Page 137
Seren drags another out beside him and sits without a word.
I put Jade in the chair beside mine, then take the one across from Dad, holding his gaze the whole way down. A cup is filled in front of me, and I leave it untouched.
Dad folds his hands on the table. “I’ll keep this short, since none of you appear interested in pretending we’re enjoying ourselves. The Veyra arrangement is proceeding. The announcement stands. The date stands. House Veyra was informed this morning that there will be a substitution of party.”
Ryven’s head comes up. Seren goes completely still beside him, and Jade turns towards me.
Dad reaches for the teapot. “My son has made it quite clear he won’t fulfill the arrangement.” He pours as though he’s discussing the weather. “Regrettable, certainly, but it isn’t the individual that matters. Not anymore. It’s the House. Veyra needs a Clement, so a Clement will be provided.”
He sets the pot down and finally looks up. “Ryven.”
Ryven lifts his head, his face already tight. “Sebastian.”
I’ve known my cousin since he was seven, when he moved into this house with me. I’ve seen him take a knife from a man in a corridor and hand it back, handle first. I’ve seen him laugh in a fight, blood in his teeth.
Dad settles back in his chair. “You’ve known Asher almost your entire life. You lived in this house when you needed a family, and we gave you one, because that’s what family does. Now the family needs something from you.”
Ryven’s gaze tightens. “Sebastian...”
“Three weeks. There’s a fitting on Thursday, and you’ll want to be in the city by the—”
“No.” The cup goes over, tea spreading across the white cloth, and nobody looks at it. “You can’t. You can’t just... I’m not—”
“Your father would have been proud, Ryven.” Dad refills his cup. “I’ve always thought so.”
Beside him, Seren hasn’t moved, but his face has emptied of everything familiar. Barely recognizing him, I’m on my feet before I decide to be, the chair skidding across the flagstones. “Dad. No. You can’t do that.”
“Ash.” Jade’s hand closes around my forearm. “Ash—”
“Take it back.”
Dad glances towards the chair, a tiny movement that somehow feels like an order.
“Put it on me. It was always mine. I’ll do it. I’ll stand there and say whatever you want.”
“You’re a bit late for that, aren’t you?” Amusement slips into his voice. “You married yourself off in the meantime.”
I want to break his nose. I want to make him bleed the way he’s made me bleed my whole life.
“Doubts already?” His dark gaze slides off mine and settles on Jade. “I do hope someone warned you about my son, dear boy. He’s got quite a reputation.”
“Shut up.”
Dad laughs. “Oh, by the look on your face, no one ever—”
“I said shut up. Leave him out of it.” I lean across the table. “And you’re not sending Ryven off to another planet. Take the account I built on Calder, take the mine. All of it, every fucking credit.”
“Asher.”
“I’ll sign it over tonight. I don’t want any of it. Just leave him out of this.”
At the edge of the paving, the two men in suits step forward. That’s all. One step in unison, and everything in me goes cold because I know exactly what those men are.
Not once have they refused my father. Not the night I was eleven, when they carried me up two flights while I fought them. Not the year I was seventeen, when one of them held a door shut from the outside for four hours. Not once. Not for anything.
They aren’t cruel. That’s the part nobody understands. They’re perfectly pleasant to me. They’ve driven me to school, to funerals and to my grandfather’s grave.
They just do what he tells them.
