Captain's Fury (Codex Alera 4)

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.

Instead, he just felt numb. Too much had happened too quickly. Isana's emotions, as she told him about his father... had been exquisitely painful. He'd drunk them down like a man dying of thirst despite that, but there was no denying that the experience had shaken him severely. Perhaps this oddly peaceful lack of emotions was simply the result of overexposure, like the ringing in his ears during the silence after the roar of battle.

He'd felt his mother's grief and regret and anxiety as distinctly as if they had been his own. He had never felt another's emotions so clearly before-not even Kitai's. He wondered why his senses had seemed so much more adept when it came to Isana. Before, he had only imagined her good intentions, her fears, her motivations in lying to him and everyone else for all those years.

Now, he knew. He knew that she had acted as she had out of love and desperation, taking the only measures she could to protect him. He knew how deeply she had loved Septimus and how viciously his death had wounded her. He knew how much she loved him. When she finally talked to him about it, she had told him the truth, complete and open, not only with her words but with the heart and mind beneath them. He knew it. There was absolutely no room for doubt.

She would never apologize for what she had done. Her words had been an apology for the pain he'd undergone, over those years, regret for the necessities she had been forced to; but she would never apologize for doing them. Tavi knew that now. She had done what she thought was right and necessary. He could either respect that or hold it against her for the rest of his life.

He rubbed at his aching head. He was tired. Holding grudges took far too much energy-energy he would need for more immediate endeavors. The past had lain quietly for more than twenty years. It could keep a little longer. The future was all one vast, terrible vagary. It could wait. It always did.

Lives were at stake here and now.

Tavi ground his teeth in frustration and glared at the door of iron bars. It wasn't really an obstacle. He could probably summon up enough strength to rip the door out of the wall, hinges and all. The idea had a certain primal appeal, but it seemed a little excessive. It wouldn't take more than a moment or two to pick the lock, which would make for a better, quieter escape in any case.