Under a flawless sky, the square before Seahealby’s detached palace bustled with carriages and people.
“Lady Bertia, truly, thank you for everything,” Lysonna said, clasping her hands.
“No, thank you,” Bertia replied.
“It will feel lonely once you’ve gone.”
After the party where Prince Ramtak had been condemned, it was finally time for our return.
In the days we’d spent here, Bertia, Princess Consort Lysonna, and Miss June had grown close enough to exchange reluctant farewells and promises to meet again. I suspected their letters would be flying across the sea long after we reached home.
“Your Highness Cecil, thank you for your aid,” Aleis said.
“It served our interests as well,” I answered. “May our good relations last for many years.”
Unlike the women, Aleis and I parted with quiet simplicity. Even so, I had the sense we would work well together from now on, and I intended to keep the thread between us unbroken.
“Um… Your Highness Cecil,” Izlarich ventured, approaching with a guilty look. “About my brother… I’m sorry for the trouble he—”
“Think nothing of it,” I said. “It’s done. And it changes nothing between you and me.”
Relief washed over him, tempered by a complicated shadow. He was grateful our rapport remained intact. At the same time, the fallout from Ramtak’s actions was too large to set aside easily. He was still finding his footing.
“By the way, how is Prince Ramtak now?”
I asked Crown Prince Aleis, and he turned his gaze toward Prince Izlarich.
He must have thought the younger prince knew better than he did. After the party, Ramtak had been confined to the chamber normally used for detaining high-born offenders. Izlarich visited him from time to time and spoke through the door, or so the reports said.
“It’s hard to tell whether it’s sincere,” Aleis told me, “but since that night, it’s as though a weight has been lifted off him. His temper hasn’t vanished. He still resents losing the succession, but he’s stopped railing about it. He seems to be thinking.”
That’s already progress, I thought. For a man who once mistook privilege for entitlement, any hint of reflection was welcome.
Izlarich continued quietly. “He’s admitted his world was too narrow. If he is allowed, if he can atone, he said he wants to see more of the world without title or power.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” I said.
Ramtak had been so deeply acclimated to palace life that much had simply ceased to be visible to him. He’d become used to power, the ease of thinking that one’s will was the measure of right. It wasn’t only his failing; there had been too few adults willing or able to stop him.
“By the way,” Aleis added, “he said the first place he’d like to visit is Alphasta.”
Alphasta? I felt a prick of cold curiosity. Why would the man who tried to take my wife want to come to my country first?
Aleis shrugged. “He said something about wanting to see how a large nation is governed. Whether that’s honest or a pretext, I don’t know.”
“Well,” I replied, “if he comes with the intent to settle scores, I won’t be lenient.”
I’d tempered the condemnation once, only because Bertia’s temper and my own judgment had guided me. If he tries anything more, the stage will not end with a reprimand; it will end with a sentence.
“It’s just that… it seems Her Highness Bertia’s cat punch at the end left quite the impression on him.”
Wait. That wasn’t a slap? Are we officially calling it a cat punch?
Now that he mentioned it, it did resemble that morning I woke to find her practicing cat mannerisms. So that was training. Wonderful, yet terrifying.
“And so,” Izlarich went on, wincing, “he keeps saying there’s no other woman who would scold him like that… and that he can’t forget the taste of that cat punch.”
“Right,” I said calmly. “Then Alphasta will be off-limits.”
It appeared the blow had awakened something deeply unfortunate in him. I had no intention of letting that danger anywhere near my wife.
Also, the queen’s righteous fury apparently doesn’t qualify. Is motherhood a separate category?
Either way, my caution rating just spiked to “absolutely not.”
“Please don’t ban him outright,” Izlarich pleaded. “He’s trying to atone and someday visit Alphasta, his goal.”
“How about starting with ordinary reflection instead?” I suggested dryly.
If his goal had been anything else, I might have offered encouragement. As it stood, I wanted nothing to do with that particular pilgrimage of self-discovery. Izlarich saw my expression and laughed evasively, eyes sliding away.
“By the way,” he added quickly, “Father said he wants to apologize, at least a word, so he’ll try to steal a moment between duties. As for Mother, the shock about my brother was too much. She’s taken to bed and won’t be able to come.”
So that was why the royal couple were absent from the send-off. The king was drowning in the aftermath. Even so, he meant to show his face.
I’ll take that as sincerity and meet him halfway. As for the queen, there’s no helping what happened.
Even so, I believed that the queen would find her feet again. Her son may have lost his claim to the throne, but he hadn’t lost his life. He had to atone, but as mother and child, they still had a path back to each other.
A short while later, the king arrived in a flurry, exchanged a breathless string of apologies and thanks with me, traded a word or two, and departed again like a gust slipping through an open hall. Taking that as our cue, we wrapped up our goodbyes and climbed into the carriage.