Page 39

Lukas’s breath catches as he watches her. A memory so old. He has seen this woman many times. But he has never really looked at her. Never really looked. But now she’s holding the mirror.

The sun is glittering down through the window. Lukas hasn’t seen more than a glimpse of the sun for days, just a steel roof of cloud and falling snow. But it breaks through now, liquid gold, and catches the mirror in the maid’s hand. It’s like something has cracked open inside Lukas.

He stares at her and suddenly tears are prickling his eyes.

She looks away from her reflection in the glass.

“I’m glad you kept this,” she says, setting the mirror back down. And her voice is suddenly, so familiar. He knows this woman. From somewhere so deep in his past the memories are little more than ripples on water.

Lukas’s heart is beating hard. He feels like a great beast has emerged from a dark corner, and is staring at him, waiting to pounce. “Who are you?” he says. His voice comes out weak, almost fearful.

The serving woman stares at Lukas for a long moment. Then her face breaks into a smile. “Finally you recognise me, brother.”

Lukas stares at her. “Suki?” His voice is shaky with a swirl of emotion. He says her name again. “Suki?”

His mother’s daughter. His sister. Older than him by a handful of turns.

She nods. “That’s right, little brother.”

He swallows. “I did not know you. I haven’t seen you since... You were twelve summers when our mother died.” And what happened then. What happened to Suki after their mother died. “I was taken to Prince Rafus and you were…” Another wave of emotion. How had he never thought about this before? “You were not.”

Suki sits down on the opposite settle, in the place Atticul had been sitting earlier that day.

She shakes her head. “My father was not the Crown Prince.”

“I don’t think mine was back then,” Lukas says. “Erond was alive. Prince Markus was Crown Prince.”

Suki rolls her eyes. “You always have to correct everyone.” She laughs. “You were like this at seven.”

But Lukas does not return her smile. His voice is still weakened with shock. “Then what happened to you? When she died. Where did you go?”

Suki smiles thinly. “I went nowhere. I was almost twelve turns. I was already working in the wash house. I continued working in the wash house.”

Lukas takes a breath, old memories, things he hasn’t thought about in so long, things he chose not to think about. “I did,” he begins, soft and hazy, “I did ask for you.” He is sure he did. He must have done.

Suki shakes her head. Lukas is unsure she believes him. “Did you? After you were taken away to your new life as a prince?” She looks up, recalling. “You never came back below stairs. I never saw you.”

When Lukas was a prince, living in the Tower of the Heir, he would not have been permitted to go somewhere like the wash house. As he grew older and wilder, he had roamed the palace. He’d paid no heed to such rules. But he’d never tried to go and find Suki. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I never thought of you.”

Suki. The sister he left behind. His mother’s loss has weighed on him all his life. Suki is his mother’s daughter. A connection to her. Still living. He’d run from the palace at fourteen. He’d joined the Mortingales to fight for the common folk of the Empire. But he’d never given a thought to the fact he had a sister in the palace. One of those common folk.

“I know,” Suki says. “But I forgive you. It was not you, but the Rose Court who decided you ought to become a prince and I should remain a washer woman’s daughter.”

“But I left you,” Lukas says, his voice cracking now with the emotion of it.

“You were seven turns.”

“I went away to my spoiled life,” Lukas says and tears are falling now, “and never thought of you or tried to help you.”

“I heard tell of you. I know where you went and who you became. I was proud of you. You tried to help me, because you tried to help everyone. You ran away and joined the outlaws. You tried to free the people of Azuria from the cruelties of the Empire. I always thought you did that for me. And for our mother.”

“You knew about all of that.”

“Of course I knew. Everyone knows of the Traitor Prince. I heard you were part of the raiders who tried to assassinate Selim six years ago. I never knew if it was true. But I hoped it was. I used to dream that I had seen you that night. In the palace. And you returned to kill Selim. Some say to clear the path for Damon to take the throne. Many wish so.”

Lukas nods. Damon on the throne. There has been talk of such things for years. But he would simply be another Darek Emperor.

But now is not the time to debate Damon’s merits. “Truly?” he says softly. “You forgive me? Truly?”