He looked comfortable and clean and perfectly groomed despite his injuries, his blond hair freshly washed and slicked back, his linen shirt crisp and unwrinkled.
He'd been like this all week. Perfectly pleasant and perfectly useless. He’d actively resisted when I asked him to accompany me when I visited the families of the fallen porters.
"How is your ankle?" I asked, not because I was particularly concerned for him at this moment but because it was the polite thing to ask.
"Sorel said I can start putting weight on it next week if the swelling continues to go down." He wiggled his splinted foot. "The wrist is better. I can almost hold a pen properly, which means I can start working on the script again."
"The script." I turned back to the Silver Princess, adjusting another ice pack that didn't need adjusting. "Of course."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing."
"That was clearly something disguised as nothing with a thin veneer of nothing on top."
I didn't respond. I focused on the temperature gauge, willing the numbers to drop by another two degrees, and knowing they wouldn't.
"Idrilia." Gavon's voice shifted from playful to cautious. "What did I do to upset you this time?"
Where to even begin?
"You didn't come with me," I said without turning around. "I practically begged you to accompany me, and you said your ankle hurt too much for the hover-car ride."
The silence behind me was telling.
"I'm sorry," he said. "But I was in too much pain. Three hours in a hover-car would have killed me."
That was such a poor choice of words for someone who fancied himself a wordsmith.
"Moran's widow has four children." I turned to face him. "The youngest is just a baby, and the other three are all very young. His daughter held on to my hand and asked me when her daddy was coming home from the mountain. She thinks her father is just late getting back from a trip."
He had the decency to look uncomfortable.
"Voser's wife didn't cry. Not once. She was so composed that I almost believed she was handling it well. Then, as I was leaving, she asked me if I could describe exactly where her husband had fallen because she wanted to know what was the last thing he'd seen before he died."
My voice cracked on the last word. I swallowed hard and turned back to the plant.
I'd held it together during both visits. I'd been calm, compassionate, and thorough. I'd answered every question as honestly as I could, taken responsibility without deflection, and promised both families that I would personally ensure they would want for nothing. The insurance payouts would sustain them for years if managed well, but I knew that money was a cold substitute for a husband and father. I'd committed to covering the children's education through university, and any other needs that arose.
I'd done everything I could, but it didn't ease my guilt.
Those two visits had destroyed me, taking years off my life. I could have used a shoulder to cry on during the ride back. I couldhave used a strong arm wrapped around me, and kind words murmured in my ear even if I didn't deserve them.
"I'm sorry," Gavon said quietly. "You're right. I should have been there for you."
"Yes, you should have."
"My ankle?—"
"Was a convenient excuse."
Gavon set his glass down and was quiet, letting the sounds of the garden fill the silence. Insects buzzed in the flowering vines along the palace wall, and water trickled from the stone fountain in the corner.
"I'm a pampered coward," he said after a while. "I was afraid. Not of the ride. Of the faces. I didn't want to see the grief and the accusation in their eyes for coming back only injured while their husbands and fathers had died."
It was the most honest thing he'd said to me in a long while, and it softened something in me that had been hardening since the day I'd returned from the visits.
"Next time, I'll come with you." He put a hand over his heart. "I promise."
