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“He’s not going,” Onyx whispers. “JaJa. He’s not going.”

“I know. He’s down here. He’s here with you.”

“They were going to put him on a ship.” Onyx pulls back, eyes wet and furious. “He sat with me every morning and never said a word. I only found out yesterday, and I...” His eyes find Ryven. “He’s still here.”

Jade cups the side of his face. “He’s still here.”

Onyx scrubs his eyes with his wrist, glancing toward the doors Seren disappeared through. “Although that prince was very handsome.”

“Onyx...”

“I’m only saying. If somebody’s going to be carried off a lawn in front of all these guests⁠—”

“Finish that sentence,” Ryven warns from behind the chair, “and you’ll spend the next week explaining it to your nurses.”

Onyx snorts, sinking back into the chair with a grin.

Ten minutes later, Ryven turns the chair towards the house and wheels Onyx away through the remaining guests, ignoring his complaints about missing the food.

Jade watches them go, his smile softening as Ryven disappears through the doors with his brother.

“He’s got him.”

I close my hand around his, rubbing our rings together beneath my thumb. “He’s got him.”

Dinner is being called inside by the time Dad comes for me. He waits until the Imperial and the remaining guests are through the doors before crossing the lawn. “Asher.”

Jade’s fingers tighten around mine, and I rub my thumb over his ring. “Stay with me.”

Dad stops in front of us and looks at Jade. “This is family business.”

“He is my family.”

“You have no idea what you’ve done tonight, and if you had allowed me to guide you from the beginning, none of this would have happened. Aleron was the right decision for you and for this House.”

Something in my chest tightens, my body still fucking remembers that voice even when I no longer believe a word coming out of his mouth.

“Aleron.” I huff out a breath as it finally clicks. “If I’d married him, I’d be living on Veyra. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Me gone.”

“You would have been representing House Clement in a position worthy of your name.”

“On another fucking planet. Mom died giving birth to me, and you’ve resented me for surviving her every day since.”

“Don’t start rewriting history because you’re angry, Asher. You have no idea what I lost.”

“I never had her either, Dad. That’s the part you always seemed to fucking forget. I was born, and she died, and somehow that became the first debt I owed you. Then I turned nine, and you started collecting it with your hands.”

“Asher, that is enough.”

“Not even fucking close. Every mistake punished. Every weakness despised. I spent my entire life knowing exactly what you thought it would cost to keep me here, and now you want to stand there and tell me that shipping me off to Veyra would have been for my own good?”

“That is not what happened. Everything I have done has been for this family. You are too young to understand what it takes to protect a House like this, but sometimes individual wishes have to be sacrificed for something larger.”

Dad stares at me as I shake my head. “Like Ryven. Like me. You would have sent me to Veyra; you tried to send Ryven instead. When Jade became inconvenient, you sent men into the forest after him. You keep calling it family while sacrificing everyone in it.”

“I did what was necessary to bring you back under control. You were behaving irrationally, and judging by what you’ve done tonight, you still are.”

“Under control.” My mouth twists. “Funny you should mention tonight. What did you think Vasco meant about Calder?”