Legitimize. I had a blessing from a goddess and an ugly magical tattoo I couldn’t get rid of. Yet it was Vale who was going to give me “legitimacy.”
It was hard for me to forget. No, Vale had never participated in the depravity quite like the others did. Maybe he thought consensual lovers were more enthusiastic. Maybe he inflicted enough bloodshed at work that it wasn’t what he wanted to do for fun.
Didn’t make him a saint. And it didn’t mean that he didn’t still look at me as a slave.
“I apologize for my lateness today,” he said. “Storms over the seas.”
“You can’t control the wind. And I’m sure your wife probably needed time to recover.”
A blink.
“From the Turning,” I clarified. Then smiled. “Congratulations, by the way.”
Vale’s eyes hardened, gleaming like those of a guard dog barely tethered.
Did he think I was threatening her? It’s what Neculai would have done.
But no. I just didn’t like that Vale had Turned some human woman and dragged her over here. I didn’t like it at all.
“It went as well as it could have,” he said. “She’s resting. A bit seasick on the journey. I wanted to get her settled.”
His expression softened, and that… that, I wasn’t quite expecting. It looked oddly close to actual affection.
I wasn’t sure if that made me feel any better. Neculai had loved Nessanyn, his wife. Hadn’t saved her from anything.
“Well. I’m glad you made it.” I gestured to the table and the maps strewn across it. “Plenty to catch you up on, as you can see.”
The consensus, after hours of talking, was that we were in deep shit.
Vale thought it was stupid that I had taken Septimus’s deal.
He thought it was very stupid that I had done so without negotiating his terms.
And he thought it was monumentally stupid that I had kept Oraya alive.
I dismissed these criticisms as casually as I could manage. I couldn’t justify why I had made those decisions without revealing more than I wanted to about my true motivations—motivations that held none of the vicious cruelty they wanted to see from me.
Still, the reality of our situation was bleak. The Hiaj were not backing down. They held on to several key cities. Two hundred years of power had made their forces strong. Vincent, even at the height of his power, hadn’t rested. He’d continued building his strength and whittling down the Rishan until we had almost nothing left.
That meant our brute strength relied almost completely on the Bloodborn. And yes, the bastards were efficient at what they did. They had bodies, and they were willing to throw them at anything. With the Bloodborn’s help, we’d managed to beat back many of the biggest Hiaj strongholds.
But it also meant that if Septimus decided to withdraw, we would be fucked. The Rishan forces just weren’t capable of holding up against the Hiaj alone.
Vale did not hide his frustration with this situation. A couple of centuries away from polite society had made him even more blunt than he used to be, which was saying something. Still, I had to admit that he was good at what he did. He ended the meeting with a list of recommendations to strengthen our position, and when we disbanded, he was already following Ketura out the door with a list of questions about our armies.
Cairis, though, lingered after Vale and Ketura were gone. I hated that—the hovering. He used to do it back then, too, when he was going to try to whisper something in someone’s ear and make it seem like it had all been their idea.
I sighed. “I don’t need to be handled. Just say it.”
“Fine. I’ll be straightforward. That went badly. We already knew the nobles hated you. Now—”
“Nothing was going to stop them from hating me. Actually, maybe we should’ve thought of that as a test. Which noble would bow willingly?”
“If it was a test,” Cairis said drily, “then no one passed.”
“Exactly. So let’s just execute them all.”
He gave me a long, steady stare, like he was trying to decide if this was a joke.
It was not. I raised my eyebrows, a silent, Well?
“Do you have people to install in their places?” he said.
“I could find someone.”
He leaned across the table, weaving his fingers together. “Who? Do tell.”
I hated when Cairis was right about things. He was just so damned smug about it.
“I’m just saying that you need to be careful.” His voice lowered, as if to evade prying ears. “We already rely far too heavily on the Bloodborn.”