Chapter 318: I Don’t Want Her Afraid Of Me

"She walked in on the arm of the first king," said Carrick. "The other two flanked her like hounds. She wore a dark red gown with a high collar, and she carried herself well. I’ll give her that. She looked at the whole hall and didn’t flinch."

"Go on."

"I made my speech. The one we agreed. I presented the white girl as the Mother of Dragons and suggested the kings had been bewitched. It was going rather well." Carrick’s smile turned wry. "And then the white girl turned on me. In front of the whole council. She said she wasn’t the Mother of Dragons, and that she’d been fetched by a lie."

A murmur ran around the table.

"Astraea," said Ormund, very softly.

"She does not serve us, Your Grace."

"She never did." The High Priest’s pale eyes didn’t change. "She was always going to be a risk. It’s of no consequence. Go on."

"I recovered. I turned to the girl instead. I spoke about her mother." Carrick shrugged lightly. "I thought a little pressure might show us what she was made of."

"And?"

"She answered me."

Kael’s heart gave another strange lurch.

"In front of two hundred people," said Carrick. "She stepped out from between the kings, alone, and she answered. She was quiet, and she was polite, and she took me apart. She said I’d taken a great interest in the health of a village woman, for a man whose family had put her in chains. She asked what the penalty was for threatening a ward of the crown." He let out a short laugh. "I’m not often outplayed by a girl of eighteen. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have."

Somebody at the table made a small sound, half cough and half laugh.

Kael found that he was smiling.

He hadn’t meant to. It crept across his face on its own, slow and startled and wholly involuntary, and a sound came out of him that was hardly a laugh at all. It was a breath, short and astonished. His hand flew to his mouth.

"Kael?" said Ormund.

"I’m sorry," he said, behind his fingers. "I’m sorry. It’s only—" He stopped. He swallowed. "She said that? Truly? She said that, to your face?"

"Quite truly."

"Without her voice shaking?"

"Not once."

"Gods," whispered Kael.

He felt tears pricking his eyes, and was horrified, and couldn’t stop them. He stood there with his hand at his mouth, and all the faces turned toward him, patient and unreadable, and he said, in a voice that cracked, "I’m sorry. I didn’t expect....I thought she’d be....."

"Frightened?" said Carrick, kindly.

"Yes."

"She was. I could tell. But she didn’t let it show."

"No," said Kael. "No, she wouldn’t."

He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"Does she have her mother’s chin?" he asked.

It was a foolish question. He knew it as he said it. But he had been wondering it for eighteen years, in the dark, in the long hours between the chapel bells, and now that there was someone in the world who had seen her face, he could think of nothing else.

Carrick looked at him.

For a moment, something moved in that smooth grey gaze. It wasn’t quite pity. It was something more careful, a faint reassessment, as though a piece on the board had done something unexpected.

"Yes," he said. "She does."

"Her eyes?"

"Grey-green."

"Ah," said Kael.

His voice gave out. He stood in the white room with the cold light on his face and one hand gripping the table’s edge, and for a long moment he couldn’t speak at all.

"She has your jaw, too," said Carrick, a little more gently. "I noticed it when she lifted her chin. It seems she gets it from both of you."

Something inside Kael came apart.

It was soft, and silent, and he made no sound. He only bowed his head, and let the tears fall onto the stone.

"There’s one more thing," said Carrick.

The room settled.

Kael lifted his head. He wiped his face with his sleeve, quickly, with an embarrassed glance around the table. No one was looking at him. They were watching Carrick, with the stillness of men who have been waiting for a particular sentence.

"I delivered your message, Your Grace," said Carrick. "Privately. After the hall had emptied."

"What did you say?"

"That her father sends his regards." A small smile. "That he’s been looking for her for a very long time."

Kael went rigid.

"I’m sorry," he said. "You said what?"

"As instructed."

"I didn’t instruct that."

"No," said Ormund. "I did."

He had not raised his voice. He had not moved. He stood at the head of the table with his hands folded, and the cold light from the bowl lit the silver of his hair. But the warmth had not left his voice, and Kael felt something in his stomach go quietly, slowly cold.

"Your Grace," he said. "You told me you wanted to reach her. Gently. That we would send a letter, in my name, when the moment was right."

"The moment arrived."

"She’s frightened. She’s been told I was dead. You can’t just....." He stopped. His voice was shaking. "You don’t announce a father like that. Not in a hall full of lords. Not through a stranger."

"It was effective."

"It was cruel."

"It was necessary." Ormund’s eyes rested on him, kind and clear and unbearably patient. "She will be afraid, Kael. She should be. A little fear will bring her to us faster than a letter ever could."

"I don’t want her afraid of me." Kael said.

"Of course you don’t." The High Priest laid a hand on his arm. "Nobody wants that. But you’ve waited so long. And she is surrounded by dragons. Dragons who have already begun, as I understand, to claim her." His thumb moved, lightly, on Kael’s sleeve. "We cannot afford gentleness. Not now."