Page 138 of Lady of Ashes

“I have people who care enough about me that my disappearance would be felt. My father. Drake. A few others. They would look for me, ?ght for me,” Tava answered. “Those people … Most of them do not have that. If one of them disappeared, few would notice and even less would care.”

“So incredibly sel?ess,” Callan murmured, watching the light of the ?ame ?icker over her features.

“I am not sel?ess, Callan,” Tava replied, pulling the blankettighter around her shoulders. “I simply care about the ones the kings and queens of this world forgot about. That is not being sel?ess. That is being a decent human being.”

They both got lost in their own thoughts after that, sipping on their drinks and letting their nerves settle. He’d never realized that Scarlett’s aid had gone beyond the Black Syndicate, although it shouldn’t surprise him. At that point in time, her priorities were those who could not help themselves.

Now her priorities appeared to be her new subjects and how they would be affected by the Maraan Lords. They hadn’t heard much from the Fae, and he was ?ne with that. They could stay in their Courts, and he would help his own people.

“She never told me,” he said into the quiet. “She never told me of anything other than the orphans in the Black Syndicate.”

“Why would she?” Tava asked. She’d removed her boots, tucking her feet beneath her.

“She was seeking my help.”

“And how long did it take for them to come to you?” Tava asked. “How many avenues did they try before they took the one that led to you?”

When Callan had nothing to say to that, she said, “You were their last resort, Callan. She was one of them, not one of you. She was one of the forgotten.”

“She was raised by an Assassin Lord,” Callan argued defensively.

Tava scoffed. “Yes, what a lovely childhood. Being given over to a master and taught to take life. What child wouldn’t want to grow up in such conditions?”

“You are incredibly candid when we are alone,” Callan muttered.

“And you are incredibly naïve to think she would have told you anything of her world when the Crown has proven time and again that they do not care,” Tava shot back.

“She could have tried,” he argued. “I told her that I wanted to take care of the people within our own borders while my father and his council seeks more land. I told her this was where my focus lies.”

“And yet you have done nothing to prove such a thing,” Tava replied. “You say she could have tried? So could you, Callan. Before tonight, had you ever been to the slums? Before tonight, had you ever cared for someone who could not take care of themselves? Before tonight, had you ever seen them as actual people? Tried tounderstand their world? The struggles they face? Why they face them? Do you even care now?”

There was so much passion and ?erceness in her voice that Callan sat up straighter at it, marveled at it.

“How were you raised in this world and yet somehow not succumb to the fallacies of nobility?” he asked, leaning towards her.

“You see things when you are in the background, Callan. You see all the things the rest of the world tries to ignore,” she answered softly.

“Can you show them to me?”

Her eyes ?nally met his at the question, and as she studied him, he felt as if she were studying his soul, trying to decide if he was worthy of such a thing.

She sighed. “Not any more. Not after tonight. I am no longer welcome in their world. More than that, I fear they will be used again to try to get to me and that is not fair to them.”

“So we eliminate the threat,” Callan said.

“We do not even know who the threat is.”

“Little fox, I think we both know who was behind what happened tonight.”

“Stop calling me that,” she said on a breath of laughter.

“It ?ts you so well, though,” he replied with a grin.

“You really think it was Veda?”

“I’d bet my crown on it.”

“How incredibly elitist of you,” she mocked.

---