a punisher of the unfaithful.”
“These people are cruel, violent radicals,” Lucrez added, and I thought I noticed a tiny tremor run through her shoulders, but it might have just been the firelight. “They’ll use Navara’s faith and her mother’s legacy to twist her mind, maybe even torment her if they must, until she is both their servant and savior. When she’s ready, they’ll kill the king so she can be crowned and carry out their agenda.”
“News will reach the Realm Alliance soon, and my allies will come to our aid,” I said. “Valory and the others will easily overthrow Ambrosine, even with that…thing inside her. We will quash the Uprising and help Perispos recover.”
“Thing inside her?” Lucrez repeated.
I noticed Sev’s hand slip back into his pocket, rubbing the little effigy out of habit.
“She was hardly my sister anymore when she left for Perispos,” I said. “But a dark power has set upon her since she arrived.”
“I saw something in her eyes that worried me,” Sev said. “I thought I was imagining things at first. And then the king retreated in supposed sickness, and the high priest took a fall and died—”
A bump and a thud overhead made the three of us jolt in unison.
“Narios,” Lucrez whispered with relief. The youngest boy stood at the top of the stairs, massaging his tired eyes. “Come here. I have something for you.”
The boy flashed a toothless grin and tiptoed down. When he reached the bottom, he ran to embrace Lucrez. She smiled and combed his rumpled hair out of his eyes. “Have you behaved lately?” she asked.
He nodded emphatically. Sev raised an eyebrow to contest, but his doubtful look was good-natured.
“Good,” she said with a tap on Narios’s nose for emphasis. She dug into her satchel and pulled out a lumpy paper package tied with twine.
“Honey chews!” he exclaimed.
She shushed him, still smiling. “You have to save enough to share with your brothers and sisters.”
“Even Sev?” he asked, concerned, already ripping at the twine.
“No, not Sev,” she laughed, and kissed his cheek. “Have a few, and then back to bed with you, darling.”
I couldn’t quite discern what Lucrez meant to this family, or to Sev. She was beautiful, her hair richer than black velvet, her body ample and shapely. She was older than Sev, though I doubted that would blind him to her allure.
She looked at Narios as a mother might, with adoration and pride, but with a tinge of sadness pinching her brows.
He ate four sweets in a blink and attempted to tuck the rest in his nightshirt before tiptoeing back toward the stairs. Sev made a chiding noise. Narios shuffled back, dejected, and handed Sev the bag.
“Good night,” Sev said.
Narios pouted his way up to bed. Sev tucked the candies at the top of the cupboard. “Like wolves on a carcass if they woke up and saw him eating those.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t resist,” Lucrez chuckled. She dove back into her satchel and extracted a few small bags and jars. “I brought some jam and olive oil and grain,” she said. One of the purses jangled, sounding suspiciously like coins, and I wondered if she had to hide the money to make Sev take it.
“Thank you,” Sev said.
“I should be going. Do the right thing for your family. They need you.”
“We already planned to leave at dawn.”
“Before dawn,” Lucrez instructed.
She gathered her empty satchel and lifted the hood of her cloak.
“It is Rasmus Orturio, isn’t it?” he asked as she reached for the door. “The leader of the Uprising?”
“No, I swear to you he has nothing to do with it. The sins of one’s brother are not one’s own.” She looked at me meaningfully. “Or sister.”
“And you can’t tell me who is involved,” he stated flatly.
“I like my head attached to my body.”
“I could find out another way,” he answered, taking a swig of ale.
“But you won’t because you like my head attached to my body. Good night, darling.”
She left us alone, in silence but for the crackling of fire.
“Shouldn’t you have told your family to pack already?”
Sev stood and locked the door. “My mother knows. She’ll be awake well before dawn preparing. But the children would get too excited and restless. They need sleep.”
“And it’s safe where you’re going?”
“You mean where ‘we’ are going?”
“You want me to come?” I asked, incredulous. “Why?”
“You heard Lucrez. If the Uprising catches you, they’ll torture you to find Navara. And if Ambrosine catches you, you’ll be no safer. We all need to stay together.