Chapter 335: Commissioned Killing
"Kill Saintess Ruby Vaiva, and make it look like an accident. Details by the river, three days."
Eh?
...
...
...
"Pff—fWAHAHAHAH!"
Lady Sees doubled over. One hand flew to her stomach, the other braced against the arm of the sofa, and she laughed.
Roarke felt cold sweat begin its slow crawl down his spine.
This...
Could it be, that he have lost it? The chance. The fragile, barely-there possibility of being in Rinne’s life again. The hope he had been nursing like a wounded bird, afraid to hold too tight lest he crush it?
This ssage, this order from the Cassian Twins, delivered to the wrong hands, exposed before he could explain or defend or beg—
It ruined everything?
He did not know. He did not know anything. This veiled, mysterious woman, Lady Sees, the Dragon’s Physician, whatever na she wore today, what did her laughter an?
Was she angry? Was this the laughter of soone so furious that amusent was the only safe outlet? Was she about to have him killed? Banished? Reported to Arkai with a neat little bow of evidence that proved, once and for all, that Roarke was exactly the irredeemable monster everyone already believed him to be?
"I—" His voice ca out rougher than intended. He cleared his throat, tried again. "I had not been contacted by them. This is truly the first connection anyone has made to , and Bimo can testify that I had not sent anything to them. I swear. I am telling the tru—"
"WAHAHAHAHAH—"
Lady Sees laughed harder. She clutched her stomach like it might escape, leaning back against the sofa with the boneless abandon.
"Yes, yes." She waved a hand, still giggling. "Even now, they are still too funny. Right after assassinating the Emperor, now they move on to the Saintess?"
Huh?
Roarke’s brain stopped working.
And Bimo’s expression too, froze into an identical expression of processing failure.
The Cassian Twins...
...were the ones who ordered the assassination on the Emperor...?
Ivy and Isla Cassia, the won whose coin kept him alive and whose trust he had never questioned—
They had killed the Emperor?
And now they wanted him to kill the Saintess?
Lady Sees was already moving, her laughter fading to a satisfied chuckle, her cream-and-gold dress swaying as she crossed the room.
"Let us hear what they want to say next. In the anti, I want to speak to Damon first." She paused at the door, glancing back over her shoulder with a smile on her red lips that was far too cheerful for the circumstances.
"Ivy Cassia must have prepared a plan I am not yet aware of, and Damon neglected to tell . How like him."
She waved dismissively, already turning away. "You two are dismissed. Good work."
"Wait—"
Roarke reached out, his hand lifting before he caught himself and let it fall.
Lady Sees turned back. "Hm?"
"What..." Roarke began. "What does this an? My chance... do I still have it?"
His chance to see Rinne. His chance to be sothing other than the monster who broke his world.
Lady Sees humd thoughtfully.
"Winter Solstice." She said gently. "You know what day that will be, yes?"
Roarke’s eyes faltered. Of course he knew.
It was Arkai’s birthday.
"Co at midnight." Lady Sees tilted her head, and even through the veil, he could feel the weight of her gaze. "I will allow you to watch our little celebration from outside the window."
Watch. Not join. Not enter. Not be part of anything.
"You know why I am not allowing you to co inside yet, yes?"
"I do not—" Roarke’s voice cracked. He did not want to co. That was not what he wanted. He wanted—
What did he want?
To be forgiven? To be welcod? To have Rinne look at him with sothing other than that sky-collapsing horror?
Was that even possible?
Was he ready for it if it was?
"It is like exposure therapy." Lady Sees’s voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. "Both for you, and my husband and my son."
She had that tone again. Her son. Like Rinne belonged to her now. Like Roarke was the outsider looking in, which, he supposed, he was.
"You can leave. But only after you are present."
Roarke’s jaw tightened. "But you said you were going to convince them first."
His voice ca out sharper than intended.
Lady Sees chuckled. "What do you an I have not? I have started, and it needs ti."
She reached for the door handle, her smile audible in her voice.
"When this three days cos, we go together. Now. Go back to work."
The door opened. The door closed. And Roarke stood in the reception room of Arkai Dawnoro’s Capital Residence, Bimo silent at his side.
Winter Solstice, he thought.
Midnight.
Outside the window.
It was not forgiveness, nor was it welco. It was a crack in the door, barely wide enough for light to pass through, let alone a man.
But it was sothing.
It was... sothing.
Grasp—
Roarke looked down. The teenage boy beside him, Bimo, Angel’s Bunny, Angela Iondora’s highest-ranking spy, had slipped his hand into Roarke’s and squeezed.
The boy’s fingers were small against his palm. Warm.
"Let us go back to work."
Bimo said gently. He looked up at Roarke with those innocent eyes and in them, Roarke saw kindness. Ah. He had fallen this far. To be pitied by a boy.
How pathetic.
"Co to think of it." Roarke said, not pulling his hand away. "Is it not cruel for the Princess to employ you? You’re still too young."
He turned, letting Bimo’s gentle tug guide him through the door and down the corridor.
"I was the one who begged to get so work, you know?" Bimo said. "I need to save money so I can be rich when I beco an adult. Then I’ll retire early."
Roarke chuckled. "Is that so?"
"Mmhm." Bimo nodded. "I have a plan. A very good plan. By the ti I am thirty, I will have enough to buy a little house sowhere warm, and I will never work again. Just read books. And eat good food."
"That is quite the ambition."
"I know. It is why I am so good at my job."
They walked on, down the long corridor of the Dawnoro Capital Residence, hands still clasped between them. Neither of them let go or ntioned it.
They did not see the eyes watching.
From a crack in a door, barely wide enough to allow a clear view, a young boy stood. He was ten years old with dark eyes that held shadows too heavy for his years.
Rinne watched Roarke walk away down the corridor, hand in hand with a boy he did not know, a boy who looked at Roarke with sothing that was not fear.
His eyes were dark. Downcast.
The figures disappeared around a corner, swallowed by the mansion’s winding halls. And Rinne, still standing behind the door, finally turned.
He looked up.
Arkai stood behind him. The Black Wolf King had been watching too, not at the corridor, but Rinne. Watching his son watch his father.
"What do you think?" Arkai asked.
Rinne did not answer imdiately. The words tangled in his throat like thorns.
And then a different door opened.
Cecilia entered, her veil already in her hands, her face bare and warm and familiar. She had shed Lady Sees sowhere between the reception room and this adjacent chamber, and what remained was simply her, the woman who had appeared in their lives like a force of nature and refused to leave.
She was smiling.
Rinne’s heart lightened just a little.
"I don’t know," Rinne finally answered.
Cecilia crossed the room in three swift strides and pulled him to her chest. Her arms wrapped around him without hesitation as though he had always belonged there.
"It is okay not to know." She said gently against his hair. "How about we find out as ti goes?"
He didn’t need to know now. There was still plenty of ti, after all.
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