Chapter 28
Itried to do as Iannis asked and keep out of trouble, but I found myself bored within minutes.
The rest of our delegation easily fit into the international crowd, practiced at conversing with other politicians, but I wasn’t quite so polished.
Besides, Iannis had warned me against allowing members of the other delegations to lure me into spilling secrets, so I was hesitant to talk too much to the other guests for fear that I might accidentally reveal something I shouldn’t.
Quite a few tried to engage me in conversation, but when it was clear that I would only make small talk, they quickly gave up and moved onto better, more inebriated targets.
Just as I was considering the idea of slipping out early, I saw Isana on the other side of the room.
She wore midnight blue today, and her black tresses were pulled back from her head and styled artfully, revealing the gemstones that dangled from her ears.
She was in deep conversation with a Sandian delegate, and I approached from the side, waiting until the man had disappeared before making my move.
“Hello, Miss ar’Rhea,” I said, and she jerked as I appeared before her. I grabbed a glass of wine from a passing servant and offered it to her. “Care for a drink?”
“Thank you.” She took the glass gingerly, a hesitant smile on her lips. “Usually it’s the men who ply me with these,” she joked, taking a small sip.
“Big surprise.” I settled onto the low couch she was perched on, draping one arm over the back. “How have you found your stay in Garai?”
“Very pleasant,” Isana said. “This is my first time visiting, and I find the culture fascinating in its strangeness. What about you?”
“Oh, I think it’s lovely,” I agreed. “But I’ve been having trouble sleeping ever since that assassination attempt.”
Isana’s eyes widened. “Oh yes, I remember hearing about that. Someone mentioned you were wounded. Did the attacker do any lasting damage?”
“No,” I said, keeping my expression carefully blank. Isana sounded sincere, but her scent told a different story—she was nervous. “I’m a shifter, and I heal easily from most wounds.”
“I am happy to hear that,” she said. This time, I could smell the lie.
“I’m not sure you are.” I allowed my eyes to narrow, watching with satisfaction as Isana’s sun-kissed skin paled. “Did you know that shifters can smell lies, Isana?”
“N-no,” she stuttered, her face blank even as her scent grew sour with fear. “We have no shifters in Castalis.”
“Ah, yes, that’s right,” I said, as though I’d forgotten. “I’ve heard that Castalians are rather prejudiced against them. Makes me wonder whether your family was the one who targeted me.”
“I resent that implication,” Isana said stiffly, her green eyes flashing.
“I am sorry that you were attacked, Miss Baine, but I do not know who assaulted you, and I don’t appreciate you fingering my family for the blame.
Your poor manners and unreasonable paranoia no doubt make you lots of enemies, wherever you go. ”
Her cheeks grew pink with genuine fury, but underneath that, she was still nervous. What was she hiding?
“Isana?” Haman called before I could probe further. I tore my gaze away from my half-sibling to see him approaching our little corner. Malik was at his side, and while Haman’s face was drawn with concern, Malik’s green eyes glittered with anger, echoing his sister’s.
Haman came to a stop before us, his gaze shifting back and forth between Isana and me. Those green eyes, identical in color to mine, lingered on mine for a long moment, and I held my breath. Did he suspect the truth?
“Is everything all right?” he finally asked, turning back to Isana.
“Of course.” Isana let out a breath, then smiled at her father. “Miss Baine and I were having a spirited conversation is all.”
I arched a brow at that. Why would Isana lie to her father about what we’d been discussing? Wouldn’t it behoove her to tell her father about my accusation?
“Very well,” Haman said, though he didn’t look like he believed her. “Miss Baine, would you mind letting me borrow you for a few minutes? I’d like to speak privately, just the two of us.”
“Borrow me?” I repeated, excitement and fear bubbling up inside me all at once. Was he going to acknowledge our relationship? But if so, why would he not invite his son and daughter?
“Yes.” He held out his arm to me. “I need to speak to you privately.”
What if he’s planning to kill you?
I scanned the crowd quickly, looking for Iannis, but he was nowhere to be found. For a split second, I considered calling out to him via mindspeak and asking him what I should do.
No, I scolded myself. In the end, this was my demon to face and mine alone.
I couldn’t rely on Iannis to tell me how to handle every situation—that would only encourage his overprotective instincts.
