My breath froze in my lungs. How had I never seen it before?
Heard it before?
The Viceregent was Kaden’s father, a man as cruel as the Komizar, beating his son and selling him to strangers for a copper.
He stared at me, waiting, hopeful.
But was he a traitor?
I’ve made mistakes in the past too—ones I deeply regret.
Worry flashed through his eyes.
Worry over me?
Or worry that I had discovered his secret?
“Why would I ever trust a man who threw out his eight-year-old son like a piece of garbage?”
His eyes widened. “Kaden? Kaden’s alive?”
“Yes, alive and still very scarred. He has never healed from your betrayal.”
“I—” His face crumpled as if he was overwhelmed, and he leaned forward, his head braced in his hands. He mumbled quietly to himself then said, “I searched for him for years. I knew I’d made a mistake the minute it was done, but I couldn’t find him. I assumed he was dead.”
“Searched for him after selling him for a copper to strangers?”
He looked up, his eyes wet. “I did no such thing! Is that what he told you?” He leaned back in his chair, looking weak and spent. “I shouldn’t be surprised. He was a grieving child who had just lost his mother. I’ve wanted to take back that decision a hundred times, but I was grieving too.”
“And what decision was that?”
His eyes squeezed shut as if a painful memory tormented him. “I was trapped in a loveless marriage. I didn’t mean for the affair with Cataryn to happen, but it did. My wife tolerated the arrangement well enough because she had no use for me and Cataryn was good to our sons, but after Cataryn died, she’d have no part of Kaden. When I tried to move him into our house, she beat him in a rage. I didn’t know what else to do. For his own good, I contacted Cataryn’s only relative, a distant uncle who agreed to take him in. I was the one who gave him money for Kaden’s care. When I went to visit Kaden, the uncle and his family were gone.”
“That’s a far different story than the one Kaden tells.”
“What else can you expect, Arabella? He was only eight years old. In only a few days, his world was turned upside down—his mother died, and his father sent him to live with strangers. Where is he? Here?”
Even if I had known where Kaden was, I wouldn’t have revealed it to the Viceregent—yet. “Last I saw him, he was in Venda—an accomplice of the Komizar.”
Disbelief shone in his eyes, and I left before he could ask me another question.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
I paced the caretaker’s cottage on the edge of the millpond, listening to the rain. I had already stoked a fire and wiped down the sparse furniture that filled it—a battered table, three rickety chairs, a stool, a rocker that was missing one arm, and the wooden frame of a bed, still sturdy, but its mattress eaten by mic
e long ago.
The cottage and the mill that sat across from it on the other side of the pond were abandoned decades ago for a deeper, larger pond farther east of Civica. Only bullfrogs, dragonflies, and raccoons visited here now—and occasionally young princes and a princess fleeing the scrutiny of court. Our names were carved in the wide door frame, along with those of dozens of other village children—at least those brave enough to venture here. It was said to be haunted by the Ancients. Bryn and I may have had something to do with that rumor. I suppose we wanted it all to ourselves. Even my father’s name was carved here. Branson. I ran my fingers over the rough letters. It was hard to imagine that he’d ever been a carefree child running through the woods, and I wondered at the way we all change, all the outside forces that press and mold and push us into people and things we hadn’t planned to be. Maybe it happened so gradually that by the time we noticed, it was too late to be anything else.
Like the Komizar. Reginaus. A boy and name snuffed out of existence.
I fingered my name in the wood, the lines crooked, but deep. LIA. I took my knife out and squeezed in four more letters in front of it. JEZE. And I wondered at who I had become—someone I had never planned to be.
Pauline’s name wasn’t carved in the wood, and as far as I knew, she had never been here. By the time she arrived in Civica, the cottage had lost some of its magic for me and my brothers and we rarely came anymore. Besides, such wanderings were off limits, and Pauline followed the protocol of the queen’s court to the letter—well, almost to the letter, until she met Mikael.
Where was she? Had Natiya misunderstood, or spoken to the wrong person? Maybe the rain had delayed her? But it was only a light rain, and we were used to that in Civica.
Today when I returned to my room, my mind had still been reeling with my late-night revelation. The Viceregent had seemed our best possibility of someone to trust in the cabinet. I had tried to test for his truthfulness, and everything he had said seemed genuine—even his claim about deep regrets. Was it possible he had changed in the eleven years since he threw Kaden out? Eleven years was a long time. I had changed in far less. So had Kaden. The Viceregent was already in a high position of power, second in command to my father. What more would he have to gain?