Fallen Eagle

Chapter 98: Wanting to Believe It

The mood in the study could scarcely have been darker. The revelation of the proportion of the disaster they had stepped upon hung over the room like smoke after a fire.But the men within that room had been chosen for the North for a reason.

Zeno and Theodorus exchanged a cool glance across the desk, and in that brief meeting of eyes an understanding passed between them. Panic would serve no one. There was no time for mourning the size of the hole they had been thrown into. There was only the work of climbing out of it.

“Our priorities are clear,” Zeno began, his voice cutting cleanly through the heavy silence. “We have to pacify the province and stabilize the unrest. The peasants believe that the country is still embroiled in civil war. We must inform them that the Crown has won, and that the North now lies under its direct jurisdiction.”

“Assuring them that retribution or a general crackdown will not occur is also vital,” Theodorus continued, picking up the thread. “Once they understand they will not be hunted down for some perceived allegiance to the rebellion, the likelihood of them chancing flight across the border into the steppe or Genoese-controlled territory becomes far lower.”

“T-There is still the matter of the d-discontent with the taxes, my Lords.” Theophylact looked between them, his hands worrying at the edge of his sleeve and rubbing at his wrist.

“One thing at a time.” Zeno spread his hands, palms up, the gesture faintly impatient. “How can we implement policies if we cannot even control our own people?”

“Zeno is correct,” Theodorus assented, drawing raised eyebrows from the man. “Our greatest priority right now is establishing legitimacy and some sort of governing framework for the province. All else is secondary until we have that.”

“B-But the f-famine-” Theophylact began.

“Attempting to solve everything at once will only harm us, Theophylact.” Theodorus cut him off, firm but not unkind. “We need to triage this gaping wound before we can start to properly heal it. First comes stability, then food, coin, and taxes. Otherwise, we will drown trying to drink the sea.”

Theophylact swallowed, visibly struggling to master his panic, but nodded.

Zeno watched the exchange coolly for a moment before turning to one of Adanis’s shelves. He pulled free a rolled map, shook dust from its edge, and unfurled it across the desk. Its cracked surface showed an amateurish drawing of Suyren and the lands around it, with the roads too broad, the villages too neat, and the contents of the North rendered in vague scratches and empty spaces.

Theodorus frowned down at it. “Is this the best map we have of the North?”

“T-The family took all the m-most valuable possessions with t-them, my Lords,” Theophylact explained, his worry deepening into embarrassment. “A-At least that which could be carried e-easily.”

“That means the most cumbersome, and likely some of the most valuable, things the Lion collected are still here within arm’s reach.” Theodorus’s gaze drifted from the map to the grand tapestry that framed the centre of the office. It depicted a hunt in bright, pristine thread, a leopard crouched low in the grass and a lion rearing at the center of the scene.

“P-Plenty of those, yes, my Lord,” Theophylact said.

“Then we sell off the lot of them for the highest price possible.” Zeno’s eyes sharpened with the look of a hound who had caught the scent of opportunity. “There are contacts among the higher nobility I can reach out to. Collectors, rivals of the Nomikos Family, pious men who would gladly purchase confiscated ornaments.” His fingers tapped lightly against the table as the calculations formed behind his eyes. “We could even frame the purchase of a traitor’s luxuries as a filial duty to the Principality - a noble contribution to the restoration of order.” He had a sinister smile at the thought.

“M-My Lord?” Theophylact asked.

Theodorus had not stopped looking at the tapestry, and he wore a deep frown. There was something about the painting that called to him. Someone that he was missing- but of course.

Hypatius.

“Theophylact,” he said, turning sharply enough that the Steward was startled. “Where is Hypatius now? Did he escape with the main Nomikos host?”

“I-I do n-not think so, my Lord.” Theophylact looked thrown entirely off course by the question. “H-He has not been seen since t-the beginning of the r-rebellion. L-Lord Adanis mentioned h-he had retired to the N-Nomikos estates, but he was not here f-for the escape.”

Even as he spoke, the Steward’s worry deepened.

Zeno’s gaze moved between them, narrowing. “Hypatius Nomikos?” he asked. He knew the man only by name.

“He was my greatest adversary here,” Theodorus said, eyes still fixed on Theophylact. “And not a man whose ambition would allow him to sit quietly while the rebellion decided the fate of his house. He wasn’t among the bodies at Kalamita Hills. I had assumed he remained in Suyren helping coordinate the war effort.” He looked to the Steward for confirmation.

