Page 102 of A Game of Veils

My heart squeezes at the thought. “Of course. I don’t know what I’d do if he wanted the same from my sister.”

Bastien lifts an eyebrow. “If you get what you want, she shouldn’t have to worry about sending any of her children, should she? You won’t be going back.”

And I’ll be giving Marclinus children myself, very directly. The reminder makes me queasy.

I wet my lips. “I can try to speak against the fostering in general?—”

Bastien eases over to touch my arm. “You don’t need to make me any promises. I know how hard it is to budge the emperor. And you must have plenty of more personal concerns.”

He pauses, studying me for a moment. “For a long time, I was under the impression that the empire didn’t meddle all that much with affairs on Accasy because of the distance. I’ve come to suspect that impression was misguided.”

Ah. That explains some of the resentment the princes showed when I first arrived. I suppose it’s not an unexpected assumption.

My mouth twists. “The distance has its upsides and downsides.”

“How so?”

“Well… Because it’s harder for us to offer Dariu resources or service, Tarquin extracts everything he can in taxes. There’s little chance for any business or trade to flourish. The soldiers stationed within our borders are assigned to their posts for long stretches with fewer opportunities to visit home than I’ve heard is usual elsewhere, and they often take out their frustrations on our citizens. And…”

The memory wavers up of the men and women I’ve waved goodbye to, resisting the urge to wrench them from our overseers. My throat constricts.

I speak around the anguish. “To move the resources of ours that Emperor Tarquin wants brought to Dariu, it’s a long, dangerous trek. He prefers to leave that mainly to my people rather than his own. I can’t tell you how many I’ve seen conscribed to the transport missions who never return. That’s not to mention those he forces into soldier garb in his endless attempts to regain the western half of the continent.”

When I lapse into silence, Bastien winces. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize— There’s so much they never enter into the records.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty I don’t know about your own struggles. Accasy’s geography has left us a little isolated from the rest of the continent in general.” I hesitate, recalling one particular struggle Rochelle mentioned to me yesterday. “I heard about Neven’s older brother. Prince Pavel? You two must have been close.”

Bastien’s hand drops from my arm, the other clenching around his cup. He takes another drink before answering, his gaze veering away from me.

“He was the first of us to arrive, the only other foster here when I was brought. It’d have been a lot more difficult for me to adjust if I hadn’t had him to lean on. I don’t know how he managed those first several months alone… Maybe that’s part of why he ended up snapping.”

I swallow hard. “It must have been awful losing him.”

Bastien’s eyes stay distant. “I didn’t have any idea he was going to do it. Maybe he didn’t even know he was going to do it until that moment…”

I want to ask what exactly happened, but it seems cruel to pry into those painful memories.

Perhaps Bastien must sense my curiosity regardless. He drags his gaze back to me. “He had a gift with fire. We were in a private meeting with the emperor, reporting on our progress in our studies—we’d do that once a week. Mostly Tarquin would pick at us and make us feel like idiots. He was just laying into Lorenzo about some minor inconsistency when Pavel suddenly threw himself forward with a blast of fire…”

The picture he’s drawn in my mind makes my pulse hiccup. “And Tarquin survived the attack?”

“The flames never even reached him. None of us realized it before then, but he always has at least a few guards around, even if they’re mostly out of sight, and they must have powerful gifts for sensing and repelling magic. They leapt in and deflected Pavel’s gift, and Tarquin didn’t have one hair on his head singed.”

I’ve realized the emperor always keeps guards on hand, but I hadn’t known they could protect him quite that thoroughly. He’d never need to worry about magical assassination with gifts like that surrounding him.

Bastien hasn’t returned to his original position on the sofa. I scoot even closer and take his hand in mine, remembering how he did the same when we spoke in the records room the other night. Imagining the man next to me at thirteen, watching his closest friend and confidante make a fatal mistake.

He considers our joined hands. His voice has turned rough again, but I don’t think it has anything to do with his lung this time. “I’ve always wondered if there was something I could have said to stop him, if only I’d noticed just how angry he was getting…”

“It couldn’t have been your fault. You were just a child still.”

“So was he, really. Children making childish decisions.”

Something about his tone makes me think there’s more he’s not saying.

Instead, he changes the subject, giving my hand a little squeeze. “None of it’s your fault either. I’ve been so focused on keeping us safe every way I can—I didn’t give you a chance to show me who you were before I’d already decided it. Every time you prove you’re not our enemy at all, I feel more ashamed of how I treated you. You’re… You’re a remarkable woman, Aurelia.”

A flutter passes through my chest, but I can’t help teasing him a little. “So I shouldn’t start shunning you to let you feel more justified after all?”

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