Page 118 of Fortune's Blade

And did it even matter at this stage?

The answer to that leapt in my chest, infuriating and undeniable. Yes, it mattered, he mattered, and probably always would. But I was starting to doubt that there was any way for me to truly know if he felt the same about me.

“—Dolgrveginn,” Mircea was snarling. “You know damned well that’s where the old king is, despite what Dorina may have been told. The queen will suddenly discover it and make much of her surprise, and beg Dorina not to even think about going into such danger—I know how the game is played!

“But she’ll go nonetheless, with her fondest wish on the line and thinking herself invincible, and how well do you think she’ll do there? Against Aeslinn’s whole army, and whatever surprises he’s set up for us? Not to mention a god at his side!

“And even if I find a way to get through to her and end this madness, that doesn’t even touch on—”

He stopped abruptly.

“Doesn’t touch on what?” the Pythia asked.

He turned away from her again, but I saw his expression before that, and it was another thing I had never before witnessed. Whatever he might say, he truly did not know what to do, he who was never at a loss. I stared at him, shocked, and then became even more so when he spoke.

“What the devil am I going to tell her mother?”

The troll and I went completely still, barely even breathing, as a thousand thoughts tumbled through my mind. Marlowe had said that Mircea was looking for my mother when Ray and I first met up with him, and had repeated that story several times since. He’d said that father had communicated with the consul mentally to explain his absence and cited that as his reason.

But that was all he’d said.

I’d pressed the chief spy, wanting details, but coming from Faerie, the message had been garbled and indistinct. To the point that they hadn’t been sure what father had actually said, only what it had sounded like. And when they tried to tell him to return, that they needed him for the war and that personal issues would have to wait, the communication had cut out.

Upon reflection, I had dismissed the story as Marlowe’s way of distracting me from whatever he was really doing here. It hadn’t worked, as I had never known my mother and rarely even thought about her. Why should I?

After all, she was long dead.

Wasn’t she?

The Pythia also frowned in puzzlement, although apparently for a different reason. “Tell her what?”

Mircea looked back at her, and his dark eyes were tortured. “That we didn’t have one child but two. A hidden twin who I locked away for most of her life and have completely alienated as a result. And who, because of that alienation, and a desperate wish for a family that isn’t me, is about to risk her life on a damned fool errand for a coldhearted bitch and get herself killed! How do I explain that?”

The Pythia shook her head, her pale eyes somber. “Honestly? I don’t know. But assuming that we find her, how can your wife judge you? She also left the girls—”

“One of whom she didn’t know about, and the other who she thought would be better off in my care. The Svarestri were after her, and thus anyone with her was also under threat. I cannot blame her for wanting to get as far away from all of us as possible, but she can blame me. And she would have every right—”

He broke off and walked away, pacing in truth now, as if he could no longer hold himself still. And when he turned to face her again, what he said made no sense. Except to make me question if I knew anything about my life at all.

“I worked five hundred years for this,” he said, his voice low and savage. “Changed myself out of all recognition, remade my life with one thing in mind: finding her. Bringing her back. Making my family whole again and undoing the sins of my past, insofar as that was possible.

“Everyone said that I was mad to even try. Let the past lie, they told me, but how could I? When it was her that was lying—stiff and cold in the ground or so I thought, and it was my fault. It was all my fault and I couldn’t get around that, couldn’t live with it, couldn’t even die with it! I had to make it right—

“And in pursuit of that, I sacrificed everything else. I sacrificed you. Not intentionally, but in fact. Our relationship was never going to work no matter how much love was there, because it was poisoned from the beginning.”

“By your love for her,” the Pythia said quietly.

“By my obsession with proving myself! That I wasn’t a man who had lost everything, that I hadn’t lost at all! That there were simply problems that had to be worked out, obstacles to be overcome. I focused on that, on the next stumbling block and the one after that and the one after that.

“It was why I didn’t try harder with Dorina. She was just another obstacle to me. She could do things, could possess people, which wasn’t a dhampir trait. Or even a vampire one, for that matter. I thought she was a demon tormenting my girl, or the evil dhampir nature rearing its ugly head. So, I dealt with it, put it behind me, and never bothered to ask myself if there was any chance that I could be wrong.”

“No one else knew, either,” Cassie said, looking unhappy. As if she partially agreed with his harsh assessment, and yet wanted to comfort him. “No one knew anything about dhampirs—”

“The Pythias might, had I asked them,” Mircea said, refusing to take the shelter her words offered. “But when I went to see them, what did I ask? It wasn’t about Dorina—”

He broke off again, shaking his head. “They thought at court that I was fearless, that nothing phased me, that I was almost preternaturally composed no matter the circumstances, when in truth I simply didn’t care about their politics, except insofar as they brought me closer to my goal. Everything I did, every negotiation, every back door deal, every risk—all of it was to climb that mountain a little higher, to put me into a better position, to give me power—”

“To talk a Pythia into taking you back in time?” Cassie said wryly.

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