Chapter 78
The next morning, Dara lay in bed and stared at the canopy above her.
She had been staring at it for some time.
Possibly minutes.
Possibly hours.
Possibly since the dawn of civilization.
Time had become meaningless.
The canopy was pale, elegant, and completely unsympathetic.
Dara hated it.
Beside her pillow, Cai sat with his tail curled neatly around his body, watching her with the careful stillness of a creature who had not yet decided whether poking the corpse was wise.
Dara did not blink. “My plan failed.”
Cai said nothing.
“Months of work,” Dara said hollowly. “Months. Planning. Spending. Coercion. Public shame. Administrative pressure. Confession. I confessed, Cai.”
“Yes.”
“I offered my hands.”
“Yes.”
“For cuffs.”
“Yes.”
“And did I receive cuffs?”
“No.”
Her eyes remained fixed on the canopy. “No. Other people received cuffs.”
Cai’s whiskers twitched. “That part was funny.”
“It was not funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
“My exile arc died in that council chamber.”
Cai lowered his head slightly. “A tragic loss.”
Dara turned her head very slowly and looked at him. “Do not sound entertained at my funeral.”
“I am respecting the departed.”
“You are enjoying my suffering.”
“Also yes.”
Dara rolled onto her back again and resumed staring upward. “The cruelty of this world is astonishing.”
Cai blinked. “You are in silk sheets.”
“I am emotionally in a ditch.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is worse. Ditches have honesty.”
Cai considered this. “No, they have mud.”
“Also honest.”
She lifted one hand weakly, then let it fall against the blanket. “See. This is why you cannot trust people.”
“Ah.”
“People are unreliable,” Dara said, voice gaining the faintest trace of injured drama. “You confess, and do they arrest you? No. They defend you. They protect you. They form loyal emotional attachments and destroy your billion-dollar payout.”
Cai opened his mouth.
Dara pointed at him without looking. “Do not defend him.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“I was thinking that your boyfriend is very effective.”
“That is worse.”
She dragged a pillow over her face. “Now look at me. Broken. Sad. Disappointed. Betrayed by romance and civic loyalty.”
Cai crawled onto the pillow. “You are being dramatic.”
The pillow muffled her voice. “I am grieving.”
“You are sulking.”
“I am processing devastating financial loss.”
“That is closer.”
Dara shoved the pillow aside and sat up halfway, hair falling in a black curtain around her shoulders.
“Money,” she said, with sudden, solemn clarity, “is the one thing you can rely on.”
Cai tilted his head. “Is it?”
“Yes. Money is simple. You spend it, and it goes away.”
“Unless you create profitable systems.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do not mention passive income in my bedroom.”
“Sensitive topic?”
“Deadly.”
She flopped back down. “Money goes down. That is what money is supposed to do. People, however…” She gestured vaguely toward the world. “People interfere.”
Cai looked at her for a long moment, then very carefully said, “Perhaps you need something comforting.”
“I need my payout and a route correction.”
“Something smaller.”
“A political collapse.”
“Smaller.”
“A pastry.”
“There we are.”
Dara stared at the canopy.
No appetite.
Terrible sign.
Cai’s gaze sharpened, and for once, he looked less amused.
Then his ears perked. “Oh.”
Dara did not move. “What?”
“You could visit your desolate mountain.”
Silence.
Dara blinked.
Once.
Slowly.
Cai continued, tone turning sly. “The road approach should be mostly usable by now, shouldn’t it? After all that expensive construction you keep pretending was a villainous waste.”
Dara’s eyes shifted.
The desolate mountain.
Her mountain.
Her empty, dramatic, future-exile-adjacent mountain.
Rock. Wind. Distance.
No council chamber. No crowds calling her princess. No boyfriend lowering her hands like a man personally assigned by the universe to ruin her financial destiny.
Just space.
Cold, lonely, emotionally appropriate space.
Dara slowly sat up.
Cai watched with growing satisfaction.
“That,” she said, “is not a terrible idea.”
“I do have them occasionally.”
“Desolate,” she murmured.
Her expression softened into something almost reverent. “Yes.”
Cai’s tail flicked. “Yes?”
“Desolate,” she repeated, the faintest spark returning to her eyes. “Just how I feel right now.”
“There it is.”
“A mountain cannot betray me.”
“That feels optimistic.”
“It cannot form political loyalty.”
“Probably.”
“It cannot arrest other people in my place.”
“Unless there is a very unusual geological event.”
Dara pointed at him. “No.”
Cai wisely stopped.
For the first time that morning, Dara looked toward the breakfast bell.
Her stomach made a small, thoughtful sound.
Ah.
Life remained possible.
“Breakfast,” she said.
Cai brightened. “Excellent.”
“And then the mountain.”
“Even better.”
Dara reached for the bell cord and rang.
A few moments later, Grace entered with the careful expression of someone who had clearly been waiting nearby, worrying quietly and with professional efficiency.
“My lady?”
Dara sat upright, still pale with tragedy, but no longer indistinguishable from decorative grief. “Breakfast.”
Grace’s face softened with immediate relief. “At once, my lady.”
“And prepare the carriage after breakfast. I want to visit my desolate mountain.”
Grace paused.
Only briefly.
Then, because she was Grace and therefore made of loyalty, tact, and nerves of steel, she curtsied. “Of course, my lady.”
Cai curled around the bedpost, delighted. “Your desolate mountain awaits.”
Dara lifted her chin.
“Yes,” she said, with the mournful dignity of a woman rebuilding herself through scenery and expenditure. “Finally. Something that understands me.”