Epilogue
I’d been shocked to learn that Lt. Worron, who had saved the lives of both Janos and me, was actually the killer, or one of them anyway.
In the aftermath of the event, each and every Imperial soldier who had traveled to Moravia with the general were taken in for questioning.
I strongly suspected they drugged them with the serum too, but I never asked, because I really didn’t want to know.
It turned out that Lt. Worron had lost an uncle on that long ago training vessel.
The boy had been only fourteen and no one in his family had never gotten over it.
They blamed Janos, of course, and had never even read the other, truer accounts written about the boys’ kidnapping by slavers arranged for by Janos’s brother and not Janos.
They probably wouldn’t have believed it if they had.
They believed the theories and had too much hate in their hearts to listen to reason.
There had been one other conspirator—probably the man he’d met with in the observatory—who claimed he didn’t know Worron was going to kill anyone, but Prince Mikos said he was obviously lying.
He’d stand trial when we got back to Tygeria, but I already knew how that would work out.
As for Kirstos, he was devastated to lose such a good soldier as Worron.
Good, in every way, that is, except for the fact he was a murderer.
I think he also hated being wrong about him.
He’d always said Worron was one of his best men.
And that had been disproven in such an epic way that it had to be embarrassing for him.
I did the best I could to console him.
“My father says that since we’re so publicly sharing your quarters, you’ll have to marry me, you know.”
“Yes, yes, he already spoke to me about it.”
“And?”
“And I agreed, of course. The Consort Blake says you’re compromised.” He gave a little snort at that, and I decided to it ignore it for the sake of keeping the peace.
“What were you doing in the passageway anyway when you heard the fight in Janos’s room?”
“I was coming to bring you dinner. I was a few minutes late in getting away, so I knew that meant you’d no doubt be ravenous. I have no idea where you put so much food. You’ll be fat one day, because you get very little exercise.”
“Will you still like me when I’m fat?”
“Probably so. Nothing seems to put me off when it comes to you, though you have many faults and bad qualities.”
“Could it be that you’re falling in love with me?”
“I seem to have formed an attachment of sorts, yes.”
“You love me. You’re not going to make me wait for you after all.”
“It seems so.”
I climbed on top of him to straddle him, and his hands came quickly around behind me to caress my naked ass.
“This means a wedding, you know.”
“Gods.”
“I want a big wedding with both of us in uniform and music and flowers, like Blake told me Anarr had at his wedding.”
“No flowers,” he said, pointing a finger up at my face. “Flowers are stupid and womanly! There I draw the line.”
I laughed down at him. “But you will marry me, right?”
“I guess I’ll have to, or else you’ll worry me to death about it.”
I kissed him for a while and then slid off beside him on the bed and began to pull on my pants and boots.
“What are you doing?” he said, raising up on one elbow.
“Going to see if Blake is still up. He’ll help me plan the wedding. I’ll bet he’ll even let us have it at the palace.”
He fell back down against the pillows, groaning a little, as I found a shirt and ran toward the door before it got any later. I stopped and turned to look back at him.
“Maybe just a few flowers, yeah? I promise not to go crazy.”
He lifted his head and growled at me. “No. No flowers. Nothing womanly. We’re both Imperial soldiers now.”
I grinned at him. “Whatever you say.” And I closed the door softly behind me. All the way to Blake’s quarters, I planned what colors the flowers would be.
The End