If I asked, he would insist that I not to go anywhere alone with Haman.
But my own instincts told me to accept Haman’s offer, and they rarely failed me.
Looking into my father’s eyes, that bottle-green color so familiar, I could detect no malice or fear.
And though his scent betrayed his nerves, I did not sense that he feared or distrusted me, as Isana did.
“Very well,” I said, taking his offered his arm. “Please lead the way.”
“I know that you are my daughter,” Haman said as we sat down on a stone bench next to a koi pond in the Palace Gardens.
A gingko tree extended its branches over us, hiding us from the waning moon and anyone who might look this way from a distance.
“The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew in my heart. But I had to investigate, had to make absolutely certain, before approaching you about it.”
“I guess that must have been an unpleasant surprise, given the way your country feels about shifters.” I kept my voice even, as though my heart wasn’t hammering against my chest, as though my palms weren’t sweaty against the cool stone of the bench beneath me.
As though the words I spoke didn’t coat my tongue with bitterness.
“By the Lady, no.” Haman sighed. “I feel guilty, mostly, but also amazed. If I ever shared that stupid prejudice against shifters, meeting your mother, Saranella, would have cured me of it. I adored her.”
“Is that so?” I couldn’t keep the scathing note out of my voice. “Is that why you left her without a backward glance? Without even telling her who you were?”
“I had no choice.” His voice was pained now. “I could not stay with her, much as I wanted to. I was bound by duty and obligation. I still am.”
I wanted to snort in derision, but decided to hear him out first. “That doesn’t make me feel a whole lot better.” I paused, then added, “I used to hate you, you know. Even though I didn’t know who you were for most of my life.”
“I’m not surprised…” He trailed off, then turned to face me. There was sadness in the lines of his face, but curiosity gleamed in his eyes as he regarded me. “How did you find out about me? Did Saranella tell you before she passed away?”
“No,” I said quietly, a pang of sadness hitting me as my mother’s face swam into my mind’s eye. “I tracked down your old master, Ballos, after finding out that my mother had gone to him for information about you all those years ago.”
“Ah.” His face softened with something like nostalgia. “How is the old fellow?”
“He’s a cantankerous bastard,” I said, and, to my surprise, Haman’s lips twitched. “But I guess you already knew that.”
“Master Ballos is… eccentric,” Haman allowed. “But very knowledgeable nonetheless. I learned much from him during my stay in Solantha.”
“When you weren’t gallivanting about with my mother.” Haman grew silent, and I shifted as the tension grew between us. “How did it happen?” I finally asked the question I’d been dying to know the answer to. “How did the two of you meet?”
Haman let out a heavy sigh. “I guess I owe you an explanation, no matter how painful and unflattering it might be to me.” He ran a hand over his face.
“When I met your mother, I was at loose ends. Ballos was a good teacher, but I swiftly grew bored of his pedantry, and I was missing my family. To relieve my frustration, I decided to explore the city in human guise, practicing my skills. I ended up at a small concert in Rowanville, and that was how I met Saranella.”
His eyes lit up, and my throat tightened at the transformed look on his face.
“She was unlike anyone I’d ever met before.
Gorgeous, passionate, with a fine sense of humor…
. She lived her life to the fullest, and her infectious energy never failed to rub off on me.
Being around her was like an addiction. Perhaps all shifters are the way she was—I had never spent time with one before. But I could never get enough.”
“We shifters are a passionate race,” I said, smiling despite the strangeness of this conversation. “But there was no one quite like my mother.”
“No, I imagine not.” Haman was silent for a moment. “I adored her, and she was fond of me too, but I could never show her my true face. I regretted that most, after it was all over. That she would never know who I truly was.”
“So the two of you clicked, and you had a hot affair,” I summed up, trying to pretend as if it wasn’t a big deal. “And then you left when you realized there could be nothing more between you.”
“Yes,” Haman said simply. “We should not have ‘clicked’ as you say. I was already promised to someone else, and we were from two different races. But I could not help myself, and I found myself thinking of her at all hours, even when I was supposed to be focusing on my studies. I spent my nights staring up at my bedroom ceiling in Ballos’s house, forming mad schemes to leave my country and heritage behind… but none of them would have worked.”