Instead I found the Royal Scholar standing at my mother’s side, and got an admission of conspiracy and a guard drawing his sword. Thirty mad seconds with her became a betrayal of the worst kind, and the most painful and perplexing thing of all was, I still ached for her.
I heard footsteps in the outer chamber. I adjusted my grip on the sword. I had nothing to lose by this meeting and maybe something to gain, however small. I’d already searched the Chancellor’s and Royal Scholar’s offices, hoping to turn up some sort of evidence. A letter. Anything. The rooms were suspiciously clean and orderly, as if they’d already been scoured and emptied of anything incriminating. I even searched the ashes of their hearths, knowing that was how they’d tried to make things disappear in the past, and found small bits of charred paper but nothing more.
The Viceregent’s office was cluttered, his desk a busy sea of papers clamoring for his attention, a half-finished letter to the trade minister, and some commendations ready for his signature and seal. Nothing had been scoured here.
The footsteps drew closer and the office door opened, a triangle of yellow briefly illuminating the floor before it was shut out again. He crossed the room, his footfalls light, and a faint scent swept in with him. Cologne? I had forgotten about the perfumed and pampered smells of court. In Venda the Council mostly smelled of sweat and sour ale. I heard the soft whoosh of the thickly upholstered chair as he sat, and then he lit a candle.
He still didn’t see me.
“Hello, Lord Viceregent.”
He startled and began to stand.
“No,” I said softly but firmly. “Don’t.” I stepped into the light so he could see my sword casually resting over my shoulder.
He eyed the weapon and returned to his seat, saying simply, “Arabella.”
His expression was solemn, but his voice was low and even, unpanicked as I’d thought it would be. The Timekeeper would have been spinning in circles and screaming by now, but the Viceregent wasn’t prone to hysterics like some in the cabinet. He was never in a hurry, never rushed. I sat down in the chair across from him.
“Are you going to point that thing at me the whole time?” he asked.
“It’s not pointed. Believe me, if it were, you would know it—and feel it. I’m actually affording you a bit of grace. I always liked you more than the other members of the cabinet, but that doesn’t mean you’re not one of them.”
“One of what, Arabella?”
I tried to gauge the innocence of his response. At this moment, it didn’t matter if he had ever been kind to me. I hated that I couldn’t take a chance even on kindness. I could trust no one.
“Are you a traitor, Viceregent?” I asked him. “Like the Chancellor and Royal Scholar?”
“I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“Treason, Lord Viceregent. Treason at the highest levels. I think the Chancellor has grown tired of the baubles on his fingers. And who knows what the Royal Scholar’s stake in this is. One thing I’ve learned from our dear Komizar is it all comes down to power and an insatiable hunger for it.” I told him about the Morrighese scholars in Venda, helping the Komizar arm and build a massive army. As I explained, I carefully watched his eyes, his face, his hands. All I saw was surprise and disbelief, and possibly a certain level of fear, as if I were insane.
When I was finished, he sat back in his chair, his head shaking slightly, still absorbing everything I had said. “A barbarian army? Scholars in Venda? Those are rather … fantastical claims, Arabella. I don’t know what to do with them. I can’t go to the cabinet armed only with accusations against esteemed members, especially from, I’m sorry to say, you. I’d be laughed out of the hall. Do you have any evidence?”
I didn’t want to admit that I had none. I thought of Kaden, who had actually seen the army, the scholars in the caverns, and intimately knew of the Komizar’s plans—but the word of a Vendan Assassin would be as laughable as mine.
“I may,” I answered. “And then I’ll expose the Dragon of many faces.”
He looked at me, confusion wrinkling his brow. “A dragon? Now what are you talking about?”
He wasn’t familiar with the phrase. Or at he least pretended not to be. I shook his question away and stood. “Don’t get up—and that’s not a polite request.”
“What do you want from me, Arabella?”
I looked at him, scrutinizing every angle of his face, every flutter of his lashes. “I want you to know there are traitors in your midst, and if you are one of them, you will pay. You’ll pay as dearly as my brother did. I wasn’t the one who killed him. It was those fools who conspire with the Komizar.”
He frowned. “The conspiring fools again. If they exist, as you claim, they’ve managed to hide it from me, so maybe they’re not as foolish as you think.”
“Trust me,” I said, “they’re not half as cunning as the Komizar, nor half as intelligent. They’re fools to believe he’d keep any agreement they’ve struck with him. The Komizar shares nothing, least of all, power. Whatever he has promised—and I’m guessing it’s the throne of Morrighan—they will never see it. Once he uses them for his purposes, they’re done. As are we.”
I turned to leave, but he quickly leaned forward, the candlelight illuminating a stray blond wisp falling over his brow. His eyes were earnest. “Wait! Please, Arabella, stay. Let me help. I’m sorry I didn’t more vigorously defend you. I’ve made mistakes in the past too—ones I deeply regret.” He stood. “I’m sure we can straighten this out if—”
“No,” I said, raising my sword. The scent wafted again, a flutter so faint it was hardly there, but it unsettled me in a deep distant way. It was jasmine. The thought burrowed deeper. Jasmine. In the same breath, I saw a little boy clinging to the trousers of his father, pleading to stay.
Jasmine soap.
I was jolted with the impossible. I gaped at the Viceregent, staring as if I were meeting him for the first time. His white-blond hair. His calm brown eyes. The smooth tremor of his voice floating through my head. And then another voice of a similar timbre. I was a bastard child born to a highborn lord.