A Brother Behind the Gate

Create up to 20 seconds from 0:00. Available for free opening episodes. Preparing a clip downloads this episode on your device.

“By Lucien,” Iona said.

Cassian nodded.

She rang the bell once. Anwen entered immediately, took one look at the room, and closed the door behind her.

“This is Cassian of Veyr,” Iona said. “He says Lucien asked him to steal the crown.”

Anwen's hand went to her sword. Cassian remained still.

“Then we should put him somewhere secure.”

“We have. You are between him and the door.”

Iona heard her own composure and wondered where it had come from. Perhaps fear became useful once there was no time to indulge it.

Anwen did not move her hand. “If this is a diversion, we are already giving it too much time.”

“Then test it,” Iona said. “Send someone you trust to the orchard gate. Quietly. See who waits there.”

Her captain called a guard through the doorway and gave the instruction in a low voice. Cassian watched without protest. He was taking a risk, Iona realised. Whatever evidence remained outside this room might confirm his account, but it might also reveal something he had chosen not to tell her yet.

“You can still ask me to leave,” Anwen told her.

“I know.”

Iona was grateful for the reminder. Power did not make a woman invulnerable, and desire was not an investigation. She would remember both, however difficult the man opposite made remembering.

Before she asked another question, Iona took off the ceremonial gloves she had worn all evening. One finger had split where she caught the crown. She laid them on the table, palm upward, and saw Cassian notice the tear.

“Did he hurt you?” he asked.

“The glove.”

“That wasn't what I asked.”

“No.” She flexed her hand. “Not as much as he intended.”

Cassian looked away first. She wondered whether he was remembering the moment he had agreed to the theft. Whether he had pictured a woman then, or only an enemy's symbol.

“I won't ask you to forgive the attempt,” he said.

“Good. I haven't decided what I think of the man who made it.”

“That seems fair.”

It was an oddly reassuring answer. Lucien would have explained why she ought to feel grateful already.

She asked Cassian why he had accepted.

“My brother is in the east fortress.”

“All prisoners were returned after the ceasefire.”

“Most prisoners.”

“His name?”

“Tomas. He's twenty-two. He was taken two years ago, carrying a message under a flag that should have protected him.”

Anwen looked sharply at Iona. Neither woman had known.

Cassian saw their exchange. Something moved across his face, not relief exactly, but the collapse of an explanation he had used to keep himself angry.

“I thought you knew,” he said.

“I didn't.”

“Lucien said the order came from you.”

“Lucien says many things in my name.”

Iona disliked how weak that sounded. She had delegated border matters to him because he commanded the largest force still intact after the war. Delegation had seemed practical. Now she wondered how many doors had closed behind the word.

Cassian took a folded note from his pocket and handed it to Anwen first. She read it, then passed it to the queen. It promised Tomas's release in exchange for the crown, delivered quietly before the betrothal announcement.

There was no signature. Only a small impressed seal: a stag beneath three stars. Lucien's private mark, used on household correspondence.

“He wanted me to look helpless,” Iona said.

“And wanted Veyr blamed for it,” Anwen added.

Cassian looked at the floor. “I told myself a crown was a piece of metal. My brother was a person.”

“He is,” Iona said. “So am I.”

His gaze returned to hers. “I know that now.”

She should have disliked the answer. Instead she felt the unnerving force of being seen beyond the office she wore. She was angry with him. She was grateful to him. Neither feeling cancelled the other, and neither made the third feeling at all convenient.

Anwen asked where the exchange was meant to happen. Cassian named the old orchard gate. Iona told her to watch it, discreetly, and to send someone she trusted to confirm the fortress records.

“No confrontation yet,” she added. “If Tomas is there, I want him alive when Lucien learns we're asking.”

Anwen nodded. Before leaving, she looked at Cassian.

“If she calls, I come in.”

“I believe you.”

“You should.”

When the door closed, the silence felt different. Iona went to the window and loosened the fastening at her throat. The gown had been designed to support a crown, impress a duke, and discourage breathing.

Cassian turned away.

“You needn't look at the wall,” she said.

“I was trying to be courteous.”

“Everyone here is courteous. It's exhausting.”

He glanced back. “What would be less exhausting?”

“An answer that isn't shaped around what I might want to hear.”

He considered her. “Your dress looks painful.”

She laughed before she could stop herself. The sound surprised them both.

“It is.”

“Then perhaps that's where to start.”

She removed the heavy collar and set it beside the hawk medallion. Gold and silver. Two countries reduced to ornaments on a small table. Cassian's eyes followed the movement, then returned to her face with deliberate care.

“Does every man in Auren look away that politely?” she asked.

“No idea. I'm Veyran.”

“That explains very little.”

“I've been told it explains everything.”

She smiled again, then remembered his brother in a fortress and let the smile fade.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“For laughing?”

“For not knowing.”

Cassian leaned against the mantel. “I don't know what you could have known. I've spent two years being told you ordered it. I need more than one conversation to understand what I believe.”

“That is fair.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. I don't require gratitude because I've agreed to investigate whether my own people imprisoned your brother.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “You sound different from the stories.”

“So do you.”

“What did they say?”

“That you stole ships.”

“I recovered two that belonged to my mother's family. The distinction depended on who was telling the story.”

“And the silver?”

“What silver?”

She shook her head. He laughed softly. She found herself wanting to hear it again in a room where nobody was in danger.

Anwen returned with a servant carrying bread and soup. The queen had missed dinner. So, apparently, had her prisoner.

“Guest under guard,” Iona corrected when Anwen used the word.

“For tonight,” Anwen said.

“For tonight.”

They ate at the small table. Cassian waited until Iona took the first spoonful. She asked whether he feared poison. He said he feared committing some obscure offence involving royal cutlery.

“Use whichever spoon keeps you alive,” she said.

The soup was too salty. The bread was excellent. She could not remember the last meal she had eaten without someone explaining its symbolic significance.

Cassian told her about Tomas before captivity: a boy who had grown into a man while still believing every injured bird deserved a palace. He spoke with warmth that changed his face. Iona watched the brother emerge from behind the prince.

“My mother died before I became queen,” she said. “Sometimes I think half my decisions are arguments with her that I can never finish.”

“Was she kind?”

“Sometimes. She was frightened often. We mistook that for wisdom.”

Cassian did not offer a flattering answer about queens. He asked what Iona wanted that her mother had not wanted for her.

She looked at the door, checking a habit rather than a danger.

“To be allowed to choose something without having to prove it was a sacrifice.”

He put down his spoon. For a moment she felt the full attention of him, unsoftened by duty. It was almost indecent, being listened to that closely.

Then Anwen knocked again.

Her messenger had reached the fortress. Tomas was there, entered under a false description as a common smuggler. A new order had arrived that evening. He was to be moved before dawn to a coastal holding tower under Lucien's direct command.

Cassian rose so quickly his chair struck the wall.

“If he reaches that tower, I'll lose him.”

Iona stood too. “Then he doesn't reach it.”

“The duke controls the escort.”

“Anwen controls mine.”

She went to the door and asked for her riding coat. Cassian caught up with her in the passage, careful not to touch her.

“You don't understand what Lucien will risk to keep this quiet.”

Iona looked at him. “Then it's time he wondered what I will risk to find out.”