Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Milo
Simi was horrible company.
Granted, he was a raging lunatic who’d lived and died over five hundred years ago so it could hardly be considered his fault.
The same way I imagined Simi had once prayed for silence to quiet the voices in his mind, I prayed for the same, knowing it never happened for him and probably wouldn’t for me as long as this journal plagued my every waking moment.
I sighed as I took a sip of wine and nearly danced for joy at the soft knock upon the door to the study.
My grandmother entered before she was invited and made her way across the room, pale blue skirts sliding against the wooden floor.
I watched her expression carefully as she sat, dress pooling on the floor below.
It only took a few seconds for her mask to fall away as she settled into my company the way it always did when we were alone.
Now, that firm frown faded to reveal a true state of utter exhaustion more complete than I could remember seeing in the old matriarch. My gut twisted in an instant.
“Your meeting with Raghnall went that poorly?” I asked, voice flat.
She took a breath, gaze sweeping to the window and the night sky beyond.
“You know I love you, don’t you?” she replied.
My brow furrowed at the unexpected response.
I placed my elbows on the table and clasped my hands at my chin as I examined her more closely.
The exhaustion was there. It was immediately evident in her drooping eyes and fallen shoulders, but there was something underlying it as well; a sorrow so deep it reached her eyes.
“Of course I do,” I answered her.
“We’re a family first,” she said, still staring at the stars twinkling high above the city.
“Sometimes I think we forget that. Sometimes I fear that even I forget that. But the rest of you do all the time. You’re so lost in politics, in luxury, in your own ambition.
I blame myself for that. I, along with those wretched Trials, have done nothing but nurture your competitive spirits, your greed. ”
I fought the urge to flinch. It was no secret my grandmother held no love for the Geist but this outright contempt was on another level.
For the first time, I noticed how hard she was breathing, her chest rising and falling more rapidly than was normal.
I observed her flattened lips and a tightness in her expression that could only mean one thing. Something had pissed Nascha off.
“He denied you outright then?” I asked, assuming our proposal had been rejected in a way that matched the brutal candor of House Lynx.
“No,” my grandmother replied. “Raghnall will consider our proposition.”
I raised a brow in surprise. I hadn’t expected that.
Neither of us had. In truth, we’d both assumed Raghnall was already too far into Cosmo’s pocket to consider working against him, but we’d had to try.
Cosmo had gotten the Guardians and the priests on his side.
Even a fool could see the power imbalance he was working to create, and now he was engaging in diatribes every time he had an audience, using dangerous language while he accused the lower ringers of “blasphemy” and offered plans for religious “correction”.
One did not have to read the histories to see where that path led.
“What does he want?” I asked.
If Raghnall truly was open to negotiation, my grandmother should have been jumping for joy. The only explanation for why she was not was that he’d asked for something in return, perhaps something she wasn’t willing to give.
“You,” she answered. “He wants you, Milo.”
I blinked at her, stunned.
“What do you mean?”
“He wants you to marry his granddaughter and tie our families together in an alliance. He offered Isla as she was your partner but I mentioned your previously held…affection for Cora. He said, and I quote, ‘He can have both of them for all I care’.”
My fist clenched and I placed it in front of my mouth as I leaned back in my chair and swiveled to face the bookshelf.
I stared at the tomes arranged there without really seeing them, anything to look away from my grandmother at that moment.
My jaw clenched so hard it ached as I fought against the urge to storm right out of this house and strangle the patriarch of House Lynx.
I started nodding then and didn’t stop as my mind whirred through the possibilities.
“It would be my duty,” I said as the realization took me.
This was an offer for alliance from the patriarch of a major house, but it was more of a demand than anything else.
Raghnall knew the position we were in. He knew the power Cosmo had gathered in such a short time as well as anyone else.
He was taking a calculated risk, extending an olive branch dipped in poison and waiting to see if we’d take the bait.
He knew he had us up against the wall, but what could I do?
Refuse to marry his granddaughter and set yet another major House against my own?
