Araris closed his eyes and sighed. Then he opened them and faced Tavi. "No, Tavi. There's a lot your mother hasn't told you about your father."

Tavi frowned and opened his mouth to ask another question-then stopped suddenly as he heard the very gentle emphasis Araris put on the word mother.

A lot his mother hadn't told him.

Not Aunt Isana.

His mother.

Isana. Isana was his mother.

Tavi's heart suddenly throbbed and clenched, and the searing flame of shock and pain seared through his vitals. It was as if every tiny wound his heart had received over the years, every little momentary pain of a lonely child, every jab of self-loathing he felt when other children had asked who his parents were, every moment of longing for anything to fill that emptiness where his parents should have been-all of it came back to him at the same instant, in the same place, the concentrated heartache of a lifetime.

Tavi turned his head and clutched a hand at his chest, fingers sliding over the plates of his armor. The pain wasn't physical, of course-but that made it no less real, and no less terrible.

"Her sister was killed in the Marat attack at First Calderon," Araris said. "Almost everyone was. You were born that same night, in fact.'' His face clouded with an old sadness. "Isana believed that Septimus was betrayed by another Aleran and that if his enemies learned that he might possibly have sired an heir, you would surely be killed. So she hid you. She lied about who your mother was. She watercrafted you during your baths, to slow down your growth. She wanted anyone who looked at you to think that you were too young to be Septimus's child, born too long after his death."

Araris stepped forward and put a hand on Tavi's shoulder. "I helped her," he said quietly. He gestured at his scarred, branded face. "I did this to myself, Tavi. Araris Valerian was thought to be dead, and if anyone recognized me, they would have been awfully curious to note that I was watching over a boy. So I became Fade. A simple slave. The scar was part of the disguise. No one ever looked past it."

Tavi could only stare at the older man. Then he heard himself say, "That's what she wanted to talk about the other day."

Araris grimaced and nodded. "She was trying. She was afraid of what it might mean if she told you."

Tavi's vision blurred over, and the tears seemed to magnify the pain bursting through his chest. "All those years and… and she was lying to me. She was lying." He jerked his head upright as another thought flashed through his mind like a thunderbolt. "That's why I was never able to… she crafted me. She slowed my growth. She stunted my talents-and I never knew…"

"Tavi," Araris said, his voice carefully calm. "Wait. You've got to understand that she did what she did because she loves you. She had very few resources to draw upon, and she did everything in her power to protect you."

"No," Tavi spat. She'd done it to him. The years of humiliation, the bewildered pain as he bore the stigma of a freak, unable to furycraft, scorned and held in contempt by people wherever he went. He hadn't been born a freak, born unlucky, a victim of terrible mischance as he always thought.

Someone had done it to him.

His mother had done it to him.

Part of Tavi was listening to Araris's words, and part of him knew that the singulare was probably right-but it was a very small, very distant part. The pain, the outrage, and the humiliation left very little room for anything else.

"Tavi," Araris said, "you've got to calm down. She did the best she could."

"No!" Tavi spat, the anger giving his voice a vicious edge. "She lied to me. She took my crafting." His voice gained volume, independently of his control. "Do you know how many nights I couldn't sleep, how many times I suffered because I was the furyless freak? Do you have any idea, all the humiliation I had to go through? How alone I was?"

"Tavi," Araris said, voice quiet, as one speaking to a spooked horse, "you've got to control yourself. Think, man. She's out there, right now, and she's ripped apart inside. You don't know what is going to happen when you leave on campaign. You don't know if you're ever going to see her again. You need to see her. You need to make this right while you still can."

Tavi only stared at him incredulously. "Right? Make this right? She's been lying to me since before I could stand up, and I'm supposed to make that right?" He mopped a hand over his face and felt it shaking as it smeared tears. "You bring this to me today. When we're about to march, and I've got five thousand men to consider. You throw this in my face today."

"Tavi," Araris said. "She's your mother. She needs this."

No. Tavi found himself shaking his head. The list came pouring back through his thoughts. This was too much. It was all far, far too much. He had barely slept in the past two days. He was already faced with an enormous and most likely insoluble dilemma in his assignment from the First-from his grandfather. Thousands of lives were dependent upon him. If he truly was the Princeps's son and heir, it meant that millions of lives were or would become his responsibility. Not only that, but he had just gained a veritable pantheon of foes who were more like demigods than human beings.

And his aunt-his mother-had been lying to him for his entire life.

The voice of reason, of understanding, lost the battle to govern Tavi's decisions.

"She had twenty years to talk to me if she needed it so badly," Tavi said, his voice rough. "She had a lifetime. And I have a Legion to move."

"Tavi-" Araris began, his voice a gentle protest.

"Captain Scipio," Tavi snarled. "I have a job to do. Either come with me or get out of the way. Or was the loyalty you pledged me another lie?"

Araris stiffened at that. His eyes flashed with sudden anger. Without a word, he unlocked the door, stepped back, and opened it for Tavi, coming to rigid attention.

Tavi started to stride angrily out the door, but hesitated. He didn't- couldn't-look at Araris, but he could see the man regarding him on the periphery of his vision. Tavi went quiet, listening to the silence. There were no more footsteps above, no sound of voices or doors opening and closing. The command center felt eerily empty.

"It was right there in front of me," Tavi said. "All the pieces. Even inside my name."

Araris said nothing.

"I can't," Tavi said quietly. "Not… not now. There's too much." The geyser of confusion and hurt threatened to roar out of control again, and Tavi struggled to slow his breathing, to control it. He glanced aside at Araris.

The singulare's face remained impassive as a stone.

"I'll talk to her when I get back."

Araris said nothing.

"I have duties that must come first," he said quietly. "So do you."

Araris was silent for an endless moment. Then, quite deliberately, he lifted his fist to his heart, knuckles thumping gently against his armor. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper, and his words sent a shiver running down Tavi's spine.

"Hail," he said quietly. "Hail, Gaius Octavian, Princeps of Alera."