I nod, but I know Larus can see something else is on my mind. He pauses, waiting for me to speak, but I don’t. I cheer for a man who hit a bullseye with a spear instead.
He sighs at me. “Say it,” he says.
I swallow, trying to force the panic that’s rising from my chest back down my throat. Of everything I’ve said to Larus, this is the thing I’m most afraid to talk about. “It’s about the Orsa. And Taran, in particular.”
Larus uncrosses and crosses his legs, switching which one is on top. For most, it would be a casual gesture. The kind of thing you do one hundred times a day without attracting any kind of attention. For him, a man completely aware of his appearance at all times, it’s the peak of agitation.
“What did he say to you?” he asks, his voice clipped.
“He told me about how his village was slaughtered—”
“Poachers. I remember.”
“You were there?” I can’t hide my shock and disgust, and I know Larus sees it too.
“No,” says Larus. “Your uncle’s men.” My uncle Theron, father’s younger brother. Lost in the war with the rest of them. He had been a favorite of my brother Seth’s, although Mother wasn’t fond of him from what I remembered. “Theron kept his men on a longer leash than your father liked.”
“So it’s true what they did? Slaughtered all of them, even the children?” I’m unwilling to ask what else had happened to them, what reason they had for stripping them naked. I can’t bear to even think of it.
“Yes, and it was disgracefully done. And with the king nearby on a hunt. Aurelian took no issue with it; no laws were broken after all. They were on Verran land. Their lives were forfeit. But your father was angry, both at Theron and at the king taking Taran as a ward. It never should have happened, but to keep the boy was a terrible insult.”
Their lives were forfeit.Even the children, who had no choice in the matter. I didn’t—couldn’t—understand. “Taran was only eleven. There were other children there too. What could they have possibly done?”
“Their parents knew what the consequences were, and they trespassed anyway. The blood is on their hands.”
“But they were starving—”
“Sylvara.” Larusneveruses my full name. Not ever. Not even the time I climbed the highest castle tower as a child, a castle the Orsa now control, nearly falling to my death. I’ve always preferred Sylvie, and he has always respected that.
Until now.
“You don’t understand what you’re talking about, and that’s my fault, not yours. I protected you from it. I shielded you from what the Orsa do, what theyare.But make no mistake, Sylvie, they aremonsters.They are not like us, no matter what Ronanwould like you to believe. They have ravaged your family’s lands for generations. They have plundered your villages. They have slaughtered your children in their beds. Everything we did to them in that village, they’ve done to us one hundred times over. They are savages, and they will stop at nothing until Nithyria is ground to dust.
“I have served your family faithfully since I was no older than Taran. I have fought and bled for you because I believe in you. If you had seen the things I’ve seen—if you had watched your dearest friends die at their hands—you would never dream of defending them.”
I have never heard Larus say so much at once. He’s a man of few words, seldom prone to lecture. He likes to let me come to conclusions for myself. And yet here he is, telling me I’m wrong.
I trust Larus beyond anything. Beyond even my brother and sister. He’s more than twice my age, but in many ways, he’s my closest friend in the world.
But what he’s saying just doesn’t make sense to me, and I won’t lie to him and pretend that it does. I respect him too much for that.
“You say they’re not like us. But you also admit my uncle’s men did the same—”
“Because of whattheydid first.” His voice is sharp and impatient, and hearing it makes heat rise in the back of my neck.
It hurts me to hear his disappointment. I’m ashamed to argue with him, ashamed enough to consider letting it go, but I just can’t. “Does that make it right? It isn’t what you taught me.”
Larus sighs. “I hoped you would live in a time of peace. Of reconciliation. I prepared you to fight a war, but I didn’t prepare you to live in one. They took your home, Sylvie. We are at war with them, no matter what they say here. They are your enemy.”
The enemy. The other.I think of Adria’s words, and then of Ronan’s. I think of Taran on the road back last night. Shy, almostpainfully so. Never drawing attention to himself, serving his king without complaint or question. Beyond that, he’s grateful to him. He serves Ronan out of love, not fear. If the heart of a killer beats in his chest, Taran hides it better than anyone I’ve known.
“The man who nearly killed me down there thought the same thing about me. Was he right?”
Larus opens his mouth to speak and then closes it. He furrows his brows and crosses his arms in front of him, opens his mouthagainand closes itagain, and then shakes his head. “Sylvie,” he says, and he softens, his eyes wrinkling at the corners as he almost smiles. “Who taught you to be so wise?” He sighs again, a deep, heavy sigh that moves his entire chest. Then he slowly stands up. “There’s a part of me that knows that you’re right. Maybe not about everything, but you could be right about Taran, at least. I know it, Iknowit, but still I can’t agree. I’m an old man, Sylvie, and the wounds they made have been there longer than you’ve been alive. It’s not my mind you need to change. It’s my heart.”
“Can you change my heart instead?” I ask him. I stand to face him, and I see a mixture of pride and confusion. At the end of the day, he loves me, even if he doesn’t understand me.
“I don’t think I can,” he says. “And I wouldn’t even if I could.” He places his hand on my shoulder. “Trust yourself, Sylvie. I have served your house most of my life, and I will continue to serve you as long as you let me. I have always believed in House Verran.