“N-Not at all, my Lord,” Theophylact said. “H-He has not been seen s-since the rebellion began.”

That was beyond strange. A man like Hypatius did not vanish when turmoil arrived. He used it. If he had joined the Nomikos holdouts, then they were more dangerous than Theodorus had allowed himself to assume.

For the first time since entering the study, he felt the faint, unpleasant bite of doubt.

Suddenly, he was worried he had made a mistake. That he should have handled the Nomikos holdout when he’d had the chance.

An exiled family with detailed maps, local contacts, and a vested interest in recouping their holdings could do a great deal of damage, especially if they began selling what they knew to the highest bidder.

“We have to be careful that the Nomikos exiles do not become a larger problem than they already are,” Zeno said.

He looked at Theodorus as he spoke, and for a brief moment, Theodorus thought the man knew.

“That is a problem to handle later,” Theodorus said, forcing the conversation forward. “Our priorities now are plain. We have to triage a functioning administration in record time and spread word of our occupation of Suyren, so that the villages can officially come into the fold.”

“Do you have suggestions on how to accomplish either?” Zeno asked, though from the look in his eyes he was already turning over several possibilities of his own.

For the first time since the conversation began, Theodorus smiled, and it was not a pleasant one.

“I might have someone who can help.”

The carriage jolted over the rocky countryside with enough violence to make the journey feel more like punishment than escape. Every rut in the road climbed through the wooden frame and into Cassandra’s bones, bruising her shoulder against the sideboard and making sleep impossible.

Not that she would have slept even if she had been laid upon the softest feather bed this side of the Black Sea.

Her mind was in too much agony for that.

She had known that staying behind with her brother instead of fleeing with her family had been foolhardy. That she had likely been walking herself toward death, or just placing one more burden onto Apostolos. Yet she could not help but try.

Some foolish, tender part of her heart had insisted there was still a chance she might speak to Theodorus and plead with him. That somewhere inside all the lies, all his careful words and insidious traps, something had been real.

That the sadness she remembered in those half-broken memories, before he drugged her, had not been entirely false.

She had been a child.

The Captain had played her like everyone else. Politics and power had been all that mattered in the end, and everyone had dressed it in finer language because plain ugliness was difficult to admire. It had led her father to fight a losing war for glory, duty, or whatever other grand word men used when they meant pride. It had led to the deaths of her kin, of her countrymen, of husbands and sons whose names she would never learn.

And now it had led to her brother’s… she could not finish the thought.

Naive. Foolish. Stupid. An incompetent, idiotic little girl who had mistaken a ploy for courtship and a captor for a noble knight.

The carriage lurched hard enough to throw her against the wall, then shuddered to a halt.

Cassandra caught herself against the seat and sat very still for a moment, listening. Outside, she heard the horses snorting, the creak of leather, and a low murmur. She drew aside the purple canopy that covered the carriage’s side and peered out.

They had stopped in the middle of a nondescript road, flanked by scrubby grass, pale stones, and the dry slope of a hill rising to one side. There was nothing here. No village, shrine, or sign of her kin.

“Why have we stopped?” she asked.

“The wheel has seized, my lady,” the coachman replied, bending down to inspect the damage with an air of practiced concern that felt fake.

She used the word coachman loosely. The men meant to carry her across the border were nothing more than the Captain’s thugs, handpicked and arranged by him to ensure that everything was foolproof. Even in mercy, if that was what this exile was meant to be, Theodorus had left nothing to chance.

He had wanted to make certain he would never see her again.

“Seized?” Cassandra frowned despite herself. “But the wheels were only recently refurbished.”

She knew because she had helped organize the escape from Suyren for her kin. To scrape together all the wagons they needed some had been cannibalized for parts to feed others, and not all the wheels had been used.

One of those spare wheels had been placed on this carriage.

Because the Captain had insisted upon it.

Cassandra felt a cold trickle pass through her, fine and dreadful as water sliding beneath a door. The heat of the afternoon sun seemed to vanish from the world. The three armed men around her, who had been presented as escorts, suddenly looked less like protection and more like a wall.

A small host of hooded figures appeared over the crest of the hill behind them, trotting down the road with steady purpose.

Cassandra’s blood went cold.

“Who are those men?” she asked the coachman, and hated the tremor that slipped into her voice. “They look terribly suspicious.”

She tried to inject some urgency into the men accompanying her, hoping that even hired brutes might react to armed strangers descending upon them in the middle of nowhere. They did not reach for their weapons, nor did they look mildly surprised.

