Page 55 of Fragile Oath

I couldn’t help the way my voice turned bitter at the end. My mother frowned, but graciously refrained from comment.

“Not for lack of trying,” Uncle Finn responded, running a hand over his short black curls. “Though we’ve all agreed it has to be someone in the nobility. No one else would have the resources to fund something like this. Unless they’re working with our neighbors, which seems unlikely.”

I agreed. Rionn had closed borders and everything with Socair was monitored closely.

“So probably someone who just left this room.” I searched the empty chairs like they held the secrets to the sins of the men and women who had occupied them.

“Someone like the very bastard who just turned on our entire family?” Uncle Logan grumbled, setting his crown on the table with a forceful clatter.

Finn made a sound of disagreement, crossing his arms and leaning against the column closest to us. “Camdyn has always been fair. I don’t like what he just did any more than you do, but I don’t think he’s working from malice so much as a misplaced sense of righteousness.”

“That would be fairly obvious of him,” Mamá commented. “And I agree that he doesn’t exactly seem the type, but we can’t argue he has the most to gain by destabilizing the monarchy. We both know who the lairds would put on that throne if our family wasn’t in the running.”

She wasn’t wrong. Even in the room today, the Assembly had deferred to him.

“If not him, the question is, who else would gain from our family’s fall?” I said.

“And there’s where we fall short.” Uncle Finn’s tone was dark. It was, technically speaking, his job as Captain of the Guard to root out this problem, and it was clear the failure was grating on him. “It could be, in theory, everyone in that room or no one.”

“This is why I didn’t want you to promise them evidence you didn’t have,” Uncle Logan growled, his fists clenching. “What’s going to stop them from exiling you when they decide not to believe the lass or your manservant or anyone else?”

“He hardly had a choice when they were putting the entire monarchy on the line,” Mamá said. “We’d be lucky if all they did was dethrone us. No one leaves a former royal family around to spearhead pesky rebellions.”

She cast a concerned glance in my direction.

“Do they honestly have that kind of power?” Uncle Finn asked.

Castle Alech was far more involved in the judiciary side of Lochlann than the political one, so it wasn’t surprising he didn’t know the answer. My mother exchanged a dark look with Uncle Logan, but it was the latter who replied.

“We didna want another rebellion like the one that started the war. We thought that by giving the Assembly more say, we could avoid that.” He scoffed, either at himself or at the Assembly leading us to the very rebellion he hoped to avoid.

Of course, according to them, that was our fault. And stars, maybe it was. It felt like everything else was these days.

“So we don’t have a choice but to go along with this charade,” Uncle Finn surmised.

Uncle Logan shook his head. “For now, maybe, but I’ll not let my nephew pay for a crime he didna commit, whether we find the Viper or no.”

My mother met his eyes, her own like ice. “I have no intention of letting it come to that.”

Something passed between them. Not for the first time, I wondered about the rumors of what had happened to the man whose estate I had inherited, my mother’s first husband. And not for the first time, I wondered if MacBay had a point when he spoke of unchecked power, because in that moment, I knew with certainty that my family would do whatever they needed to protect me.

And I would do the same for them.

* * *

I couldn’t tellif I was relieved or disappointed when Anna answered Galina’s door.

“She’s in the bath, mi’laird, but if ye want to wait–”

“No,” I said quickly. “That’s not necessary. Can you kindly let her know that the proceedings are over, and that…”

I trailed off, not sure exactly what to say. But I still saw the concern she couldn’t hide when I mentioned it. Whatever else had happened, we had been allies once, and it didn’t feel right not to give her something.

“Just tell her that there’s no cause for immediate concern,” I finished up, backing away.

Anna nodded, closing the door with an uncertain nod. Perhaps my tone had been a bit more formal than usual.Stars.

I spun around, grateful to leave my new armed guards outside my room. There were soldiers from Chridhe already guarding the entrance to my suites, and I suppressed an eye roll.

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