by Carol A Park
“Let me tell you something.” Aleena struggled to sit up more, and then she put a hand on her stomach and winced once she had achieved her goal. She looked around, even though they were alone in the room, then spoke more quietly. “Sweetblade was an anomaly. A hitch in the trajectory of your life. You can call it a mistake, you can call it a path you were forced into by circumstances—whatever. But she was never who you were meant to be, never the path you would have taken.”
An anomaly? “She was more than a hitch. I lived as her for more than a decade. You can talk about paths and choices and mistakes all you want. I am not and cannot be the person I was before that hitch. It was the path I took, and to continue with your ridiculous analogy, if you take a different path, you end up at a different destination, whatever you may have intended.”
“Or maybe you just get lost for a while.”
Lost. That was what Vaughn had said, too. She frowned. She didn’t like it when the people closest to her agreed on her problems.
“That doesn’t mean you can’t find your way back,” Aleena continued. “Or maybe you find a new path just as promising as the first.” She shrugged. “So maybe you won’t be the same person as when you started, but are any of us, after a decade or two of life?”
Ivana closed her eyes briefly. “I wish I could believe any of that.”
Aleena took Ivana’s hand, squeezed it, and then let go. “That’s okay. You don’t need to. I can believe for you until you’re ready to believe for yourself.”
Ivana gave Aleena an incredulous look. How could anyone be so eternally hopeful? “That is the most ridiculous sentiment I have ever—”
There was a knock on the door, and Sanca poked her head in. “Time’s up,” she said. She bustled over to the bed. “What are you doing sitting up?”
Aleena groaned and winked at Ivana, who moved the chair back where it belonged and out of Sanca’s way.
“Thanks, Sanca,” Ivana said, amused. She had the feeling that Sanca was thoroughly enjoying her new role. “For taking good care of her, that is.”
Sanca gave her a stern look. “Out,” she said.
Ivana obeyed. She stepped into the hall, closed the door behind her, and then leaned against the wall. “Maybe you just find a new path.”
She wanted to continue arguing with her old friend. And what would that be, Aleena? Do you have suggestions? Because the only possibility I had I’ve almost certainly ruined.
The only problem with arguing with Aleena in her head was that she knew Aleena well enough that she could also fabricate her responses. Almost certainly? I still hear room in there for possibility, she would say.
And then Ivana would stop arguing because it would only lead to Aleena telling her to go talk to Vaughn and see what happened. And she didn’t want to. She was…
She clenched her hand. She was afraid. Afraid that her assumptions and fears would be true. Afraid that she had forever shuttered the only glimmer of light, the only tendril of life, she had seen in herself for years. For a moment, she had dared to hope.
It was so much easier to go on believing the worst than having it confirmed.
It might be considered ironic that her entire adult life had been built around taking risks, and now she balked at what seemed to be such a simple one on the surface. But that was different. Her life had been built around calculated risks. Risks she could mitigate, plan for, even control. And if it were too risky—she didn’t do it.
She couldn’t mitigate anything about this risk. She couldn’t have a Plan B or C. She couldn’t control anything about it other than what she herself said or did. In her world, that meant she didn’t do it.
“Maybe you need to stop waiting to feel different and just do something different.”
Burning skies, Aleena was annoying when she was right.
She looked out the window across from her. It was fully dark. Which meant it was getting late, at this time of the year.
Ivana walked around the interior of the palace—she didn’t think walking outside at night was a good idea right now, with the occasional bloodhawk still seen flying over the city—six times before she decided to seek out Vaughn.
She had a feeling she knew where he would be, after the afternoon he had had. Sure enough, she found him on the roof again, this time sitting cross-legged a few feet back from the edge. A sheath of paper was next to him, a large rock holding it down in case of a stray breeze, no doubt, and he crouched over a lap desk, pencil in hand, profile to her.
He didn’t hear her come up the stairs, which didn’t surprise her. He was intent on whatever he was doing, and people rarely heard her approach. So she watched him for a moment. He scribbled something on the paper, paused, and then scratched it out.
“Predictable,” Ivana said at last. “At least this time you’ve had the foresight to leave Thrax at the bottom of the stairs.”
He started and turned to look at her. “You have to stop doing that,” he said.
“Good practice for you. You need to learn to be more aware of your surroundings. Even when you’re absorbed in something else.” She nodded toward his stack of paper.
He looked out over the palace grounds, his face perfectly schooled, as if to assess the progress on damage clean-up and repair.
It was a different view than the last time they had spoken on the roof. Thrax had managed to burn down half the gardens, there were at least three gaping holes in the palace walls, and smoke from the bonfire that had been kept for two days straight to burn bloodbane bodies still lingered in the air to the south, close to the river. The lawn would have to be replanted. It had been churned into a muddy—and bloody—mess. And beneath the many hardened silver patches, the stones in the courtyard were stained red.
Of course, that was minor compared to the real work he had ahead of him.
