Choose Us

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“We are not going to hand him what he wants,” Iona said.

Cassian stood beside the window with Tomas's note open in his hands. Beyond the glass, the harbour chain stretched between its towers. Even from the palace, she could see that no ship was passing beneath it.

“He already has my brother.”

“We don't know that.”

“We know whose orders closed the water.”

Anwen took the note to compare it with the message delivered by a quay guard that morning. Lucien had declared a military inspection. No cargo could be unloaded. No foreign crew could go ashore. He had used the authority Iona had never thought to examine until yesterday.

Cassian turned toward her. “You should stay here.”

“Would you?”

“No.”

“Then don't ask it because you are frightened.”

He folded the note carefully. “I'm asking because I know what he does to people he cannot persuade.”

“So do I.”

They were both looking at the empty space between them now. Last night had felt like the beginning of a life. Morning had arrived to ask whether it could survive contact with the one they already had.

Anwen interrupted before fear could become an argument neither meant.

“The chapel belongs to the river guild. It has a public approach and a caretaker. We can inspect it before noon. If there are ducal soldiers inside, nobody enters.”

“And Tomas?” Cassian asked.

“We find out whether he is there. Then we decide.”

He nodded reluctantly. Iona wanted to touch him, but not in front of his captain's expression, not while he was trying to become a man who could think instead of a brother who could only remember a locked door.

When Anwen left, she crossed the room.

“I was happy last night,” she said.

His composure faltered. “I know.”

“I need you to know it wasn't an escape I regretted at dawn.”

He set down the note. His arms closed around her, firm and careful. She rested her cheek against his chest and heard the rapid beat beneath it.

“I haven't been happy like that in years,” he said. “I'm afraid I will be asked to pay for it with someone else.”

“We will not let Lucien set the price.”

She could not promise that they would win. She could promise whose bargain she would refuse.

By midmorning, Mira had news from the ships. Their captains were worried but had not been detained. The crews had enough food for several days. The queen's written revocation of the inspection order had reached the harbour master, who would not act until the council confirmed it.

“He thinks you are being advised by a foreign prince,” Mira said.

“I am being obstructed by a domestic duke.”

“An excellent sentence. Unfortunately the chain remains up.”

Mira spread a small map on the desk. The river barges they had discussed could bring grain from inland stores, but the quay guild would not risk unloading under threat of soldiers. She needed a public guarantee and enough witnesses to make an attack costly to conceal.

“Can you gather the guild leaders?” Iona asked.

“At the warehouses. Not the palace.”

“Then gather them. I will come after the chapel.”

Mira looked at her for a long moment. “Cassian has spent two years searching for his brother. Sometimes he mistakes being needed for being loved.”

“Are you warning me about him?”

“I'm asking you not to make him choose alone.”

Iona thought of the note. Please don't make me choose again. The brothers had learned the same fear in different rooms.

Before they left, Cassian went to the guest room Tomas had been given. The bed was neatly made. Beside it stood the untouched shoes a servant had brought, too stiff and fine for a man who had spent two years wearing somebody else's castoffs. Cassian picked one up, then put it down again.

Iona waited at the doorway.

“He used to leave everything everywhere,” he said. “Books, boots, half an apple. I complained about it every morning.”

“You can complain again.”

“If he comes back.”

“When we find him, he may not be the boy you remember.”

Cassian looked at the made bed. “I know. I keep speaking to that boy because I don't know how to reach the man.”

She came beside him without touching anything in the room. “Ask him. When there is time to hear the answer.”

He nodded. Then he took the old scarf from the chair, the one Tomas had dropped at the fortress, and folded it into his coat. A small preparation, helpless against everything they feared. He carried it anyway.

At noon, the chapel smelled of damp stone and old candle smoke. Anwen had found no hidden soldiers. The caretaker recognised Tomas from his arrival that morning and said he had come alone. He had refused food, but accepted a blanket.

Iona entered with Cassian. Anwen waited outside the open side door, close enough to hear a raised voice. Two guards remained in the square. This was a meeting, not a surrender, and everyone had been told the distinction.

Tomas sat beside the cold altar. In daylight his face looked younger than twenty-two and older than it should have. He rose too fast, then steadied himself on the stone.

“You came,” he said.

Cassian stopped several paces away. “You could have asked me at the palace.”

“Where every door has her guard beside it?”

“They were protecting you.”

“They said that at the fortress too.”

Iona let the words stand. She had no answer that could repair them quickly.

Tomas looked at her travelling coat. “You don't look like a queen.”

“I am one even when you can't see the crown.”

“That's what frightens me.”

Cassian took a breath. “Tell us what happened.”

A servant had brought Tomas a note in the courtyard. Lucien wanted a conversation, away from the queen's influence. Tomas had gone because the duke knew the names of men still missing from Veyr, men who had been held beside him. He thought he might bargain for them now that his brother was near.

Instead Lucien had shown him orders for the harbour. He had said the crews would be taken as enemy agents unless Tomas helped remove the queen from the prince's control.

“He said you had turned her against the council,” Tomas told Cassian. “That she would be kept at his country house until they could establish the truth.”

“Kept,” Iona repeated.

Tomas flinched. “I know what it means.”

“Then why ask me here?”

“Because I thought you might agree to go before anyone was hurt.”

His voice broke on the last word. Cassian moved toward him, but Tomas stepped back.

“You weren't there,” he said. “You didn't hear them choose names in the corridor. You weren't the one wondering whether answering a question would send somebody else downstairs.”

“No,” Cassian said. “I wasn't.”

“You want me to trust her because she opened one door.”

“I want you to stop trusting him because he closed it.”

The words struck too hard. Iona saw Tomas withdraw behind an expression she recognised: shame making itself look like defiance.

“Your brother is right about Lucien,” she said gently. “But you are right that my people kept you there. I cannot ask trust as payment for letting you out.”

Tomas stared at her. For a moment she thought he might sit down and let them find the next step together.

Then bells sounded from the harbour. Three slow notes, the inspection signal. Tomas turned toward the river window.

“He said noon.”

Anwen called from outside that a messenger had reached the square. Iona told her to bring the message. At that instant Tomas crossed to the side door and pulled it shut. The old wooden bar dropped into place with a heavy sound.

Cassian went still.

“Tomas. Open it.”

His brother stood with his back against the door. He had no weapon. He had the terrified certainty of someone who thought every available choice would hurt another person.

“There are forty-three people aboard those ships,” he said. “I wrote down their names. He made me read them.”

Iona felt the cold of the chapel through her boots. Outside, Anwen knocked once, sharply.

Tomas looked at his brother, and the last of his defiance collapsed.

“Give her to him,” he whispered. “Choose us this time.”