“I have some prospects in mind for you, Lydia, but it would help if you made an effort to increase your desirability. Foster relationships with other patrician girls, for if they look upon you with favor, so shall their fathers and brothers and husbands. Which will make you an asset.”
An asset—as though she were a commodity to be used rather than a person with her own thoughts and hopes and dreams …
“Why can’t you just arrange for me to leave Celendrial? Surely Vibius would be happy enough to see the back of me and would leave me to my own devices?”
Silence fell across the room, making the overheated air feel thick and unbreathable.
“Perhaps he might have,” her father finally answered, staring at the tiles. “But I’m afraid I erred in my ambition for your future.”
“How so?” This was the first she’d heard of it.
“A little over a year ago, I began to make discreet inquiries into whether Cel law might be changed in your favor. Whether there was a chance of creating a circumstance where you could be freed from my name upon my death and for you to inherit a portion of the Valerius fortune. Not the majority of it, of course, but enough to set you up for life.”
Lydia pressed a hand to her chest, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing.
“It became clear quite quickly that such a thing was too revolutionary—that there would be no chance of pushing it through. So I let the idea go. I know not how, but Vibius became aware of my inquiries, as did some of his fellows. They took it as me attempting to disinherit him in your favor.” Her father shook his head. “He was incensed, of course, and despite my protests that my inquiries were not of that nature, he took my actions quite to heart. So whereas before he might have allowed you to remain part of his household in some fashion, now I fear he will make an example of you in order to ease the embarrassment he endured.”
Vibius’s hate of her made so much sense now. In trying to secure her future, her father might well have destroyed it.
“Marriage is your only option, Lydia. Please do what you can to assist me in making the best match possible.”
She was trapped.
Giving him a stiff nod, she gestured to the discarded fruit, needing to change the subject. “What is that?”
Passing a weary hand over his face, her father picked up the green and red oval thing. “It’s called a mango. They’re native to Timia Province and ship poorly, but with the newly discovered xenthier path delivering, we can have them—and other Timian goods—in Celendrial in less than a day’s time.” He handed her the fruit. “I thought you might wish to try one.”
“I see you beat me to it, Uncle.”
Lydia whipped her head around in time to watch Vibius enter the room, his wife, Ulpia, teetering along behind him. In one hand, he held one of the fruits, which he bounced up and down before tossing it at one of the servants who’d just entered, nearly hitting the poor man in the face.
“Ran across Gaius Domitius lugging a crate of the things about like some sort of pleb merchantman—he told me the xenthier’s been secured and trade is flowing. That’s where his father is—their holdings in Timia—but no doubt you knew that.” Vibius tapped his temple while at the same time gesturing for Lydia to move. “Always the first to know, aren’t you, Uncle.”
Her father eyed him coolly. “I’m glad I still have the capacity to impress you, Vibius.”
Able to transport man or beast countless miles in a heartbeat, the xenthier paths were much studied but little understood. Crisscrossing the Empire, they were veins of crystal that ran through the earth, the genesis and terminus the only portions visible above ground. Anything that touched the genesis was instantly delivered to the terminus, though a reverse trip was impossible; the crystal flowed in only one direction. Countless routes had been mapped, but there were still many xenthier stems where the destination or origin was unknown. Path-hunters frequently ventured through unmapped genesis stems, because if they returned to Celendrial with proof of where the path went, the Senate rewarded them with a fortune worth of gold. Most who ventured onto the unmapped paths were never seen again.
Lydia joined Ulpia on another couch, smiling at the girl who had the misfortune of being married