“It’s this damn speech. I’ve tried dozens of variations, and nothing seems right.” He ran the hand not holding the pencil through his hair. “I mean, what am I supposed to say: ‘Hello there, I’m your new Ri. I didn’t want to be Ri, but the head of a secret group of Banebringers told me I had to take Ferehar so we could leave the Setanan Empire and be safe from the coming Xambrian war.’” He threw down his pencil. “Because that works.”
“Maybe you should have Thrax whip you something up,” she said.
He snorted. “Right. If I want it to be full of dick jokes.” He rubbed at his eyes. “Sorry. Did you need something?”
She hesitated. He was obviously tired. It was late. Maybe…Maybe this conversation could wait until tomorrow, after he had his speech out of the way. Or it wasn’t too late just to forget the whole idea—
“Ivana?”
A coward? You, Ivana?
Shut up, Aleena.
She walked closer to him and settled herself down at the edge of the roof, putting her back to the knee-high railing around the edge and leaning against it.
He watched her movements but said nothing.
“Yes,” she said. “Two things, perhaps. Unless you’re too busy.”
He set his lap desk aside. “I could use a break.”
She forced herself to meet his eyes. “First,” she said, and then halted. Burning skies, why was it so hard to say two little words? She had already acknowledged that she had made a mistake.
She swallowed. But to apologize was more than admitting a mistake, wasn’t it? To apologize was to extend a hand, hoping it would be clasped in return rather than spurned.
It was to seek something from another she couldn’t even extend to herself.
Forgiveness.
She exhaled and tried again. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “For what I did. For betraying your trust. For hurting you. For almost ruining everything you’ve worked for. If I could go back, I wouldn’t do it.” She swallowed again, her throat dry. “I-I’m sorry.”
Vaughn studied Ivana’s face, which was uncharacteristically nervous.
He believed her. He even unders
tood.
That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, of course. It did. When he thought of that moment when he realized what she had done, it still sent a pang through him, even knowing she hadn’t used him to do it.
Did he forgive her?
Yes. Yes, of course he did. He already had.
After a few moments of silence, Vaughn moved over to sit in front of Ivana. “And…I’m sorry for locking you up.”
She blinked. That had not been what she had expected. “What?”
He shrugged. “I overreacted.”
“It was an entirely logical thing to do, given the circumstances.”
He looked over her shoulder. “Perhaps. But I didn’t do it because it was the logical thing to do. I did it because I was angry, and I could use logic as my excuse.” His eyes flicked back to hers. “Even if the outcome would have been the same. I’m still sorry for my motivation.”
“I… Okay.” She was still confused, but if it made him feel better… “It’s fine. Really.”
“Good. And I forgive you.”
“Wait—it can’t be that easy.” It couldn’t. He was lying. He had to be. Why he would do that, she didn’t know, but it just…couldn’t be that easy.
He raised an eyebrow. “It can’t?”
“I-I betrayed you. I hurt you.”
“Yes? I mean—I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still a little hurt. But in hindsight, it might have been naïve of me to show you the key to Airell’s cell, knowing you. And your past.”
Even so. He had every right to reject her apology. To spurn her. She closed her mouth and stared at him.
“You had a second thing?” he asked, as easily as if they had just decided on how to redesign the unfortunate gardens.
Ivana stood up, feeling unsettled. “I was wondering if your offer is still on the table.”
He blinked. “Offer?”
“The one where I get to be ‘Advisor for Keeping Vaughn Alive.’”
“Oh,” he said, smiling faintly. “That one.” And then he looked at her. Long. Hard. As if to see past any façade or game.
“Of course, I understand if you’d like to decline now. After all, you need someone you can trust in that position.”
Still, he said nothing. Instead, he stood up and walked over to the edge of the roof. “Dal Calpix had the bar in my father’s office restocked,” he said. “Do you think I can trust him?”
Was that relevant? “You’d best hope so, or you have more to worry about than if he poisoned any of the liquor you probably won’t drink.”
“Yes. Yes, that’s about my feeling on it too. He seems a good man. My mother certainly likes him. But can I truly trust him?” He sighed and turned to face her. “The fact is, Ivana, aside from, perhaps, Danton and Thrax, you’re one of the people in my life I trust the most.”
“I think you need new friends.”
He met her eyes. “You risked everything to help us when you could have run. I can’t dismiss that.”
She shifted. “I was bored.”
“You’re not selling yourself well,” he said, a small smile on his lips.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Is the offer still there, or not?”
“Why do you want it?”
She cast him a side eye. “It sounds not-boring.”
“Do you have any more enemies from your past still living that you might abandon your duties to seek out personal vengeance against?”
She turned the question over in her mind. “I mean. Airell’s out there somewhere. But other than that…I don’t think so.”
“See,” he said. “The fact that you gave that serious contemplation is why I still think I can trust you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That makes absolutely no sense.”
“If someone in that position were going to betray me, nine out of ten of those people would be doing it for money, power, or status. I happen to know that you care little for those things, which makes you more inherently trustworthy than most people.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “What if I’m in that ten percent?”
“I agree with you that an attempt on my life, reputation, or position is certain within the next year. Frankly…” He shrugged. “I’ll take those odds.”
