Page 94 of Traitor Son

“Sorry. I wanted to tell you…so many times. And Sir Justenin. His family, too…I know. And Tressin. That’s why Tresingale, right? I know your family was innocent. My mother told me. I wanted to help. I wanted to give it all back.”

Sweet poison. Such sweet poison. It hurt so much to hear it, words that he would have givenanythingto hear over the years. To the rest of the Empire, his parents were traitors, deserving of their public execution. She was the last person he ever would have expected to say unequivocally that she knew they had been innocent. Could he believe her? Could it really be true? For a long moment, they just looked at each other, and it seemed as if everything that had passed between them could be forgotten, for a time, in the forgiving shadows.

“That’s why you said you wanted to work,” he said quietly. “You never argued. You never complained.”

“Yes.” Her eyes squinted against the faint light, a crease between her eyebrows that reminded him of his duty.

“You have to take medicine.” He sprang up and went to mix the honey and water and bitter powders. It looked as if her head was hurting her. He had to help her sit up, and Remin sat on the bed beside her and propped her against his body. “Sip. Slowly.”

It was too much to take in. He was having to apply this new knowledge to everything he knew of her, to every single interaction they’d ever had. Suddenly he was thinking of questions he should have asked long ago, going all the way back to that first day in Aldeburke. Miche, finding the remains of a fire under a pine tree. But why had she beenthere in the first place? Why did a princess know how to make and conceal a campfire? How had House Hurrell dared to openly conspire against the Emperor’s sacred child? What did it say about her father’s protection, that they did?

And the wedding. Who let their daughter walk down the aisle by herself? What sort of father couldn’t be bothered to send arepresentativeto ensure she was treated with honor? A man who valued the loyalty of his child did not abandon her that way. And Ophele had said it herself, the first time Remin had given her wine and loosened her tongue: she’d never had so much as a message from the Emperor. Not even on her birthday.

“I’m sorry,” he said as she sipped at her medicine. “Wife, I am so sorry. I have wronged you.”

He had not yet begun to calculate the magnitude of the apology he owed her.

“I’m the Emperor’s daughter.” She turned her face away from the cup. “No more.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Remin was really beginning to believe that. There was just no evidence, none, to prove otherwise. Turning, he laid her on the bed, brushing her hair back to coil on the pillows. Her face was faintly green. “Do you feel sick?”

“A little.” Her arms crept up to hide her breasts. “And…clothes?”

Even half-dead from sun sickness, color still rose to her cheeks. Remin squeezed her hand and turned away, fighting to master himself. He had known nothing. He understood nothing. He hadrefusedto learn or understand, and he had almost lost her, all her blushes and her soft voice and those extraordinary searching eyes. He had tried to blind himself to her because everything he saw only made him like her more.

“You had sun sickness,” he said gruffly as he opened her trunk and pulled out a fresh chemise. “We had to keep you cool. If you start to feel warm again, then we’ll have to take it back off. Sometimes it can take a while for the fire in your body to bal—”

She was asleep.

“—lance,” he finished. He set the chemise aside and sank down beside the bed, controlling himself only with a colossal effort. It was too much. His breath was squeezed too tight in his chest and he didn’t know what to do. Stars, that had happened, hadn’t it? She had awakened, and she had spoken.

He would be so careful with her now. Everything she needed, anything she wanted. He wouldn’t wake her up to dress. Her skin needed air and water, as much as it could get. Food, and rest, and then…

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know anything.

* * *

The axe struck the tree with a ringing vibration that shivered all the way up to Remin’s shoulders, and it felt good.

This was what he needed. Hard, physical work, the sort that made it impossible to think of anything but the burn of his muscles. Stripped to the waist, splinters and sawdust stuck to his sweating skin as his borrowed axe slammed into the tree, testing himself to see how precisely he could strike, how deep he could make the blade bite. If he moved a distance away from the rest of the work crew, he didn’t even need to speak to anyone.

“If you keel over, I’m not dragging you down to the river,” drawled a voice behind him, and Remin looked back to find Miche slouching against a tree, watching him work. Miche rarely stood under his own power. “It’s murder out here, Rem, are you trying to kill yourself?”

“It’s fine.” But he did drink from the waterskin Miche offered, then poured more on his head, his shaggy black hair dripping with sweat. “Why aren’t you on the wall?”

“Gen says we have to let the men rest this time of day, unless we want to risk losing them to sun sickness,” Miche said pointedly. “You know they’re taking bets over there on how much forest Remin Grimjaw can clear by himself.”

“Are they?” Remin glanced at the swath of downed trees behind him, as if a very localized windstorm had swept past, and shrugged wide shoulders. His skin was browned from years in the sun, and though he felt the heat the same as anyone else, he had worked much harder on much hotter days than this, often in full armor. He picked up his axe. “Guess I better make it exciting for them.”

For a while, Miche just watched, arms crossed over his chest. The blond knight was looking unusually scruffy, with several days’ stubble on his jaw and his long hair tied back with a rough thong.

“I have to thank you,” Remin said abruptly, and turned to lower his head to his friend. His bow was elegant even when he was shirtless and sticky with sap. “Gen said you saved Ophele’s life. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

Miche flicked this away with his fingertips. “I’m not keeping count. How is she?”

“Sleeping.” Remin swung his axe, the blade biting with an echoingthwack.It had been two days, and she was still only waking up long enough to eat, drink, and perform the necessary ablutions. “Still sleeping. Gen’s keeping an eye on her.”

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