Page 127 of The Crimson Walls Of Algorath

“It will have to be.”

By the time they arrived at the Harlow Estate, Alek had pocketed the letter, and her mind whirled with all that had happened over the last couple of nights. Too much. If this had been anything similar to what Ariadne had gone through during her first nights as a married Caersan, Emillie could understand why she had not wanted to talk about much. Aside from the Soltium celebration at Camilla’s, of course.

Gods. Emillie’s lungs seized at the thought of her friends. With everything that had happened, she had not considered how they were faring. With Camilla’s father on the Lower Council and Revelie living alone as a Caersan woman, she could not imagine they were in better positions.

How selfish she had been to not consider them sooner. She should have contacted them immediately. Instead, she held Kyra through the early morning hours, discussing how this would change all their plans once they arrived in Armington.

The carriage door opened, and Alek stepped down first. He held out his hand for her, and she took it without hesitation to follow suit, then linked arms as they made their way up the steps to the manor. How strange it was to be entering the building she had called home for so many decades with such a different view of it.

In the few nights she had been away, Emillie had grown exponentially. She had stepped into her shoes as the mistress of the house and explored her sexuality with Kyra. While she enjoyed the latter far more than the former, she was not upset with any of her decisions up to that point. She would be walking back into her family home with more love than she left it.

Though, despite what had happened to her father thanks to Loren, she still could not find it within her to love him as she once did.

They passed the soldiers in their crimson uniforms and stepped into the foyer, where they pulled off their cloaks and handed them to the butler. She smiled kindly at a passing servant before Alek took her hand again, leading her toward her father’s study.

“Should we not first be announced?” She no longer lived here and, therefore, did not have the same rights to wander the halls as she once did. At least not with Alek.

But he shook his head. “He knows we are coming. This is too important to leave to formalities.”

To her utter shock and embarrassment, Alek did not so much as knock before shoving open the door and letting them in. She tried to pull him back, yet he held firm and urged her forward.

Her father sat behind his desk with the same weary expression on his face that Alek had had in the carriage. He rested his forehead on his hand, elbow propped on the desk, and swiveled his gold eyes to them. Still, he did not move. He merely returned to the paper laid out before him.

“Father, I apologize for intruding.”

“I do not.” Alek gave her an unreadable side-long look. “We must discuss this immediately.”

The Princeps sighed and sat back in his chair to look between them. “So you brought my daughter with you?”

Alek huffed a laugh as they settled into the chairs across from him. “If you think for one second that she would have let me come alone, you only prove how little you know her.”

Those hawk-like eyes slid to her. “And why does she know anything about what is happening?”

“It would be difficult,” Alek said, “for her to ignore the soldiers that impeded our departure from Laeton last night.”

“Excuse me?” Her father frowned and looked between them.

“Apparently, we needed permission,” Emillie said after finding the courage to say anything at all. “From the General.”

Her father’s lip curled in disgust. “I was blinded by his loyalty when he exposed that traitor. I should have awaited a decision from the Council prior to reappointing him to such a powerful position.”

“The Council would have followed suit,” Alek reassured him, “and his title would have been restored nonetheless. No one could have seen such treachery coming from him.”

Emillie scoffed at that but said nothing when both Caersans raised their brows at her. Men were blind and often stupid due to their blissful ignorance of what some did to those deemed lesser. Their trust came and went with ease. When the truth of things became evident to women, they trusted their instincts and never looked back. She would have left Loren stripped of everything if she had had the chance.

“Have you something to say, Daughter?” Her father held his hands open, but the greeting did not reach his eyes. His tone held more spite than she had heard in some time. “You have been invited and therefore must have something of worth to contribute.”

She blinked at him a moment, then twisted her fingers together and said, “You are both fools if you believe he would have sat back and done nothing, even without his title. Neither of you understand how terrible a person he is.”

“I think we can comprehend the gravity—”

“Then tell me, Father,” Emillie said, heart thundering and hands shaking as she leaned forward, “have you seen Lord Governor Caldwell’s arm?”

Her father’s brows pinched. “A dhemon attack.”

“Wrong.” Heat prickled in her eyes, and she swallowed the rising tide of nausea. She had sworn to keep silent on the matter. “That pitiful excuse for a General tortured him. His hand had rotted to the bone by the time Ariadne pulled him free at the Gard Estate. The General ruined him in his craze to expose Azriel.”

Both men sat unfathomably still. They stared at her as though she had spit venom, not truth, at them. Their lack of response only spurred her on.

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