan told me, but to do so would mean facing her wrath.
I need Larus there, in case she loses it.
“He’s down at the docks greeting Felix,” she says. "I’m heading there now.”
I join her, both for my own needs and out of curiosity. I’ve never met Felix March, but I know him by name and reputation. He’s one of Larus’s contacts from the Enez Islands, and he’s well known both here and abroad for his ruthless mercenary tactics. Some call him a pirate; others call him a savior. He’ll say he’s here to join in the celebrations of the Great Festival, but he’s really here to update us on the naval blockade. Having lost ourlimited naval forces in the last war, his ships will be critical to ensuring our siege of Faros is a success.
I tell Adria about practicing with Ronan as we walk through the bustling streets of Faros. About his tendency to bait an attack, about the things he taught me in case they’re useful to her eventually, if she faces him in battle.
But I keep the rest to myself, for now.
I can’t bring myself to ask her about the Orsa, not because I’m afraid of finding out the truth, but because I’m afraid she’ll try to justify it.
There are no others,Ronan said.
To Adria, there are only others. There’s us, and then there’s everyone else.
She may not approve of what happened to Taran’s people, but I don’t think she’ll feel bad about it, either.
And I don’t know what to do with that knowledge.
