“Of course,” Jayd concurred. “It finally exposed her mistake.”
She was unprepared for his reaction, which came on a vehement surge. “Not her mistake. “Do not say that again! You were not, have not, nor ever will be a mistake. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” she rasped, bowing her head and drilling her resentful glare into the Turkish-carpeted floor. “I hear you.”
He huffed hard but then inhaled slow, visibly restraining himself. “That is a start, I suppose.”
“A start?” She jerked her head back up. “Of what?”
“To you believing me.”
She reared back a little, unsure what was more unsettling: the plea in his voice, or the truth he so accurately nailed with it.
“Yes,” she finally said. “A ‘start’ is an excellent way of looking at things.”
Right now, she could give him no more than that. And was grateful he did not demand it.
“You already know that the Pura were tipped off about all this from a former aide of your mother’s,” Paipanne went on. “An individual Xaria, as well as myself, considered to be a close and dear friend.”
Jayd did not miss the pained creases at the corners of his tight gaze. “You both knew her? This person?” She had no idea why that caused a subtle change in her view of the situation, but it did.
“Yes,” he admitted. “She was a member of our inner circle, so to speak. One of the people we could both rely on to keep our confidences.” The confession led to a new contortion across his face. “There are many skeletons in both our closets. You have probably discerned all that by now. While neither of us are proud of that fact, we have also been aware of the trusted individuals who helped keep those closets closed.”
“Until one of them did not.”
He tipped a small nod. “Until one of them did not.”
Jayd fumed into silence. There was the key to the shift in her perception. Her parents had certainly not been right or smart about their indiscretions, but lately she had learned that sometimes—so many times—the right thing was not the most obvious choice. Everything worsened when things were dragged into the court of public perception, with the media as self-appointed judges and barristers.
The dismal result? Not a damn thing was clear anymore. Not the truths that had always defined her reality, not the perceptions that had always bound her heart. Definitely not the people who had always set the boundaries of her future.
Would they ever be again?
But did she even want them to be?
“So you are afraid this…person”—it was impossible to label the nameless woman as a friend—“will go public with even more information? That she will sell your secrets too?”
Paipanne rolled his eyes. “I do not give two steaming piles of bokau about what that little traitor says about me. I wear no official crown in this land anymore. But I still have friends in places that could make her life a living hell.” He twisted his lips. “Which will be exactly the case once we find the filthy salpu.”
Jayd frowned. “What? She has gone missing?”
His gaze darkened. “’Twas not unexpected. Regrettably, we got to the point of realizing that when it was too late—a good hour after Santelle and Carris left Evrest’s office last week.”
“So the bonsuns tipped her off.”
“Likely,” he muttered, nearly back to his normal aplomb about it. But she knew when her father was acting for the sake of optics, and he was giving himself away like an LED bulb in cellophane. Sure enough, his voice roughened as he added, “But we have not stopped watching the ports or the road rest areas since you disappeared, so we will know right away when she reappears.”
“Which might be sooner than later once Trystan returns.” She pushed herself to voice it aloud. Right now, every ugly possibility had to be brought up and considered. “If she was more than just an information broker to them…”
“Yes,” Paipanne returned. “We are aware. Though we hope it was only a convenient transaction for both parties.”
Jayd could not nod emphatically enough. It had been difficult enough to think about her truth being sold for a price, but considering it all in a new light—that Maimanne’s betrayal had been rendered in the name of the Pura cause—jumped her to a new level of stress and rage that was hellish to hide.
And yet, as Maimanne rustled again, selective cloaking was exactly what her psyche demanded.
Something was off-kilter in here. This time, Jayd realized it was about more than just the strange scents and sounds—well, lack of them—on the air. The strangeness went deeper. Beyond her mother’s strained scufflings. Beyond the clean but cloying smell that emanated even out here.
“Jayd? Jayd?”
Creator’s mercy. It was plain, painfully so, in the tearful urgency of Maimanne’s begging voice.
“Ardent? Why are you dawdling?” A moment, strangely wonderful, of the woman’s typically imperious tone, before she descended back into a weak croak. “Did she get here or not? Is she—”
“Here, Maimanne.” She almost faltered on the simple words. While somehow knowing they would soothe her mother, she already saw their opposite effect on Paipanne. She narrowed her eyes, but he did not relinquish his dark resignation. “I am…right here,” she called out, still hoping she would magically read his face.
But while that had just been an easy feat, it was a pipe dream now. And so it went, being in Ardent Cimarron’s universe sometimes.
She just wished it had not been this time.
If she had gotten a clearer bead from him, she would have been prepared.
She would have known this was what waited for her in Maimanne’s inner suite.
The sight of Arcadia’s queen mother, positioned on a chaise next to one of the huge arched windows, with posture so rigid and regal.
But beneath that proud poise, all the vivid tremblings.
All the useless efforts at self-control.
All the twitches of the woman’s nervous lips, stretching her gaunt face.
All the tiny twists of her fingertips into each other, over and over in some strange, self-comforting rhythm.
All the heartbreaking truth of what Father was trying to prepare her for.
All the incredible, awful ways this whole drama had taken its toll on her mother.
There was more to notice. More that she saw as she carefully crossed the room, wondering if she was about to trip some hidden security laser beam. Things that had nothing to do with her mother’s cosmetics-less face and housecoat-clad form. Though she could not remember ever seeing the woman in either form, it was not about that. Not anything on the outside…
Oh!
Damn it!
Just in time, she clamped a brutal hand over her gasping mouth. Fortunately, Paipanne moved up and lent much-needed support around her opposite elbow. Without it, she would have likely collapsed to the floor in a tearful clump instead of being able to lower to it on trembling knees.
“Maimanne.” She whispered it this time, yearning to eviscerate herself for the testy impatience of her previous shouts. So long before this moment, as she gaped at the sharp gashes surrounding her mother’s eyes. The marks, so painful to look at, were eerily similar to the scarred gashes across the woman’s wrists. “Mother. It is me. Truly. I…I am here. I…”