Solon lowered his voice. “Your mother feared that you were my sister.”

In rapid succession, emotions flitted over Kaede’s face: bewilderment, incredulity, understanding, surprise, revulsion, incredulity again.

“Kaede, I don’t wish to slander either of our parents. The liaison was brief—only as long as my mother’s last ill-fated pregnancy. When she and the baby both died, my father took it to be the gods’ judgment on him. By then your mother was pregnant. Years later when my father noticed my interest in you, he requested a green mage come to tell him whether you were his daughter. In return for determining your patrimony and keeping their silence, I was to take my schooling with the green mages. Neither they nor my father expected me to show any Talent. They merely hoped to have a Sethi prince as a friend. As it turned out, I wasn’t that Talented at Healing.” Though he had met Dorian there, which had changed his life, and not only in good ways. “Regardless, they told my father that you were definitely not my sister, but your mother never trusted magi. Her fears told her that you looked more like my father than yours.”

Kaede’s eyes were cool. “How do I know any of this is true?”

“I wouldn’t lie about my father. He was a great man. It wounded me when he told me he’d been faithless to my mother. It wounded him, too. He was different after she died. Can you think of anything else that makes sense of your mother’s actions? Why don’t you ask her?”

“Why didn’t you come back?”

Solon’s face was haggard. “I was nineteen when I learned. You were barely sixteen. I tried to reassure your mother that the mages were telling the truth. She thought I was threatening her. You were young and I didn’t want to poison you against her by telling you. I had an offer for more training at Sho’cendi, so I took it. I wrote to you every week, and when you never responded, I sent a friend to deliver a letter personally. He was thrown out of your family’s estate and told you were betrothed and you never wanted to hear from me again.”

“I was never betrothed,” Kaede said.

“Which I didn’t find out until later. I was going to come home then, but a prophet told me I had two paths before me: ‘Storm-riving, storm-riding, by your word—or silence—a brother king lies dead,’ if I came home, I would kill my brother; if, on the other hand, I went to Cenaria, I might save the south from Khalidor.”

“So did you?” Kaede asked.

“What?”

“Did you save the world?” Her tone had an edge of deep anger.

“No,” Solon said. He swallowed. “I hid that I was a mage from a man who was like a brother to me, a man who would have become king. When he found out, he dismissed me. The next day, he was killed by an assassin I could have stopped had I been there.”

“So you come home like a whipped dog looking for scraps.”

Solon gave Kaede a gentle look, seeing pain under her anger. “I came home to make things right. I have no idea what happened here. No Sethi on the mainland will talk about it.”

“You took the wrong fork of the prophecy,” Kaede said. “You should have killed him.”

“What?”

She pulled the samite wrap tight and looked out Solon’s window. “Your brother was a horror. He squandered all the goodwill the people felt for your family within a year. His invasion of Ladesh cost us three of our four fleets, and the Ladeshian counterstroke cost us the last of our colonies. He forced my brother Jarris to lead a hopeless attack, and when it failed, he threw him in the dungeon. Where he was strangled. Sijuron claimed Jarris hanged himself. He forced the great families to sponsor week-long parties that they had no way of paying for. He raised taxes on rich and poor alike but gave dispensations to his friends. He built a menagerie that housed over a thousand animals. While people begged at the gates, he ordered silk beds made for his lions, and soon began throwing those who displeased him to those beasts. He liked to train with the military, but would order men killed for not really trying when they sparred with him—or for daring to bruise the imperial flesh when they did try. He took to carrying knuckle bones which he made anyone he encountered roll—the sides ranged from winning a purse of gold to death.

“I came across him one day and he made me roll, though usually the high families were exempt. I won. He made me roll again. I won four more times, until he had no more money. He was furious, so he ordered his retainers to pay me. I realized that he was going to make me roll until I rolled my death. So I challenged him to one last roll: I said let three sides be death, and the other three be marriage. My audacity intrigued him. He said that if I was going to beggar him, I might as well be his wife.” Her eyes were cold with hatred. “Sijuron was quite the wit. He only gave me two of the six sides.

“I won. He kept his word and threw a huge wedding party at my family’s expense. After he fell asleep, I cut his throat. I walked back to the great hall in my bare feet and my shift, my arms covered in blood to the elbows. The party was still going. It was barely midnight and those parties always had a curious frenzy: everyone knew they might die at the king’s least whim.

“Everything stopped when I walked in. I sat in the king’s seat and told them what I’d done. They cheered, Solon. Someone pulled his body into the great hall and the gentle nobles of this empire ripped him apart with their bare hands. I’ve been undoing the damage he inflicted on this kingdom ever since. In nine years, I haven’t been able to fix half of what he destroyed in three.”

Solon was aghast. “And you never married.”

“Never remarried.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve been too busy. Besides, they call me the Black Widow, those who hate me. I don’t mind. It’s good that they fear me. For all that I’m a hundred times the monarch your brother was, I made missteps early and alienated some who might have been friends. I have learned since, but some men will never forgive a slight. My hold on this throne is a daily struggle—one that you could easily upset.”

“I have no desire for a crown. I will swear that in front of all the court.”

“Then what is it you want, Solon?”

His eyes never wavered. “Just you,” he said.

“There is no just me,” she snapped. “I am queen, but look at my face and you will see the holes where my clan rings were. Your cheek has never been pierced. Do you think that doesn’t matter? If I am queen, what would you be?”

“Is a queen not a woman?”

“Not first.”

“Is there any room beneath that crown for love?”

He saw glacial sorrow beneath the regal calm, and then it was gone. “I loved you once, Solon. When you left again, I was devastated. People prayed for your return, hoping you could restrain your brother, or later, hoping you’d replace him. I prayed for your return too, for other reasons. But you never came. I prayed even on the night of my wedding that you would come set things right. I prayed as your brother pulled me to his bed that you would burst through the doors. You didn’t.” Her voice was low, but cold. “Besides,” she said. “I married your brother.”

“But you said you—” he stopped, cursing his tactless stupidity.

She closed her eyes. “Afterward,” she said. “I meant to get him so drunk that he’d pass out, but for once he wasn’t in the mood to drink, and I—I was too frightened. I waited until it was over and he was asleep. Even after what he’d just done, I was barely able to cut his throat. In his sleep, he looked so much like you.”

“I’m so sorry,” Solon said.

She slapped him. Hard. “Don’t you dare pity me. Don’t you dare.”

“It’s not pity. It’s love, Kaede. I hurt you, and I allowed you to be hurt, and I’m sorry.”

“In two days, I marry Oshobi Takeda.”

“You don’t love him.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Of course she didn’t.

“Kaede, give me a chance. I’ll do anything.”