Cyril stared at her. Then at the ring. He reached out to pick it up, his hands shaking visibly.

"The mark of his signet dagger is carved on the inside, beneath the stones," Isana said quietly. "He left me the dagger as well. It's in a trunk in my room."

The ring tumbled from Sir Cyril's fingertips, back to the top of the desk.

Cyril shook his head, stammering. "H-how can this be?"

Tavi, still on his knee, turned back to look up at Isana. For a second, she saw him again, the boy she had watched over, fed, cared for, loved. And lied to. Great furies help her, had there been more she could have done to hide him, she would have.

Araris had been right. He deserved the truth.

She met her son's eyes. "What very few know," Isana said, careful to keep her voice steady, her words clear, "is that Septimus had twice been attacked by assassins, in the two years prior to his death. His efforts to discover their employer were unsuccessful. When he took the Crown Legion to put down the rebellion at the Battle of Seven Hills, another assassin wounded him so badly, the night after the battle, that even with his own skills at healing, Septimus barely survived. That was why the First Lord sent the Crown Legion off to the farthest reaches of the Realm-to the Calderon Valley. Officially, it was to rest and recover from the losses sustained at Seven Hills. Only his singulares and Sextus knew it was to give Septimus a chance to recover in relative privacy." She grimaced. "Septimus wanted to return to Alera Imperia and dare them to come after him again-to catch whoever was behind it. But Sextus ordered him to Calderon.

"Septimus obeyed, but he wasn't content simply to rest and recover. He began sending out men he trusted to search for answers of his own. And…"

And how could she possibly speak of a thousand memories, of the words between them, of how Septimus had become her entire world? How could she convey what it had meant to touch his hand, to listen to his voice, to feel his heart beating against her as he slept? How could she make them know what it had felt like for an awkward holder girl to fall in love with a man so strong and gentle and kind?

"We met there," she said in a whisper. "We fell in love. We married."

Tavi stared up at her, and his expression was no longer a careful mask. He looked up at her the way any hungry child had ever looked up to his mother. He had been starving. For his whole life, he had been starving for the truth, and only now was he about to be sated.

"Septimus learned of a plot against him," she continued. "Several of the other young men of his generation-he wasn't sure who-had formed a cabal, swearing to remove him and displace the House of Gaius from the throne." She swallowed. "I think he suspected that the Marat invasion was engineered by this group of men. And it is my belief that they struck at him there, during the battle." Isana's tears blurred the room once more. "They killed him."

She swallowed and forced herself to continue. "Septimus had sent me from the camp, accompanied by my young sister, Alia, with Araris as my singulare, just before the Marat arrived. But I was heavy with child, and I began delivery before we could go more than a few miles. We hid in a cave. It was a difficult birthing. Alia helped me, but died of an arrow wound she'd gotten. That's where Octavian was born. In a cave. While his father fought invaders and traitors, and died so that others would have a chance to live."

Tavi's eyes suddenly shone. His expression didn't change, though the tears began to fall freely.

"I was alone," Isana said quietly. "But for Araris. And he could not protect Octavian from those who had murdered his father. Neither could Sextus. He hadn't protected his own son, and I would not chance mine upon his remorse." She felt her back straighten. "So I hid Octavian away. Araris marked his own face with the coward's brand, knowing no one would ever look for Araris Valerian beneath it, and sold himself into slavery. I purchased him, and he helped me watch over Tavi in my brother's steadholt." She reached out and touched his hair with one hand. "We told no one. Not even Octavian. There was no other way to keep him safe."

She met her son's eyes, and felt his bitterness, his lifelong ache and his newly born fear. She felt his rage. And, beneath all of it, threaded and braided with every emotion, was his love. Simple, strong-tarnished, perhaps, but not broken.

Her son still loved her.

He was angry, and afraid of the future, and broken with sadness about the loss of a father he'd never known, even if he did not himself realize it yet.

Though his heart was wounded, the wounds could heal. They would pass, in time.

His love would not.

Isana crouched, bowed her head, and laid her forehead gently against Tavi's. He leaned into her, and his hands suddenly found hers, squeezing tight. They shared tears for a moment-tears of loss and regret and repentance.

Isana whispered, too quietly for Cyril to hear, "I'm so sorry. Your father would have been so proud of you, my Tavi."

Her son's shoulders twitched, and his breath caught in his throat for a second, before he bowed his head and leaned more against her. She put her arms around him in a sudden, fiercely tight embrace. He wept silently, his body jerking several times. Isana held him and closed her eyes.

She opened them again when she felt Cyril's pain. He stood from the desk, wincing as the weight went onto his maimed leg, and limped steadily around it. Wordlessly, he offered the ring and its chain back to Isana.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"You should hide it, my lady," he murmured back. "Until the time is right." Then he shifted position and dropped painfully to one knee.

Isana touched Tavi's shoulder.

He looked up to meet Sir Cyril's gaze.

Cyril bowed his head, deeply. "Your Highness," he murmured. "How may I serve the Crown?"

Chapter 21

Tavi thought it somewhat ironic that the bunk in his cell was considerably more comfortable than his own. Granted, it had hardly been used during the two years since it had been built. The occasional drunken or brawling legionare had cooled his heels within, but that had been an infrequent event. In general, Tavi had followed Cyril's example of trusting his centurions to maintain discipline rather than meddling in it himself, and as a result the only legionares to see the inside of the cell had been those luckless or stupid enough to screw up in front of their captain's eyes.

Of course, he wasn't their captain anymore. He probably never would be again.

That bothered him more than he thought it would-especially since it was a position that had been thrust upon him by necessity in the first place. He'd only been here, at the Elinarch, for two years, but in that time it had become someplace familiar to him. It hadn't been a happy time. Too many people had been hurt or killed for that. It had, however, been an important time. There had been joy to balance the sorrow, laughter to counter the tears. He had worked hard and won respect as well as shed blood. He had made friends, too, of those who had fought beside him.

It had become his home.

That was over now.

He lay in his bunk, staring up at the stone ceiling. He missed his room in the command building. He missed the bustle of the Legion's routine. There were times when he missed Bemardholt-Isanaholt, he corrected himself. Only it probably wouldn't be that for very much longer, either.

Declaring himself to Sir Cyril had changed all of that. Learning the truth had changed it.

He tried to sort through his thoughts and feelings on the matter, but it was a hopeless tangle. Isana was his mother. His father had been murdered-and his enemies, presumably, were still at liberty. Should he feel rage at whoever had taken his father from him? It seemed to him that he should, but he hadn't felt it yet. In stories, a young man in his position should be making oaths of vengeance and setting out with grim determination to punish his father's killers.