Page 136 of Summer of Sacrifice

“How are you faring?” Seleste turned his question back on him and his stomach soured. “You faced a great deal about your family last night. About yourself.”

That was an understatement, to say the least. Arielle had suspected he carried some vestige of magic when he’d discerned the blood clot with his naked eye, but he’d dismissed it. It had been a fluke—some result of Seleste and Sorscha’s magic. When all the information about his grandfather and his mother was laid at his feet…

He’d known his mother was a mage, but his grandfather being in league with some secret society begun by Morgana? That was where he drew the line.

“Not all mages pass on magic to their children,” he finally said in answer.

Arielle sighed. “Gaius, you clearly have traces?—”

“Please,” he said through gritted teeth. “I don’t want—” He blew out his frustration through his nose. He didn’t want to snap at Arielle. “I’m not ready.”

Seleste cleared her throat daintily. “Your grandfather was not a bad man, Gaius. I believe he tried to stop some of the dark things the society was dabbling in, just as Asa’s mother, Nadja, did.”

Gaius squinted up at her where she sat on the wagon bench. “How do you know that?”

Seleste took her time in answering, her brown eye as clouded with memory as her unseeing one. Eventually, she licked her lips and spoke softly, as if the words pained her.

“A very long time ago, I saw some of the things your father was working on with the others in Société de Guerre.”

Gaius watched her shoulders rise and fall with a deep inhale and exhale.

“I didn’t know what it meant back then, or that it could possibly be relevant to our current situation until I learned the names of your and Asa’s mothers. I suspected it then, and I am certain now, that Achilles Zivai and Nadja Rashad were the ones who put a stop to much of the evil in Société de Guerre. They are the very ones who set many things in motion with their actions, to lead us to this day.”

Seleste

THEN, AUTUMN, ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FOUR YEARS AGO

This year, the gown was the colour of rose-infused champagne.

This year, her letter was twenty-seven pages long.

This year, the roaring of his absence had begun to dull into an intolerable ache.

This year, there were guards outside his theatre box.

This year, he gave her his letter and reached for her, only to drop his hand at the last moment.

This year, Cal had been crowned King of Seagovia.

THEN, AUTUMN, ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR YEARS AGO

His hair was beginning to grey at his temples, little patches of his beard lightening to white. The constant ache of her heart roared back to life in full force at the sight of him.

What she wouldn’t give to trace the laugh lines around his eyes with her finger. To be the one that caused them. To grow old with this man.

This king who had shaken Seagovia to its core.

In the space between her entrance into the box and the trading of letters, so much was said in their silence.

Over the last twenty years, Cal had worked tirelessly to halt the Witch Trials, the senseless hanging of women—most of whom weren’t even witches—in Seagovia and across Midlerea. Within the last year, he’d finally succeeded, snuffing out the last Church and Magus leading the hunt.

He’d also finally done away with laws of segregation and begun efforts to slowly lessen the vile separations of the class system. There was a long way to go before the people would truly change, but it was a joyous beginning.

“Thank you,” Seleste said breathlessly through her tears.

She watched his throat bob as he swallowed hard. “I told you we would change this realm, you and I.”

We.

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