This was the “family” I was returning to. It wasn’t just Priya’s threats that worried me, but the gulf of broken trust I wasn’t sure could be bridged again, not even for Jase’s sake. I had seen Vairlyn’s gutted expression as I took her son at knifepoint. I would always be the girl who had invaded their home, the girl who had lied and stolen from them.
Even the sweet innocence of Lydia and Nash was probably tarnished now. It would have been impossible to keep the details of Jase’s disappearance from them. There was also the matter of Gunner and his cruel taunts when he knew what Zane had done to my family. It didn’t matter if he was Jase’s brother. My hatred for him hadn’t eased in these past weeks. I couldn’t pret
end that night was forgotten any more than they could.
“I know how much your family means to you, Jase. I don’t want you to be caught in the middle or be forced to choose sides.”
“Kazi, you are my family now. There is no choosing. You’re saddled with me forever. Understand? And so are they. That’s how families work. Trust me, they will come around. They loved you already. They will love you again. More important, they will be grateful. The Ballengers let their guard down. I have no doubt we’d all be dead if you hadn’t intervened.”
He had assured me before, recounting details of infamous past slaughters visited upon the Ballengers, and on this matter I had no doubt either. Jase would have been first. Kill the strongest and then move on to the rest. What would it have been? An unexpected knife in his back when he stopped in to check on Beaufort’s progress? It was imminent, that much I knew. Beaufort had expected his plan to come to fruition in only a week before I had intervened. More supplies had been ordered. Production was set to begin in earnest. Additional metalsmiths were being sought out to help Sarva fashion two dozen more launchers. But Jase’s family only knew what they saw, not what might have been, and they had witnessed my betrayal—not Beaufort’s. His plan to dominate the kingdoms—that would only be my false claim measured against his grand promises to them. I knew Jase would back me up, and yes, maybe that would be enough, but I wasn’t certain. I didn’t understand all the emotions and complexities of a family, and I worried that maybe it was too late for me to learn.
“I’ve never had a family before, Jase. I may not be good at—”
“You have Wren and Synové. They’re like family.”
A sharp tug pulled inside me when he mentioned them. I missed them already, far more than I’d thought I would. We were used to being separated for short periods as we went on different missions, but our beds in the bunk room, in a neat row together, always awaited our return. This time I wouldn’t be going back. These past weeks I had often wondered where they were and how they were doing. Wren and Synové, I supposed, were the closest thing that I had to family. They would lay their lives down for me, and I for them. We had become sisters in a very real sense, but we never said the word. Family was a risk that you might never recover from, and we led dangerous lives by choice. Justice burned in us, like a brand seared into our skin the day our families were taken from us. The unsaid words between us were our safety net. Jase’s family was a solid unit, all of them the same, always together. I wasn’t sure I could be part of that kind of family.
“And you had your mother,” he added. “She was your family, no matter how short a time you two were together.”
We had already talked about my mother. Even the oldest, most painful secrets were not held back between us. Lines deepened around his eyes when I told him, and I wondered if the telling was as painful for him as it was for me, his own regrets piling up beside mine, wishing his family had never given the Previzi safe haven—or employed them.
“It will all work out,” he promised and kissed my earlobe. “And it all doesn’t have to happen overnight. We have time. We’ll ease into all the changes.”
Which meant he knew there would be difficulties ahead. “Ready to go?” he asked.
I spun to face him, scrutinizing him from head to toe, and sighed. “Finally dressed, are you? Once I’ve settled in as magistrate, I’m going to have to rein you in, Patrei.”
“So today it’s magistrate? Yesterday you were Ambassador Brightmist.”
“The queen left the roles to my discretion, depending on how you behave.”
“Plan to arrest me?” he asked, a bit too eagerly.
I narrowed my eyes. “If you don’t toe the line.”
“If you weren’t so impatient, you wouldn’t be saddled with me now.”
I laughed. “Me the impatient one? I seem to remember it was you who pulled the twine from Synové’s package.”
Jase shrugged, his eyes wide with innocence. “The twine practically unraveled on its own. Besides, I didn’t know what was inside or what a simple red ribbon could lead to.”
We hadn’t even made it through one full day on the trail before he wanted to open Synové’s going away gift for us.
“Never trust Rahtan bearing gifts,” I warned. “What you don’t know can get you into trouble, Patrei.”
“But trouble is what we do best together.” He gathered me into his arms, his eyes dancing with light, but then his playful expression turned serious. “Are you sorry?”
I felt myself falling deeper into the world that was Jase Ballenger. “Never. Not through a thousand tomorrows could I ever be sorry. Trouble with you makes me glad for it. I love you with every breath I will ever breathe. I love you, Jase.”
“More than an orange?” he asked between kisses.
“Let’s not get carried away, Patrei.”
The words I had refused to even think before came surprisingly easy now. I said them often and in a hundred ways. Every time our lips met, every time my fingers raked his hair. I love you. Maybe part of it was a fear, fear of jealous gods and missed chances. I knew more than ever now that chances could be wrenched from your grasp in an instant, including chances for last words, and if there were to be any final words between Jase and me, I wanted them to be those.
My mother’s last words to me had been desperate with fear. Shhh, Kazi, don’t say a word. That’s what I always heard first when I thought of her, the fear.
We went downstairs to where Mije and Tigone were stabled in what might have once been a long, open dining hall. Indeed, it still was, the floor thick with clover, which both horses had effectively mowed down. We were headed into windswept plains where grazing would be harder to come by, so I was glad that they had eaten their fill.