“Nothing you should worry yourself about, milady,” the coachman said, a knowing glint in his eyes.

Cassandra understood that this was how it ended.

Not in one of the grand scenes from the romances she had once hidden beneath pillows and read by candlelight. She would die on a dusty road, as far from her kin as she could be, with her father already dead and her brother soon to follow.

Killed by the man she had loved.

Tears came, warm and wet, spilling down her cheeks as the misery of it opened inside her. Her life was not a romance. It was a tragedy written by cruel hands, and all the fairy tales she had grown up cherishing now seemed as distant from truth as stars from mud.

Cassandra stepped out of the carriage.

“My lady,” the coachman said, straightening. “Please do not think of running.”

The men around her shifted, closing in just enough to make the meaning plain.

“I will face my death on my feet,” Cassandra said.

The conviction in her voice startled even her. It came out clear, cold, and almost regal, as if some better version of herself had spoken through the wreckage. “So move aside.”

The men exchanged uncertain looks, but they moved.

The hooded riders reached them a few moments later. There were only a handful, but that would be more than enough for a defenseless maiden, which was no doubt what they had been told to expect.

“So who is it that has come to kill me?” Cassandra demanded, forcing herself to stand straight even as her fingers trembled in the folds of her dress. “I would know his face.”

The figure at the head of the little procession reached up and drew back his hood. He used only one hand for the gesture, she noticed.

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Cassandra’s eyes widened at the familiar hazelnut hair falling to his ears. “Stefanos?”

“I am not here to kill you, my lady,” he said, and beside him another person unhooded herself, revealing a red-haired woman with a startling resemblance to herself.

“Then what…?” Cassandra couldn’t help but be at a loss for words.

“My lord would like to see you,” his tone held a strange, careful quality, as though there were more to it beneath the surface. “Come. There is much to discuss.”

…

It was dark by the time Cassandra sighted Suyren once more.

Approaching it beneath the moon felt almost eerie, its walls silvered by white moonlight, towers painted silver.

The jolts of the horse's pace pressed painfully into her thighs, which ached from the journey almost as badly as her arms. She had spent the entire ride clinging on for dear life, terrified of slipping, terrified of asking to stop, terrified of what awaited her if they did.

“Apologies for the rocky ride, my lady,” Stefanos called from ahead of her.

He looked strained from managing both the horse and his balance with Cassandra seated behind him, made worse by the absence of one arm. His back was rigid, body adjusting constantly to keep them both upright.

“I could ride with another rider,” Cassandra tried, not for the first time.

“No need,” Stefanos replied, voice strained. “We are almost there.”

As they neared the castle, Cassandra could not help but notice the sheer number of soldiers patrolling the battlements. Torches moved from one end of the walls to the other even at this late hour. No doubt the Captain and his underlings were busy settling into her home, tearing it from the inside out to establish their authority.

The thought filled her with something dark and sour, but Cassandra forced it down. Now was not the time for wallowing. First, she had to survive whatever the Captain had prepared for her.

Stefanos guided the small band of soldiers toward the lesser-used postern gate, a narrow side entrance tucked into a shadowed bend of the wall that was the sort of door one who had not lived in Suyre would not notice. That meant it would be manned by the Captain’s men, thoroughly in his domain.

The two men guarding the gate straightened as the riders approached and saluted. Cassandra recognized one of them - the large brute who always seemed to follow the Captain around. She remembered him as a levy militiaman, but now he looked like something hammered into a weapon. The massive blade in his hand resembled an oversized billhook, hooked steel shifting in his grip.

“You got the cargo?” he asked.

Cassandra bristled at the word before understanding that it was probably codespeak.

“Yes,” Stefanos answered. “Everything went smoothly.”

He tipped his chin toward her. Cassandra was robed and veiled in black, as inconspicuous as possible. It was clear she was not supposed to be here, or at least that the Captain did not want this meeting widely known.

“Let’s go, then,” the giant grunted.

The gate opened with a low scrape that seemed too loud in the night, and the group slipped into the castle - like thieves entering a place that already belonged to them. Once inside, they dismounted in a cramped yard half-hidden between the wall and an old storage building.

Stefanos offered his remaining hand to help her down. Cassandra hesitated, hating that some small part of her needed help from anyone wearing the Captain’s colours.

The giant led the way through a narrow service arch partly concealed behind stacked barrels and bundles of split firewood. It sloped inward through a short stone passage that smelled of dust, old straw, and the faint sourness of long-stored wine.

