Chapter Forty-One
I fill Seth, Quinn, and a still-bedridden Taran in on what happened in the tomb while Seth packs.
Of the three of them, only Taran understands why I made the choice I made. We have always agreed on keeping Ronan alive as our top priority, and I’m grateful to have at least his support.
Even though Quinn doesn’t understand, she doesn’t argue with me for long. Instead, she helps me cut my hair.
“Are you sure?” she says, holding up the kitchen shears to the length we’ve cut the burnt section to. It’s between my chin and my shoulders, and it’s as short as I’ve had it since I was a child.
“Do it.” I close my eyes, unable to look as she hacks away. My head feels lighter and cooler as thick sections of brown waves fall to the floor.
“Damn,” she says when she’s finished. I still haven’t managed to open my eyes yet.
“That bad?”
“No. Not bad at all. If anything, you’re hotter than ever. Don’t let Ronan see you like this before you go. It’ll break his poor heart even worse.”
It really might. I know he loves my hair, but if we’re going into Faros, I need to do my best not to be recognized.
I squint my eyes open. At first, I’m appalled. My face looks so round, and my neck? “Is my neck too long?” Has it always been this long?
Quinn laughs. “It’s very appropriately neck-sized. You’re just not used to seeing it. You’ll get used to it, I promise.” She rubs at her own bare neck, her red hair always kept too short to reach it. “You’ll be happy you did this once you get to Faros. It’s already hot again there.”
“Thank you,” I say, giving her a hug. And then, biting my lip not to cry, I add, “Take care of him for me, will you?”
“I’ll do my best, if you’ll give your sister my regards.”
I’m too afraid to ask which regards those are, but I’m not given the opportunity anyway because Seth comes storming out of Taran’s room then, slamming the door behind him. “Let’s go,” he hisses.
“What happened in there?” asks Quinn, but Seth ignores her, pushing past to the cottage’s front door.
“Seth?”
“I said, ‘Let’s go.’” He throws the front door open, and it slams into the wall.
“Bye Seth, good luck to you too!” calls Quinn.
“Good luck, Quinn,” I say. “To victory.” I touch my hand to my chest and lower it in a Selaran salute.
“And to the victor,” she says, returning the gesture. “I’ll see you in the capital.”
I set out on the path into Pyka, unable to stop myself from checking to see if Ronan is watching from the window of our cottage.
He isn’t.
“What was that about?” I ask when I catch up to Seth, panting from my jog.
“You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
“Knew what?” Are we still talking about the prophecy? Because I had known, but only for about a day.
“What he did. Taran. What he did for Ronan.”
Oh, gods. Did Taran just tell Seth that he was the one to kill our father in the duel at the end of the war?
Why on earth would he tell him that? And why now?
It’s the kind of secret that could ruin Ronan’s chance to retake the throne.
If the Selaran people knew that Ronan had forfeited the duel, they might support Adria’s claim.
Probably not all of them, but enough that it could make a difference.
I can’t imagine why Taran would tell Seth, though, and especially not now when everything is still at stake. Unless…
Unless he just couldn’t live with the lie any longer. Because he loves Seth, and he’s afraid he won’t see him again.
Fuck. I know I’m right as soon as I think it, but I refuse to give anything away in case I’ve misunderstood. “What did he do?” I ask, feigning confusion. “Something in Avaris? What happened?”
“What did I tell you about lying to me? I can always tell, Sylvie. You kept this from me, knowing who I was living with. Knowing there was something going on between us—”
“First of all, I don’t know that there’s something between you, nor do I want to know.
” This is a lie, but I truly don’t want to understand any more about their relationship than what I’ve already learned against my will.
“And second, I told you to stay away from Taran. Loudly, repeatedly, and at every possible opportunity. I told you to leave him alone.”
“You let me live in that house with the man who killed our father!” Seth roars. His yelling causes a flock of crows to take flight in a nearby field, but at least with the soldiers training elsewhere today, they’re our only audience.
“What does it matter to you? What do you care about honor? ‘It’s war, Sylvie. The rules don’t matter. The only rule is survival.’ Your own words. How is what he did any different from what you would have done?”
“He didn’t do it to survive. He did it so Ronan would survive. There’s a difference.”
“Yes, and that difference is called caring about something more than yourself. I know you may find this shocking, but it’s generally considered a virtue.”
“Is that what you told yourself when you left Ronan?”
