Until You Can Stand
I had Flac open the window, and a crisp breeze swept in. All things considered, it was a relief that Cassion had discovered the dog hole was blocked. Otherwise he would have assumed I'd simply changed my mind about coming — and then those pretty lips of his would have poured out cruel words like a waterfall.
Ugh, I hated even imagining it.
While I was shuddering at the mental image of him unleashing his vitriol, Cassion asked,
"We'll need to find a proper way for you to come and go, won't we?"
"Yes — that's why I'm here. I can come with the straw for a few more trips."
There were things I needed to discuss with Cassion to secure a legitimate right of passage, but first I owed him a report on the task he'd entrusted to me.
"The purchase of Twilight Mansion is proceeding smoothly."
"Good."
"Any questions?"
"Can't I just read the report?"
Cassion pointed at the document tucked under my arm.
"Right — this is all you need."
I set the report down within his reach. His hand stretched toward it, then stopped.
"Has Julia pulled anything?"
"No. Nothing worth mentioning, apart from blocking the dog hole. Besides, she'll be busy on her end right now."
She had the Phoenix Bank affair to look into, after all.
"And what about you, Your Highness? Hasn't Julia been troubling you?"
"Nothing much, aside from one of Julia's people paying a call. Dayson's overdue for a visit too, but he hasn't shown."
I had known well in advance that Julia would send someone to snoop around Cassion's palace, which was why I'd gone to such pains to restore it to its original state. His chambers were once again filled with shabby bedding, faded clothes, and tattered, second-rate books.
"A good thing I stayed away, then?"
"Yes. Is that also why you never sent so much as a word?"
It was true I'd planned it that way, but that wasn't the only reason I hadn't contacted him. It would be more accurate to say I couldn't — not when letters flitting back and forth risked drawing notice for no good reason.
Still, he really must have been hurt that I hadn't come.
"Don't make that apologetic face. I know it was because of Julia's watch on you. So — does your coming here mean you've found a way to respond even if she catches on? Or a way to slip in and out unnoticed?"
Cassion's questions were remarkably sharp. But he'd missed on both counts.
"No. I'm going to make it so that getting caught doesn't matter."
Cassion arched an eyebrow, as if to ask what on earth that meant.
"You have a way?"
"I do. Though there's only one."
A breeze drifted through the open window, ruffling Cassion's dry hair. Irritated by it, he swept the strands back carelessly with a couple of strokes.
"Your face looks strange."
Cassion pointed at my creased brow. Apparently my face had warped from thinking so hard. The sight of him mimicking my expression was, frankly, hilarious.
Pressing my cheeks firmly to keep from laughing, I said,
"Your Highness, so — here's the thing. Let's have a serious conversation."
"Now you're asking permission to talk?"
There was a reason for my sudden case of nerves: my request had the power to wound him.
I wanted to give Cassion only good things, wherever possible. For as long as we were bound together under the name of marriage, I hoped every day of it would be a pleasant one. But the road we had to walk was no silk road — it was a path of thorns.
I would do my best to keep him from being hurt.
And yet some things could only be resolved by bearing them together.
And this was one of those things.
I drew a deep breath. The words wouldn't come easily — because I knew the pain Cassion had endured. And because, somewhere along the way, he had become a precious person to me.
"Diana, you're dithering, which isn't like you at all. Don't tell me you're about to say you want to call off the marriage? What, on second thought you've decided you can't bear to marry a man about to die, or usurp the throne after all— mmph!"
Cassion had let his poison fly while I was still choosing my words. In moments like these, sealing his mouth worked better than coaxing him.
Judging by the way his lips kept wriggling against my palm, he was still rattling off insults underneath.
"Call off the marriage? What is there to call off? Stop spouting nonsense. What I was going to say was — let me meet His Majesty."
Cassion's reaction went noticeably still. His gaze was different now from anything before it.
He finally seemed ready for a serious conversation, so I pulled my hand away and wiped the saliva from my palm with a handkerchief.
"...My father?"
His voice was bone-dry. That change in Cassion's eyes hadn't come from a willingness to talk — it was to hide the wound. A thin veil had dropped over them, screening his emotions from view.
I held out a cup of water, as much as to say, have a drink and calm yourself.
"Yes. I have to meet him."
"Why His Majesty, all of a sudden?"
"Why do you think? We need his approval for our marriage."