“But—”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re the one who asked me if the offer is still on the table. It is. Do you want the job?”
She hesitated. She was the one who had asked. Because…it had seemed a good opportunity to start over. And, well, she supposed it still did. “Yes.”
He nodded. “Then it’s yours.”
Silence. The breeze blew, and those irritating strands of hair that always worked their way loose from her tie tickled her neck.
Vaughn’s eyes flicked to them. And then to her lips. And then back to her eyes.
She fought back against the rush of heat that swept through her. Their friendship might have been repaired, but that didn’t mean—
“Ivana,” he said, and the word itself felt as though he had reached across the space between them to caress her cheek, though he didn’t move.
She swallowed. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she said, but her body didn’t turn.
“I’d like to try again,” he went on softly, as though she hadn’t spoken.
He moved closer to her, close enough that he could reach out and touch her face if he wanted to. “This is a lonely life. And it would be nice to know that, every once in a while, I don’t have to sleep alone.”
It would. “And when our fling ends?” she asked. “Then what? Do I still have a job?”
“Of course.” He shrugged. “That’s the beauty of it, remember? No assumptions. No expectations. No hopes.” He met her eyes and smiled. “It won’t matter.”
She had to give him credit. He was so close to achieving the perfect air of nonchalance with that smile.
But not close enough, and the realization sent a chill through her.
He’s lying. It would matter. How much, or in what way—she didn’t know. But it would definitely matter.
She should have called him on it. If nothing else, she should have refused, on principle, because of it. But she wanted what he offered too much—as much as she had before. Maybe more, now that she had tasted it and knew it was possible.
She didn’t want that to be their last night.
She stepped closer to him. This can’t end well, a tiny voice inside warned her. “I…I think I would like that,” she said.
He slid his hand around her waist and drew her against himself, trailing a finger down her cheek, across her jaw, and then met her lips with his own once more.
He had just moved his hand beneath her shirt and up her back when someone cleared their throat from across the roof.
Vaughn pulled back and frowned at the interloper.
Ivana turned to find Driskell standing there.
“Uh,” Driskell said, fumbling with his hands at his waist, looking rather mortified. “Your Excellency, I’m, uh, I…I’m so sorry to interrupt, but…”
Vaughn’s right eye twitched slightly. “It’s all right. Am I needed?”
“Just a message,” Driskell said. “I heard from Ri Tanuac. He’s talked to the Xambrian ambassador and they’re finalizing the alliance tomorrow morning. He’ll be contacting you sometime tomorrow afternoon. Oh, and, um, he wants to know if you’re going by ‘Ri Vaughn’ or ‘Ri Teyrnon.’”
Vaughn looked pained. “Formally, ‘Ri Teyrnon,’” he said. “But please—among friends…I’m still ‘Vaughn.’”
Driskell gave a short bow. “Of course, Your Excellency.”
“Driskell.”
“Yes?”
“I consider you a friend.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Your Ex—Vaughn. I’m…not used to being informal with a Ri.”
“Me, either,” Vaughn muttered, then he cleared his throat. “Thank you. Tell Ri Tanuac I’ll be expecting his contact. And that…” He tossed Ivana a wry look. “I kn
ow what I’m going to say in my speech tomorrow.”
Ivana disengaged herself from his arms. “And you still have that speech to write,” she said.
Vaughn made a small sound of protest in the back of his throat.
No need to scandalize poor Driskell any further. “If it’s not too late when you finish, feel free to bring it by and I’ll…” She raised an eyebrow at Vaughn. “Have a look. Dal Driskell, I’ll walk you down.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
A Long Tradition
Far more than just the representatives showed up to hear Vaughn’s statement.
In addition to the approximately one hundred and fifty representatives from across Ferehar, as many of the citizens of Cohoxta as could squeeze themselves into the courtyard outside the palace were there. They spilled out the open gates and into the boulevard beyond.
Thankfully, it wasn’t raining, though it could have been a little cooler.
Well, at least, Vaughn would have liked for it to have been a little cooler, dressed as he was in full formal wear: three layers of silk and linen topped with a stiff jacket, and Dal Calpix had insisted he wear gloves of all things.
From his place on the large balcony built into the front of the palace designed for this purpose, he glanced enviously at regular folk. Some of the men were dressed in common Fereharian garb for the warmer months: loose, billowy pants that gathered at the knee and a sleeveless tunic.
There was an occasional breeze that he couldn’t even feel through his layers. Too bad he couldn’t convince Dal Calpix that he ought to put back on the vest and skirt he’d ridden into the city wearing. Of course, he could have worn whatever he wanted if he had insisted, but he figured there would be more important matters to argue with his steward over in the coming months.
Gan Anque had been chosen to speak for the representatives, and he now stepped forward from his place next to Vaughn. “Ri Teyrnon has asked the representatives to pass judgment on Lord Airell. We have consulted and come to an agreement.” He cleared his throat. “Lord Airell has been found guilty of the charges of treason. If he returns to Cohoxta, his life is forfeit, and he will be executed by hanging.”
