“To what? What do you want, Mircea?” I already suspected—hell, I knew—but I needed to hear it. Needed to know I wasn’t going mad.
“A simple thing. An easy thing. I caused the deaths of my family, but could not save them. Cannot, even with your help, for they were killed too publicly, in front of too many witnesses. I am not a fool; I know they are lost. And in fairness, my parents knew the risks when they took the throne. Someone else did not.”
“You want me to save your mistress.” It wasn’t even a question. It was all over his face.
* * *
The woman had brown eyes and black hair that spread out over the pillow. He was looking down at her as they rocked together, moving inside her in a slow, smooth stroking, down, away, back, down, away, back. Her hands splayed across the small of his back, her dark eyes closed. Her lips parted as she rose to meet him, her throat and breasts glistening. He lowered his mouth to the hollow above her collarbone.
And she whispered a single, devastating word.
* * *
“Not your mistress,” I said numbly. “Your wife.”
“How did you—”
“Your wife?”
Mircea licked his lips, but he didn’t deny it. “We married very young, and in a time of constant conflict, when I was frequently gone. All in all, I doubt we spent a whole year together. But she will always be the mother of my child. My only child, Cassie,” he said, coming out of his chair, going to one knee in front of me. “The only one I will ever have, the one who has suffered so much, more than I can explain to you. The one who deserves to know the mother she lost—and she can.”
“Mircea—”
“My wife did not change history; my wife was a peasant girl who died a terrible, unfair, undeserved death. Taking her out of the timeline, bringing her here—what will it hurt? Who will it harm? How is it any different from her dying as she did? It will change nothing—”
“You can’t know that!”
“I can! We proved such a thing was possible, with Radu—”
“That . . .” I stopped, chills breaking out on my skin. “That . . . was a dress rehearsal?”
“No.” Mircea’s eyes widened. “My brother was . . . We were already going to the same place he was imprisoned, you and I, on that errand of the senate’s. It was the perfect opportunity, a chance that might never come again—”
I got up. I couldn’t sit there anymore.
Mircea caught my hands. “What would be the harm? Tell me! None of the others would say. They said no, no, no, but never a reason! How will the rescue of one woman, one innocent woman, make any difference? And I know how to find her now. Vlad wouldn’t tell me. He told me about the Pythias, that they had the power to save her, but would only tell me where she died if I helped him. But I couldn’t put that monster back in power, and he wouldn’t help me until the crown was back on his head—”
“I understand.”
“Yes, you do.” Mircea nodded. “You saw how I kept him alive for so long, waiting him out, yet he was implacable. He knew I needed a day, a place, a time, and he wouldn’t give it to me. Wanted to force me to kill him without it, a final victory. A way to punish me for refusing him the crown. But with your help—”
I pulled away and walked a few feet, dazed. I had nowhere to go, but I needed some space. And some air; the room was stifling.
I felt him come up behind me, but I didn’t turn around. “You told me once that Radu was your only family,” I said. “Yet you had a daughter—”
“A daughter who was not part of my life. Who was more than half-mad, who despised me, and saw me as little as possible. Perhaps once a decade, and only when I forced the issue—”
“But she existed.”
“And still does. Don’t make her pay for my mistake. I should have told you about her, but I was afraid that would bring up a conversation about her mother, and I—every time I would think I should tell her, I have to tell her, I would also think, this is my last chance. If a girl I helped to bring up, who knows me, who—”
He stopped, but not in time.
“Who loves you,” I finished for him, turning around, my voice breaking. “And I do. Because you made sure I would. To get that yes.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, my feelings changed—”
“And now I’m supposed to go get your wife?”