At the end of the passage, they emerged into a small, windowless storage shed of some kind.

The Captain stood cloaked in the dark, staring at a spot on the floor.

“Commander,” the brute said, saluting. “We’ve brought the lady.”

He spoke in a hushed whisper, though they were buried as far from the public halls of the castle as one could reasonably be.

The Captain did not move. His eyes seemed fixed upon the stones, his face arranged into a mask of that same cold material.

The giant shifted, suddenly unsure, and looked toward Stefanos.

The boy stepped forward. “My lord,” he said, and there was something soft in his tone, almost careful, as though he feared the wrong word might hurt him. “Lady Cassandra is here.”

The Captain looked up.

His eyes met hers, and something passed between them. She fought the instinct to look away. She did not know why she was still playing along with this whole façade, why she had not screamed, run, or demanded an explanation the moment she saw him.

What she did know was she hated the small thrill her heart gave when it met that silvery gaze.

The hatred came so fiercely it frightened her.

She had never wanted anyone dead as much as she wanted the man before her.

“Leave us,” the Captain said. It was as if he could sense the hate in her heart and had found nothing there that could touch him.

There was a brief hesitation before the two men obeyed. Cassandra caught the intense look Stefanos gave her as he retreated, though she had no time to understand it.

Then the door groaned shut behind them with a heavy thud, and silence followed.

Not ordinary quiet. It pressed against Cassandra from every side, heavy and suffocating, not helped by the dim chamber, lit only by a single lamp set low against the wall.

What did the Captain want with her? Why had he kidnapped her after promising exile to her brother? Did he mean to kill her? If so why all these twists and turns? Possibilities ran in circles in her mind, torturing her until she had to speak up.

“Why did you call me-”

“This,” the Captain interrupted, his voice low and strangely distant, “was where Kyriakos died.”

His eyes remained fixed on the floor, on one particular stretch of stone near the center of the chamber. The words killed whatever else Cassandra had meant to say.

“Right there,” he continued, quieter now. “On that stone. He bled out in my arms.”

Cassandra swallowed. She had not known Kyriakos well. He had always lingered at the edge of the family, a black sheep spoken of with narrowed eyes and lowered voices, but he had still been kin. She had never wished him ill nor taken pleasure in his death.

“Why did you call me here?” she asked again, softer this time.

“Here?” He gestured to the space, “I wonder at it myself," he looked unsure. "Perhaps because I wanted you to understand how much your father took away.”

He turned to face her, and his eyes struck into hers like a dagger. “Kyriakos was one of hundreds, no, thousands who died because of the war your father set into motion.”

Shame rose in Cassandra and she almost looked away. She would be the first to denounce the atrocities committed, but she wouldn’t let people hold it against her for the rest of her life.

“Is this why you called me here?” she asked, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “To tell me how terrible my family was?”

The words came out more fragile than she wanted, so she seized the next ones more fiercely.

“What about my brother? Does he deserve to die for my father’s mistakes? He is broken by the things he did. He fought what my father ordered every step of the way.” Her voice shook. “And now he will die for it. How is that justice?”

“But he did them anyway.” There was no cruelty in his tone, which somehow made it worse. “A man should be judged by his actions, not by the sorrow he feels afterward.”

“And what do yours say about you?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“That I am a villain,” He did not flinch from the word, taking it in whole, but without pride or some dramatic pleasure in dressing himself in darkness. There was only weariness, and a terrible kind of acceptance. “Just as I promised you.”

Cassandra’s heart lurched.

“”

So it had been true? Those words she had carried like broken glass in her mind had not been a dream?

“” Had she not imagined the pain on his face then? Was that real as well?

“I made a deal to keep you safe from harm,” the Captain said, drawing her back to the chamber and the cold beneath her feet. “And I mean to uphold it.”

“With my brother?” she asked.

To her surprise, Theodorus shook his head.

“Then with whom?”

“With someone who cares for you deeply.” He offered nothing more. “And for that to happen, I will have to hide you away.”

Cassandra narrowed her eyes. “Why not let me go as you had planned from the start? Why this convoluted scheme to drag me back to Suyren in secret?”

“What do you think would have happened if I let you wander freely?” He paced the storeroom, each step loud in the cramped space. “You are a direct claimant to the lands of Northern Theodoro. You are young, a noble. With your beauty, you would be a sought-after bride for anyone with the ambition to use you.”

The frank mention of her beauty stirred nothing in her now like it once might have, but the insinuation did.