I reel back from him. It’s an incredibly low blow. “How dare you. It’s not what I told myself. It’s the truth. I love Ronan more than I care about my own happiness.”
“Or his,” he says in accusation. “Are you certain that’s the reason? Or do I sense some fear in your voice? Did you get married and see your future together looming before you and change your mind? Did you get cold feet?”
I slap him, and he grabs my wrist. “Just because you’re scared doesn’t mean everyone is. Just because you’re latching on to this thing that means nothing to you to give you an excuse to walk away doesn’t mean everyone does that. You ran out that door the second I asked you to.”
“Because you asked.”
“Bullshit,” I say. I know there’s some truth in what he’s saying, but I’m too furious now to see it.
“You ran because you were afraid that if you stayed, you would have had to care for Taran. And if you did that, you wouldn’t have been able to deny what you feel for him any longer.
There’s more than ‘something’ going on between you.
You think I haven’t seen the way you look at him?
The way you acted when he was about to die?
You care for him, Seth. Maybe you even love him in your own twisted way.
And gods, do I pity him for it. Because he’s fool enough to love you too, even though he shouldn’t.
He shouldn’t because you’re a coward. You’re a coward, and you don’t deserve him. ”
I’m breathing so hard I’m shaking as I finish yelling. Seth stares at me for a long while and then releases his grip on my wrist. “Maybe I am. But so are you.”
“I was once, but not anymore. I love Ronan.” I choke on the words.
“I’d give anything to go back up there and tell him I’ve made a huge mistake.
Anything, Seth. If I could go back in time and never go into that damn tomb, I would do it in a heartbeat.
You didn’t feel it, the power.” I can still feel it residually, my connection to Ronan not completely severed even after everything that just passed between us.
Maybe it will vanish with distance and time.
Or maybe it never will. “It felt like death. I had a chance to save him from that, and I took it. Maybe you wouldn’t do the same for Taran, but that’s the choice I made. ”
Seth almost says something but changes his mind. “It doesn’t matter what I would do,” he mutters. “Like you said, I’m a coward.”
And suddenly, I see another side to Seth leaving Taran. A version where he does this not because he’s afraid but because he knows he can’t be what Taran needs, knows he isn’t good enough for him, and he’s walking away to spare him the pain.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I rest a hand on Seth’s shoulder, and he doesn’t brush it away. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” he says with half a smile. “I could tell, remember?”
“How do you know when I’m lying?” I truly want to know.
His half-smile turns sly. “That’s a secret I’ll take to my grave.”
“And the other secret? The one Taran told you? It could get him killed too, you know.”
“You already know that answer.”
“Say it, Seth.”
He groans, rolling his entire head in exasperation. “Gods, you’re so boring. No, I won’t tell anyone their dirty little secret. Are you happy?”
“Far from it,” I say, looking back up the hill where the men we love lie heartbroken. “But we’re doing the right thing. You’re a good person, Seth.”
“Gods, stop,” says Seth, plugging his ears. “You’re making it worse.”
Instead of heading directly to the docks or to Karis to ask for help getting into Faros, I convince Seth to come with me to the inn to tell Larus and Octavia where we’re going.
The inn’s dining room is filled with the lunch crowd, but we don’t spot them anywhere among the packed tables. Larus doesn’t tend to roam much around Pyka, having received permission to stay at the inn only after some intense negotiations with Karis, so we try his room next.
“Busy in here,” comes a woman’s voice through the door. Seth and I look at each other in surprise—it’s an older woman, not Octavia. Has Larus finally found someone?
“It’s Sylvie. We need to talk.”
The door flies open, and there’s a woman there, that’s for sure. But it’s not Larus’s lover.
It’s his mother.
I can tell immediately. Her hair is silver and densely curly, and her face is heavily wrinkled, but her body moves as spryly as someone half her age.
She appraises me for a moment and then pulls me into her arms, my face slamming into her ample bosom and pressing against the hilt of a dagger she has strapped there.
“Oh, you did not do her justice, Larry boy. This is a woman you go to war over! Look at how beautiful.” She pinches at my cheeks as if I were still a child, checks my teeth as if I were a horse, and then finally squeezes the muscles in my arms like…
I don’t actually know anyone that typically does that, but she seems reasonably impressed by what she finds.
“And strong! You have trained her well; I can see it.” Before Larus can respond, she sees Seth.
“And this must be the brother. Septimus?”