Put my entire family at risk for my pride and a desire for my own freedom?
I was the Heir of my House, required to make the best decision for my family and this city.
This was that decision and he knew it. There was only one choice to be made.
My grandmother suddenly rose from her chair and circled the desk until she stood in front of me. She leaned in, took my shoulders in both hands, and stared into my eyes with an intensity I’d only seen her reserve for her gods.
“You’re my grandson and I love you. I would have burned our ring to the ground long ago if it weren’t built of my own blood,” she vowed. “If you don’t want this, we won’t do it.”
My heart swelled with the devotion I felt from my grandmother in that moment but this wasn’t about my choice. This transcended my personal liberty, my own hopes and dreams. This wasn’t about me. This was about our House.
“I don’t barter in women,” I said.
My grandmother nodded, letting go of me and straightening up as if it had been decided.
“But,” I started and her gaze snapped to mine. “I’ll talk to Isla.”
She raised a brow, “Isla?”
“I’m not the sort of man who keeps going after a woman who doesn’t want him, grandmother. Cora has her Viper. I wouldn’t pull her away from him, even though I know Raghnall would. She should be happy.”
“And you, Milo? What of your happiness?”
“What of Isla’s?”
Nascha frowned, clearly perturbed by my unwillingness to answer her question.
“Speak to her then, hafid, but make your own decision,” my grandmother said firmly.
Then she patted me once more on the shoulder before turning and walking from the study, calling back to me once without looking.
“Keep studying the diary. Perhaps you’ll find a way to save us all without Raghnall or his granddaughters. ”
I frowned as her blue skirts vanished down the hall. She really believed that. She truly thought there was something so important in this ancient journal that it could possibly affect the here and now.
I shook my head before sitting up. Leaning against my desk, I scrubbed a hand down my face and stared down at the diary in front of me.
Despite my grandmother’s instructions, I couldn’t bring myself to fall back into the insane ravings of a lunatic when a marriage offer was consuming my thoughts.
I’d spent months now avoiding Isla and Cora, both for very different reasons.
Now I had no choice but to seek them out.
Unable to focus on the journal any longer, I rose and headed for the door.
I found Pax standing dutifully on the other side of it, as always.
My cousin seemed to think he was my personal guard as well as my assistant.
I wished he wouldn’t. It only made me feel worse knowing I was keeping someone else awake when I spent my evenings locked away in this study.
“I’m going to visit a friend, Pax,” I told him. “Try to get some sleep while I’m gone.”
He watched me for a moment, wary and indecisive, as if my brief jaunt across the First Ring was the most dangerous decision he could possibly imagine. But I held firm and, after a moment, he relented with a nod.
I left him there, hoping he would heed my advice and not follow me anyway or send someone else to.
Then I made my way across the First Ring while trying very hard not to think about Raghnall or either of his granddaughters.
The man was full of greed and not just for wealth but or influence too.
He sought to breed as many children and grandchildren as he could and attach them to anyone in Sanctuary with even a hint of power.
He’d tried to arrange something between Isla and Dante once, before she was partnered with me, and when that hadn’t worked, he’d offered Lyra, another of his granddaughters.
Knowing Raghnall, he’d probably offered Cora too, and even all of them together, but Olympia had never said as much.
The Vipers turned him down flat every time.
None of Raghnall’s offers could compare to Olympia. Not that any of it mattered in the end.
I paused outside the gates of Viper, realizing my thoughts had drifted to their House along my walk.
No one stopped me from entering the garden.
With such heavy security on the stairs, the Houses hardly employed any on their own property since the only ones able to reach them were other First Ringers and priests anyway.
Someone would stop me if I tried to enter the main house but luckily that wasn’t my destination.
Instead, I turned down a side path and headed for the older stone outbuilding behind the garden. I knocked once before I entered, just to announce my presence.
Bria was sitting at one of the rough hewn desks in the dim light hastily strung up which indicated this hadn’t always been a place of study. She didn’t even turn when I entered.