Page 57 of Tides of Shadows

He had let me win.

My thoughts were a tangle. I had won new contracts and enough coin to keep us on our feet, but I did not know why Aidenar had acted so. Why yield with the better hand? Did I mattered to him at all? The longer I was thinking about it, the fiercer my head ached. That might also have been the wine, the bottle I had near finished while sitting alone upon a bench in the Inner Court. The thrill still burned low within me, and I would not go to bed. I heard footsteps approach, slow and careful, as if not to startle me.

It was Aidenar. It must have been very late.

“I went to your chambers to see that you came home safe,” he said, voice steady yet strung tight. “Roderick said I would find you here. Go to sleep. What are you doing here?”

He sat beside me as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Why did you help me?” I demanded. “I saw your cards. I need no alms from you. Your mother’s contempt is enough for me, reminding me that I am nothing. I’m not forcing my way into your world. I don’t even want to be here” the words slipped all at once, I couldn’t stop it.

“Can you never say that again?” Aidenar said quietly.

“What?”

“That you are nothing,” he replied. “You are annoying. Stubborn. Rampant. But you are not nothing.

“And as for my mother,” he continued, his voice tightening, “I beg you, do not heed her words. It is enough that she poisons my life.

Something in her broke after my power awoke and my father fell into sleep. Sorrow and responsibility fell on her like an avalanche. And now they’re slowly suffocating me. She will do anything to see me win the Regency,” he said. “But it won’t be that simple.”

“And what if you don’t win?”

“We shall return to Durminas.” There was longing in his tone.

“Durminas?”

He nodded, and the corner of his mouth stirred. “My home. A city carved in the mountain, a gray maze of stone, the Cavareths’ hidden jewel. I have not seen it in years.” He gazed far off, as if his mind’s eye beheld things I could not.

I had forgotten he was not born in White City.

“Unless I wed Velena,” he said firmly, though little sorrow rang beneath. “There’s a good chance Eric Salvadore will be the next Regent. Then I would remain here in White City, and my mother would be moderately satisfied.”

At Velena’s name something twisted in me. Her hatred towards me was so senseless. Nothing bonded me with Aidenar. I was no one, a merchant’s daughter from a failing line. He was a Regent’s son from a wealthy Family, his life charted before him.

I sighed, at a loss for words. “I will return your palladium.”

He raised a brow and laughed short. “Keep it. Our mines are full. I can lose five times that in a single night.”

“You know I had no second plan this evening. I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost.”

“I know.” He smiled harshly. “You have more luck than sense, Veymaris.”

I took a sip of wine and then, for no good reason, asked, “Well, did you find comfort later in some busty maiden’s arms?” I had no idea why I asked, save that I was slightly drunk.

“Do I hear a hint of jealousy?” I didn’t need to look at him to know he smiled. “But if you are DYING to know…”

“I already regret asking.”

“No. I drank and played with the lads.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Strange. Unlike you.”

“And what, in your judgment, is like me?”

I smiled and met his gaze. “All know it. Revels, women, gambling, in whatever order.”

He snorted, amused and a little abashed. “That is the mask best shown to the world, Veymaris. You of all people should know better than to trust palace rumors.”