“The prince should have killed him,” Cassius said bluntly. “Lord Adrian may not have had a part in what happened to your family, but he didn’t stop his father. Even when word got out about what the lord planned to do.”
Thalia’s lip curled again. “And that was all his punishment? To be removed and set up as a lord? Did you know this?” she hissed, stepping away from the window. “Did you know what he did to my family?”
Cassius’s face darkened. “I knew the day I arrived here.”
Thalia felt as though he’d struck her. “And yet you so willingly work with him?”
“I don’t willingly do anything,” Cassius snarled, stalking toward her. “As soon as I became hand, I removed both him and Julian from the prince’s council.”
His words stopped her. “What?”
“Do you really think I could ever willingly work with someone like them? To know how horribly depraved they are to want humans dead—to want you dead?” Cassius’s eyes glowed, a thin sliver of blue barely visible around the black of his irises. “I wanted to rip his throat out—both of them. I still do. And I would have if the prince hadn’t stopped me. This was the only option I could take.”
Thalia couldn’t face the emotions in Cassius’s face—didn’t want to dwell on the truth laid out like a map. She’d told him that he should have died. He’d ruined himself, cut a wound so deep she still bled from it. It didn’t make sense how he could be so ready to avenge her family, yet chose to betray her and turn into one of the very creatures she’d sworn to fight.
Too many things hung in the air between them. The threads that stretched between them tightened. At any moment, one of them would snap and send them both down the path of darkness.
Thalia turned away, wiping at her face. “I have another letter to send in the morning.”
Cassius’s eyes lingered on the desk where the letter to her mother sat. The wax seal seemed to suck in the moonlight. “All right.”
“Did you send the other one?” Thalia asked, turning back. Cassius nodded. She studied him, wondering if he was lying. But tiredness wrapped around her shoulders, and maybe she didn’t want to fight with him either. She struggled with her next words. “Did I—have I received anything from home?”
“No.”
Just like that, her stomach twisted. It had been days since she’d arrived in Vaccarium. And her mother hadn’t even cared to see how she was? To see if she was still alive? She pushed past the burning gathering in her throat.
“Were you expecting something?” Cassius asked softly.
She didn’t want to hear the softness in his voice. To see the quiet understanding of her pain at not hearing from her mother. It shouldn’t bother her so much. She had a duty to keep. A vow she’d made. Feelings had no place in her mission.
She forcibly cleared her throat. “What’s the prince’s name?”
Cassius shifted at the change in topic. “Prince Aeneas of House Lorenzia, why?”
“He sent me another gift today.” She nodded to the seating area, where a black marble chess set sat on the low-lying table before the fire. “He never signs his name. Why?” She turned to Cassius, finding his face carefully guarded.
“Dramatics, I’d assume,” Cassius finally said.
Despite the bleak horror she’d uncovered about her family’s murder, Thalia snorted. The sound made Cassius’s lips quirk. “Did you tell him I liked to play?”
Cassius hesitated before nodding. “Do you hate me for that?”
Hate.
Thalia swallowed, looking away. Because she was supposed to hate him. But after his reveal—the way he’d handled Lord Adrian—that hate seemed to flicker ever so slightly.
“No. No, I don’t hate you for that,” Thalia said softly. She focused on the chess set so she wouldn’t have to see the relief in his eyes. “Do you want to play?” She glanced back, and Cassius gave a slow nod.
Before she lost her nerve, she moved to the sitting area, sinking onto one of the velvet armchairs.
After a moment, Cassius followed, taking a spot across from her on the settee. Silence mounted, the cracking of the logs in the fire the only sound.
“Well?” Thalia asked, finally glancing at him. He seemed tense, and he watched her with so much intensity that she was surprised she didn’t catch flame. “Are you ready?”
“I’m always ready for you, Princess.”
Thalia swallowed the sudden heat in her stomach, taking a pawn and moving it two squares.