“You think the Prince would kill me?” She could not hide her shock.

“Lives are cheap when you play the game of thrones.” The Captain did not bother confirming such an obvious thing.

Cassandra drew a slow breath, trying not to dwell on the sudden, horrifying realization that without his intervention, she might indeed have died on that dusty road.

“So where does this leave us?” she asked.

“Zeno would sell you out in a heartbeat if he knew you were alive,” Theodorus said, the words blunt enough to bruise. “So you will have to disguise yourself from him.”

He reached toward a nearby crate and withdrew a folded bundle of clothing that had been resting atop it, then tossed it in her general direction. Cassandra had to fumble to catch the thing.

“Then send me away from the castle,” she argued, clutching the bundle. “Let me be with my kin. That is all I want.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?” Cassandra stared at him, incredulous. If his motivations were truly what he claimed, then none of this made sense. He could have diverted her from the obvious roads, hidden her among safer company, or sent her far enough away that assassins and princes alike would lose the scent. She would have lived in fear for the rest of her life, perhaps, but fear on the road seemed preferable to safety beneath his thumb.

The Captain gave no answer.

Cassandra let out a sharp, bitter scoff. “Scared I will whore myself out to some nobleman to gather troops and invade the Principality?” The words tasted ugly, but she wanted them to. “In the end, you are no better than the Prince.”

Something moved in his expression, too faint to name, and vanished before she could seize on it.

“At least place me somewhere other than this castle,” she demanded. “I will be living under this Zeno’s nose. It makes no sense to keep me here.”

“And run the risk of having you run away?” Theodorus looked at her meaningfully.

“Where would I even go?” Cassandra asked, rolling her eyes despite the fear tightening her stomach. “I have no coin, no escort, and I certainly do not know how to survive in the wilderness.”

“To Mangup,” he said quietly.

Cassandra fell silent.

He feared she would make good on her promise to march to Mangup and join her brother, even if all she accomplished was dying beside him. The knowledge stung worse because it was true. If given half a chance, she might well do exactly that. She didn't have to survive for long to make the trek to the capital, even if she arrived half starved and destitute.

Love and grief were poor guides, but they were the only ones she had left.

“The risk of discovery is enormous,” she said, her face darkening at the realization that he had seen through her so easily.

“Which is why I have taken measures to mitigate it.”

Theodorus gestured toward the bundle in her hands. There was a glint of something like grim amusement in his eyes, and it unnerved Cassandra more than his severity had.

She looked down and her eyes widened. It was a maid’s dress. And worse still, a wimple of all things.

“Absolutely not.” Cassandra shook the head covering as though it personally insulted her. It was bad enough that she was expected to work as a servant in her own home, beneath the eyes of men who had conquered it. But to wear that hideous thing atop her head... “I will not do it.”

“You have no choice,” the Captain said, clearly in no mood for an argument of any kind. “This is the only way to keep you alive. A scullery maid will be beneath Zeno’s notice, and your hair is too recognizable.”

“I will look like Madame Zeta in this,” Cassandra hissed, shaking the offending fabric for emphasis.

“Do you think this is a game?” Theodorus’s voice turned cold enough to still her hand. “You could die.”

There was a trace of what might have passed for concern beneath the harshness, but Cassandra was sure it was her imagination playing tricks on her, like it always did when it came to the Captain.

“My father is dead,” Cassandra shot back, and the Captain went still at her tone. “My house is in tatters. My life…” Her voice broke around the word before she forced it onward. “My life is over.”

She turned away before he could see the tears gathering in her eyes, furious with herself for letting them come at all. “I do not regard this as a game, Captain. But neither am I interested in playing yours.”

For a moment there was only silence on the other side of the dark chamber. The shadows in the corners seemed to listen, and there was nothing to cover the ugly little sobs Cassandra let through. She wanted to collapse, to weep until there was nothing left in her but exhaustion, but she couldn't allow herself even that.

A hand settled gently on her shoulder.

“It does not change anything,” Theodorus said, his voice quieter than before. “But I did not play you from the start.”

Cassandra stilled.

“Only after I learned of the rebellion did I have to make a choice,” he continued. “One that haunts me still.”

There was pain in his voice. Cassandra heard it, and hated herself for hearing it. Could she believe him? Could she believe anything from a man who had betrayed her once, drugged her - used her.

“It was real, Cassandra,” he whispered.

She wanted to believe it.

Dear God, she wanted to believe it so badly.

