Page 62 of While the Dark Remains
Vil tenses beside me and puts his hand almost possessively on my leg under the table. He’s heard all about Ballast from Saga, and she didn’t exactly paint him in a flattering light, despite what he did for us in the tunnels.
“I am honored to meet you, my lady,” says Ballast, still staring at me every bit as much as I’m staring at him. He holds himself stiffly, like he’s in pain and trying not to show it.
Gods godsgods.
“This is Princess Astridur Sindri,” says Vil coolly, collecting himself. His hand is warm and heavy on my leg.
Ballast’s lips thin as his gaze slides to Vil. “And you are?”
Vil stares him down. “Vilhjalmur Stjörnu, crown prince of Skaanda.”
Ballast’s brows go up again. “Indeed?”
“They are here to negotiate peace,” offers Aelia.
“I see.”
“But not well,” says Vil pointedly. “I would imagine.”
Zopyros, Theron, and Alcaeus—who have been following this exchange with rapt attention—snicker behind their hands.
Ballast’s jaw works, but he doesn’t rise to Vil’s bait. The attendants lay the first course in front of us, and I eat without registering what’s on my plate. The world is spinning and I’m too aware of Kallias at my elbow, Vil brooding on my left.
Ballast, just across from me.
Ballast, with only one eye.
How can he be sitting here at his father’s table after everything Kallias did to him, to Gulla? How can he even be back here at all? Gulla’s words burn in my memory:He has become too much like his father, desiring only power.
I don’t understand and it’s driving me mad, like my mind is incapable of understanding the shape of him across from me, so very close, but farther away than he has ever been before. I fight to keep hold of the conversation around me, fight for the awareness of anything at all apart from him.
“I am surprised,” says Aelia to Ballast as she sips at her wine, “not to have seen you before. Have you been away?”
Ballast fiddles with his fork and table knife, awkwardly stabbing at a thick slice of ham and cutting off a bite. His hands shake.
“My son has been in the infirmary,” Kallias answers for him. “Recovering.”
I stare at those red lines under Ballast’s eye patch, horror squirming in my belly. They can’t be more than a week healed, if that. He was here. The whole time Vil and Saga and I have been in Tenebris, Ballast has been here, too. I didn’t know. And it guts me.
“I told him he’d had enough time to languish, and he’d best get himself to dinner to meet my guests.” Kallias smiles sweetly over at me.
I gag and turn it into a cough, pretending to choke on my meat.
Vil squeezes my knee under the table. He means to comfort me, perhaps, but right at this moment I don’t want him to touch me.
“May I inquire what happened to your eye?” says Vil, icy as the Sea of Bones.
His hand stays on my knee, and I realize with a sort of distant incredulity that Vil isjealousof Ballast. It’s almost hilarious. I haven’t seen Ballast in nearly two years, and thus far tonight I haven’t spoken a single word to him.
“My son has made some ... regrettable choices in the past year or so,” says Kallias, as if Ballast can’t speak for himself. “But he’s here, now—home, where he belongs. And he has earned his way back into my good graces.”
A muscle jumps in Ballast’s jaw, and I see the fear in him again. Visceral. Raw.
“Some of us have no need to earn our way back into your graces, Father,” says Zopyros overloudly from his place next to Aelia. “Inever left your side.”
I have the sudden, horrific suspicion that Ballast is here, like his half siblings, angling to be named Kallias’s heir. Isthatwhat Gulla meant? And if he is ... is the secret of my identity safe with him?
“I am man enough,” says Ballast quietly, “to own when I am wrong. And to bear the consequence for my misdeeds.” He attempts to stab another bite of meat with his fork, missing it at first and hastily correcting himself. I realize that having only one eye has thrown off his depth perception, and it sickens me to my core.What did he do to you, Bal?I want to ask him.Oh gods, what did he do to you?
