Page 67 of A Vow of Embers

“That’s a cat,” he said. “Phoebe.”

I had seen these at a distance while at the temple but had no idea they were so friendly. She kept rubbing against my legs and making that noise.

“Why does she sound like that? Is she broken?” I asked.

“It means she likes you.”

I reached down to stroke her the way that the prince was absentmindedly stroking the ferret. Phoebe was so soft and the purring sound got louder.

“She also likes what you’re doing.”

There was something soothing and fun about petting this animal and having her communicate her enjoyment to me.

“What is all this?” I asked, keeping my eyes trained on Phoebe, worried that he wouldn’t answer.

“Io’s menagerie.”

“They’re all her pets?”

“Does it honestly surprise you that Io has a room full of lost souls that she cared for?”

It didn’t surprise me in the least. Phoebe bumped her head against my hand, searching for more affection. It was then that I noticed she didn’t have a back right leg. Of course Io had found wounded animals and nursed them back to health. My heart twinged as I missed her all over again.

I was so tired of regret.

“Who cares for them now that she’s gone?” I asked.

“I do.”

That stilled my hand. It seemed strange and uncharacteristic of the man I had married. “Why don’t you have someone else do it?”

“It’s important to her,” he said as he put Chara back into her pen. “I built all the enclosures and cages, too.” He made a whistling sound at two songbirds.

Loathe as I would have been to admit it, the sight of him holding small creatures, cooing at birds, standing next to the things he had built for his younger sister, caring for these animals long after she had left ...it was having an effect on me. I was viewing him differently, like the hate that dissolved in my dream had carried over into real life.

“Why do you lock the door?” I asked, trying to calm my racing heartbeat.

“Kyros came in here once and hurt some of the animals.”

There was something truly wrong with his younger half brother. “He said something about marrying me after you were gone.” This felt like information that Alexandros should have.

He shrugged. “He isn’t the brightest child and it wouldn’t surprise me if his mother had told him some of her plans to get rid of me. He is selfish and spoiled and terrible.”

And evil, if he was harming Io’s defenseless creatures. Even if I wanted all of Ilion to slide into the ocean, no one deserved to have Kyros as a ruler. “What would happen to you if the council chose to make him king?”

“If I were still alive?” he asked as he put some grains into a cage with small, furry ratlike creatures. “I would be sent into exile. The only way to avoid that would be if I renounced any claim and then picked a profession. Like my uncle, Nereus.”

The captain from theNikos.

Pieces of a puzzle began to assemble in my mind. That was why he had been on the ship. His uncle had done him a favor.

Phoebe, apparently annoyed by my lack of interest, went over to Alexandros and began to rub against his leg. He crouched down to pet her and it caused a strange buzzing sound in my ears as my mouth went dry. I’d had those same fingers stroking me. I knew how good it felt.

How I had wanted to purr.

What was wrong with me? I needed to remember who he was and what he had done. But that dream had changed something in me. And this was the longest he and I had spoken in many days and the first time we had done so without it immediately turning into a fight.

I didn’t want to disturb this fragile peace. It would make the time here in the palace easier if we weren’t literally trying to kill one another. We weren’t being compelled to speak to one another. It was our choice.