His head angled to the side as he finally got a good look at me. The dawning came fast. I guessed that I looked far too much like our father. Andrés took after his mother, ashy coloring, a round cherub face, better suited to begging on street corners—but he wasn’t the bastard son.
“Kaden?” I saw his fingers twitch as if to reach for his weapon. “I thought you were dead.”
“I think that was the point. It didn’t turn out that way.”
“I know you have reason to be angry for what he did to you, Kaden, but it’s been years. Father has changed.”
“Sure he has.”
He glanced at my knife, still gripped at my side. “What do you
want?” he asked.
“Answers. And maybe a bit of blood to pay for all that I’ve lost.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Marisol told me,” I answered.
He frowned. “You mean Pauline.”
“I figured you knew.”
“The belly threw me off, but her voice—I met her once. She didn’t remember me. I guess I didn’t make much of an impression, but she made one on me. Is she—”
“She won’t be back,” I said firmly, so he’d know that whatever sights he’d set on Pauline were a thing of the past. “Tell me, Andrés, how is it that you were the only one who didn’t ride with Prince Walther’s platoon the one time they encountered a Vendan brigade?”
His eyes narrowed. “I didn’t ride because I was ill.”
“I don’t recall you as the sickly sort. This happen often, or was it just a coincidence that staying home saved your neck?”
“What are you implying, brother?” he sneered.
“Do I really need to say it?”
“I was ill for a week, mostly delirious. The court physician can confirm it. When I came to, Father said I’d been sick with a fever.”
“You were with him when you fell ill?”
“Yes. I’d had dinner with him and a few cabinet members at his apartments the night before I was to ride out, but as I was leaving, I got dizzy and fell. Father’s servants helped me to bed. I don’t remember much after that. What difference does it make? No one knew what Walther and the others were headed into!”
“Sure, someone knew. And that someone didn’t want his only remaining son going into a massacre that he had planned. I’m guessing the son was happy to play along.”
He drew his sword. “You’re talking treason.”
His eyes were wide and crazed, his voice desperate, and it occurred to me that he might actually be telling the truth. Pauline had said he was grieved by the platoon’s death. If his grief wasn’t real, why else would he come here to mourn every day? I studied him, wondering about some other kind of motivation, but I saw only anguish in his eyes, not deceit.
“Put it away, Andrés. I’d rather not kill you.”
He lowered his sword. “Who are you?” he asked, as if he sensed I was not just his little discarded brother anymore.
“No one you want to know,” I told him. “Who else was there the night you fell ill?”
He thought for a moment, then said that, besides his father, he had also dined with the Chancellor, the Watch Captain, and the court physician.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
My parents shared a marriage chamber, but there was a private suite next to the physician’s office for royal family members when they were ill or in need of care. It was the chamber where my mother had given birth to us all. If my father was truly ill, and maybe even if it was a ruse, that was where he would be.