Page 8 of The Rebel's Prize

Chloe nodded. It hadn't exactly been an invitation, more like an order. Aristides was determined to get to the bottom of whoever was plotting in Illvya, and when he'd once more found evidence of Andalyssian involvement, he had extended the very long arm of his Imperial authority and summoned several of the most senior ranking members of King Mikvel's court to Lumia. Of course, Chloe had left before any of them had arrived, and even though she was curious to know what had happened, for now it was possibly better not to ask.

She turned her attention back to Lucien. "Well, my lord, are you going to tell me how you found me?"

Lucien shrugged. "It wasn't so difficult. After all, at least two of the sanctii in Lumia are bonded to people who had quite a keen interest in determining that you were safe. They were...helpful."

They had tracked her via Octarus?Goddessdamnit.

She hadn't considered that possibility. Didn't even know itwasa possibility.

Of course, what happened in the sanctii's realm was a subject humans knew little about. But Octarus hadn't reported seeing either Ikarus, Imogene's sanctii, or Martius, who was bonded to her father.

Had they concealed themselves from him? He was, after all, bound to her and should have reported any threat. Sanctii guarded their mages, and Octarus's protective instincts were still on high alert after the murder of his former mage. The bond Chloe had formed with him in desperation, trying to control his grief-stricken rampage, was still only a few weeks old, and he had, so far, been very insistent whenever it came to matters of her safety. It was possible, perhaps, that Ikarus or Martius had told him that helping them find Chloe would help solve Rianne's murder. That could very well have swayed him.

Still, if Ikarus and Martius had ratted her and Octarus out, then that explained how Lucien had found her so fast.

"I see," she said, resisting the urge to scowl. "How fortunate for you that they're fond of me."

Lucien raised one eyebrow. "Ikarus and Martius aren't the only people motivated to find you, wife," he said. "Though you didn't make it easy. I suppose I should be grateful that you merely broke my portal rather than burning the whole house down."

"I'm not the one with the penchant for starting fires." No. That had been whoever had set off an explosion at the parliament. Or, going further back, those responsible for the explosive spells that had half destroyed the palace in Kingswell. "Or perhaps you think I am, indeed, party to treason? Have you come to arrest me? Is that why you've worked so hard to find me? Aristides sent you?"

"You think Aristides would send me to arrest my own wife?"

She didn't doubt for one second that the emperor was ruthless enough to do exactly that. "Why not? You are, after all, one of his Truth Seekers. Honor and duty above all, is it not?"

"I used to think so," he said.

What did he mean by that? The desire to ask burned at the tip of her tongue. Did he mean he no longer could hold to his honor or his duty? Or that he now held something else as equally important?

She didn't know.

And she couldn't ask. There may not be an answer he could give that wouldn't break her. She was trying to stand strong. To keep him out of this. The fact that he'd come after her was still a shock. Half of her had expected that he might take the chance to wash his hands of her and their unfortunate entanglement and divorce her in her absence. She couldn't imagine that his mother would have suggested he do anything else.

She had run from the ashes of her first marriage, and to flee her second was...well, she didn't want to think too hard about what Lumia's aristos might say about that choice. She knew her reasons. She also knew that many other people wouldn't understand—or believe them. Or forgive her.

Lucien being one of them.

But with the anger he was struggling to contain, this was probably not the time to prosecute the current state of their marriage or the topic of forgiveness. Perhaps it would be wiser to stick to safer conversational waters.

She shifted her focus back to Sejerin Silya. "I understand why Lucien came after me, Sejerin, but I confess I am surprised that you decided to join him."

Silya regarded her for a long moment, and Chloe resisted the urge to shrink back. The Andalyssian seer was something of an imposing figure even when she was...well, not in agoodmood, because Chloe wasn't sure she had ever seen Sejerin Silya in a good mood. Mostly she'd seemed actively disapproving. Particularly on the morning she'd found Chloe and Lucien in a cave, where they'd spent the night together sheltering from a storm. Her outrage at that breach of Andalyssian propriety had resulted in Chloe and Lucien's first marriage. Silya was not a woman afraid to wield some righteous indignation to achieve her goals.

Right now, though, she appeared calm. At least in comparison to Lucien.

"I follow the will of the goddess," Silya said, her pale eyes giving nothing away.

"The goddess asked you to go with Lucien to find me?" A shiver crawled down Chloe’s spine. It had been a moment of goddess-sent warning that had convinced her to run in the first place. A vision of her own death if she didn’t. Had Silya seen something like that?

"All the way down as I was flying in that creation of your emperor's, I dreamed of flying north with ravens," Sejerin Silya said simply. "At first I thought it was merely reassurance from the goddess that we would return safely from Lumia, but then when we arrived and learned that you had vanished, then it made more sense, daughter of ravens. The dreams did not abate, so when your husband, Lord Castaigne, indicated that he wished to seek you out, I knew that I was supposed to accompany him."

Daughter of ravens. Silya had called her that once before. Chloe still had no idea if it meant anything more than her just being Henri's daughter, raised with the ravens of the Academe di Sages. Whether Silya's visions showed her anything about Chloe was actually something to worry about.

Still, true or not, the presence of the seer was hardly welcome. "I see," she said cautiously. "And will we be returning to Lumia?" Hopefully not. If they immediately dragged her back to the capital, then it was likely nothing good awaited her there.

"Don't you wish to know how Aristides is?" Lucien said unexpectedly.

Chloe's focus snapped back to him. "I've heard no word that he died. I hope that means my warning was successful."

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