“Tricked?” So clever and careful was she, Maddek had not thought of such a thing. “By Zhalen?”
“Perhaps with a poison,” Toric agreed. “If she had fed the queen without knowing it was there, your bride might feel that she’d killed her mother. And we have seen how much care she takes with food and drink when her family is near.”
Banek nodded. “That would be a killing with no intention—and an accusation would cut ever deeper for it. Especially if she did not perceive the trick. She would blame herself.”
So she would. And that Maddek could also easily perceive . . . now. “An unintentional killing is more likely,” he acknowledged. “I did not even see.”
Kelir frowned at him. “You are not usually so blind.”
“With her, I seem to be.”
“As made sense when you first knew her,” Banek said. “We were all suspicious. But now how do you see her?”
“As a queen who is clever and vicious and cunning, who would destroy her father and brothers, but who would never betray or abandon anyone she is loyal to or responsible for—including all of her people.”
Toric said, “We will be her people.”
Maddek nodded. “If I am named Ran, no finer queen could we ask for.”
“So you say, but still this view of her you have?” Banek frowned. “Has she ever spoken to you with sly tongue?”
“Twice,” he said. “But she will not again. And even when she did, there was no malicious intent.”
“Has she lied?”
Maddek struggled with his answer. He did not want them to know that she had. He did not want to say that truth. Because a Parsathean queen should never lie.
Yet truth must be said. “She has.”
All expressions darkened. Worry and dismay filled the many glances the warriors exchanged between them, as if weighing each other’s reactions before Kelir slowly asked, “What was the lie?”
“That my mother chose her to be my bride.”
“But she doesn’t wear Ran Ashev’s crest,” his friend said, frowning. “Has she made mention of it?”
“No.” And if his mother had truly approved of her, in that approval Ran Ashev would have told Yvenne what it meant to give that crest. But even if the crest could not be given, if it had been stolen by Zhalen, a message his mother would have given her instead to explain why the crest was absent.
Which meant Yvenne had no knowledge of it. Yet if Ran Ashev had approved of her, she would.
Again, they all struggled. Conflicted as Maddek had been.
“Perhaps Ran Ashev would have approved of her,” Ardyl said slowly. “As we have come to do. But to give that approval after Ran Marek was murdered and while she was held imprisoned and raped . . . ?”
So she said what Maddek had thought. As the others did, too.
That troubling knowledge lined Banek’s face. “When did she speak this lie?”
“At the very first. As she tried to persuade me to marry her. I told her I knew it for a lie then, so she persuaded me with the promise of killing her father.”
Now they were frowning at him. “You knew she’d spoken a lie and yet agreed to marry?”
No excuse had he. “I meant to have my vengeance by any means.” And how torn he’d been then at the thought of marrying a lying woman who might have murdered his parents. No longer was he torn. “But my vengeance is only secondary now. Protecting her is the greater purpose.”
No censure did he see in them for that—admitting that avenging their queen and king had fallen behind in importance. Such shame he’d felt before, yet none did he feel now. Vengeance was still necessary. Yet that vengeance was not foremost in his heart.
Nor was it foremost for his Dragon. Yet they were not unconflicted—as he was not.
“That lie still disturbs you?” Fassad asked.
“It does,” he admitted.
“Because if you take her to wife, you might not be named Ran?”
“No.” Painful though it would be, if he must choose between leading Parsathe and Yvenne . . . he would choose Yvenne. “Because it is a lie. And though we have become allies, still she insists on its truth.”
“Does the lie make you reconsider your marriage to her?”
Nothing could. He shook his head.
“Are you conflicted because Ran Ashev did not approve of her?”
“No.” That he was certain of. “I would have no other. Even if her lie means that I am never Ran.”
“You say she spoke it at the first?” Banek asked now, his gaze narrowed thoughtfully. “When you had your claws in her throat?”
“It was.”
Satisfaction filled the older warrior’s voice. “And she spoke it while persuading you to marry her—to save her own life and in hope of freeing her people?”
Brightening, Toric sat forward. “Even Ran Antyl lied to save her children.”
That was truth. And it was as if a pressure upon Maddek eased. When spoken against an enemy and to save a life, lies were justified and forgiven. Yvenne had been an enemy to him in that moment—and he had been to her. Yet he had viewed the lie as if it came from an ally.
All of his warriors felt the same ease, he saw. Relief passed through them like a knot loosening.
“And it was only that one lie?” Kelir pressed.
“It was. Except that she lied again to insist she has always told me the truth.”
“But that is likely the same purpose and reason,” Ardyl said. “Though you no longer have claws in her throat, still she must feel the weight of all the Syssian lives upon her shoulders. And she is alone among Parsatheans who have warned her never to lie. Her mother may have watched us, but Yvenne does not fully understand our ways—she had to ask Banek whether even a jest must always be true. So she is still a stranger among us and might believe that admitting to a lie now will destroy every hope she has of marriage, or of freeing her people. She might believe you would abandon her for that lie—especially if she knows that her lie might cause issue when it comes time to vote for our new Ran.”
Such ease and relief filled him. As if her lie had been festering in a wound that was even deeper than he knew. Yet his warriors spoke sense and truth.
“This does give me a different view of her.” Gratitude swelled through him . . . and eagerness to return to his bride. Gaining his feet, he scanned the platters of food. Yvenne’s favorites were the meats, but many of the fruits and berries would be new to her, and she would enjoy trying them.