“If you do this for me,” Theodorus said, “I promise you this. I will keep you safe, and I will reunite you with your brother.”

The promise felt like fate tugging at her, drawing her toward a path she knew better than to trust. Against reason, against betrayal, against every lesson pain had tried to carve into her, Cassandra believed him.

And she hated herself for it.

She shoved his hand away with sudden, violent disgust and turned on him, forcing every scrap of fear and heartbreak into the hard line of her face.

“You had better make good on your promise, Captain,” she said, and spun at the doorway. Carving her face and her words into the villain before her. “Or I swear upon the heavens, I will make you regret it.”

Cassandra stormed out of the storeroom with thunderous steps, but she did carry the disguise with her, as well as another vow he was sworn to keep.

For all her fury, she allowed herself, if only barely, to be guided away by Christos and the men Theodorus had tasked with bringing her back. They were some of the few from Suyren who had remained with him through every turn of fortune, men whose loyalty had been tested by rebellion, siege, and hunger, and had somehow come out harder for it.

The door shut behind them, and the chamber fell quiet again.

The soft whisper of sandals announced Demetrios before Theodorus even needed to turn. “Is it done?” he asked.

“Have Stefanos lead Cassandra to her new room in the castle,” Theodorus said by way of admission. It had taken another lie, another manipulation from his mouth to convince her, but it had been done. “Christos can keep the outer passage secure until she is settled.”

“I will have it done, my lord.”

The answer came from Stefanos himself, surprising Theodorus.

The boy stood near the edge of the dim storeroom, having approached without a sound. Stefanos had always moved with the ordinary care of a servant accustomed to keeping out of the way, but never with this deliberate silence. Had he been practicing during his recovery in Mangup?

As Stefanos bowed and made to excuse himself, Theodorus stopped him.

“Stefanos.”

The servant turned.

There was something darker in his eyes now. No doubt about it. The soft, earnest boy who had once looked upon the world with anxious devotion had been sharpened into something more guarded, and the sight worried Theodorus more than he wanted to admit.

“I promised you I would keep Lady Cassandra safe,” Theodorus said, letting the words reach across the dark chamber with deliberate care. "And I will keep it.

If he had meant the words to bring relief, they failed. Stefanos smiled, but it was a pained, brittle thing that did not touch his eyes.

“You do not have to anymore, my lord,” he said. “I was a fool.”

His gaze dipped. Theodorus noticed his left fist clenching at his side, though Stefanos quickly hid it within the folds of his robe, as if ashamed even of that small betrayal of feeling.

“I let my emotions get the better of me,” Stefanos continued, each word placed with unsettling control. “I even thought to turn on account of that foolish dream. I promise it will not happen again.”

There was steel in how he said it. A hard, cold line beneath the obedience. Something the previous kind boy would not have been capable of, or perhaps something Theodorus had simply never wanted to see in him.

Demetrios watched Stefanos withdraw with a grief poorly hidden.

“He has been through a great deal, my lord,” Demetrios said softly, placing a comforting hand on Theodorus’s back. “His body has healed, but his mind still needs time.”

Demetrios excused himself as well, leaving Theodorus alone with the gloom.

He remained there for some time, staring at those wretched stones.

When he had made his decision back in the command tent, he had intended to exile Cassandra and let her flee the Principality. She was a claimant, yes, but he had not been able to summon the ruthlessness required to execute her. Not without proof that she would become a threat later down the line.

If the choice were truly between the lives of thousands and the life of one noble girl, then Theodorus knew which side of the scale he would have chosen, but this was not such a straightforward line.

Cassandra might have lived quietly abroad with the remnants of her family, or vanished into some foreign court, married some minor lord, and spent the rest of her life hating him from a distance that could harm no one.

So he had been prepared to let her go.

His promise had not allowed it.

He knew that Cassandra would likely have been assassinated by the Prince or the Doux sooner or later. Perhaps not immediately. Perhaps not until she proved a threat. But a surviving Nomikos lady with blood ties to the North was a loose thread too dangerous for the Prince to ignore, and he would keep tabs on her most certainly.

Theodorus had promised Stefanos that he would protect her after the rebellion, and when he had taken an action that might violate that promise, he had been stopped. By something greater than him, by that same force he was finding working more and more around him.

It was a stark confirmation that the chains he felt binding him were not merely metaphysical.

They were real.

How or why, he could not tell. But if he had any hope of surviving the story tightening around him, he had to understand them.

Whatever these forces were, they had the ability to force him to act.

And that changed everything.