"Pfft."
Cassion did a spit-take, spraying the water he'd been drinking — messily, at that. Frowning slightly, I offered him the handkerchief and rubbed his back.
"That's enough — get your hand off."
Cassion pushed my hand away, coughing to clear his throat.
"Are you eating properly?"
Flac had reported that Cassion's condition had improved tremendously.
He didn't look all that well to me. Then again, compared to how he used to be, improved he certainly was.
The fact that Cassion had even been out for a walk would have struck Dallas as a miracle.
"Yes."
"Don't lie. Flac reports that you leave food untouched every single day."
"You already knew, so why ask?"
"Is the food not to your taste?"
Cassion clamped his mouth shut. Apparently I'd hit the mark.
Picky about his food, even now. A child really is a child.
"Flac isn't much of a cook, is he? I'll find you a proper personal chef soon. Which is exactly why I need to meet His Majesty."
Cassion's expression turned grave. I couldn't leave him alone forever; he needed someone at his side, tending to him with genuine care and devotion. I would cover the cost myself, but bringing staff into the palace required, as a matter of course, the king's sanction.
Even if I couldn't win approval for the marriage, I had to meet Karman if only to install a proper chef.
"My father won't agree to see me."
"What are you talking about?"
"My father doesn't like me."
Were there truly parents who didn't love their children? I didn't believe so. Even a hedgehog finds its own young adorable — not that hedgehogs aren't genuinely adorable anyway.
Cassion's father, Karman, was a cold man. Even I, who had spent long stretches at the palace as Dayson's fiancée, could count on one hand the times I'd seen Karman laugh openly. He never once offered so much as a warm greeting — not to Dayson, not to me. And yet I had never taken him for some twisted man who despised his own children. He was simply a gruff, quintessential royal father.
Karman had not protected Cassion, but neither had he cast him out. Neglect was violence in its own right, yet I couldn't conclude from that alone that his feelings toward Cassion were bad. Still, there had to be some reason Cassion believed his father hated him, so I asked,
"Why do you think that?"
"He never answered my letters."
"I'm sorry — you sent him letters?"
"Yes. While you weren't coming."
"Do you usually write to him that often?"
Cassion waved a hand as if to say, don't be absurd.
"Then why did you write all of a sudden?"
"...About our... marriage... ahem."
Cassion hesitated a long while before answering.
Had I heard that correctly? Cassion had written to Karman about marrying me?
As I stared at him, dumbfounded with disbelief, Cassion cleared his throat. Ahem, ahem.
"I can't leave everything to you, can I?"
Oh, aren't you precious.
My hand reached out before I knew it. As I stroked the fine, lustrous strands of his hair, Cassion glared at me.
"Hand off."
Sheepish, I lowered my hand.
"So what happened with them?"
"No reply came."
Surely Karman must have had his reasons — but the more my heart leaned toward Cassion, the more I found myself resenting the king despite my better judgment. Even so, I couldn't let emotion blind me to the facts.
"There has to be a reason."
I tried to look at the situation objectively.
"What reason could possibly be so grand that he couldn't answer his own son's letter? The first letter I've ever sent him in my life, no less."
Cassion's lips pushed out in a pout. Seen like this, he was every inch a child. He'd steeled himself to send that letter only to have it ignored — of course he was disappointed.
Even so, Cassion could not be allowed to turn his heart wholly against Karman. At least until the marriage was approved and he had safely come of age, Karman was not a man we could afford to make an enemy of.
If he had wronged Cassion, I would hold him to account — but only after confirming that any wrongdoing existed at all.
"He came to see you last time, remember?"
When I prompted his memory, Cassion fell silent.
"What did he say when he visited?"
The king's visit had ended in an uproar when Cassion collapsed, and back then I'd been too desperately occupied with keeping him alive to ask what had passed between them. Now that the subject had come up, I meant to hear it.
I squared my posture and bored my eyes into him, and Cassion's lips began to flutter nervously.
"He told me not to live such a pathetic life."
"...Pardon?"
"He said not to come up until I could stand straight on my own two legs."
What kind of thing was that to say to a son who was all but dead!
When my fist balled up, Cassion huffed a dry laugh.
"At least he didn't throw me out."
Cassion's resignation only fanned my anger hotter. Had King Karman really been so heartless a man? I rummaged through my memories of him. He'd been sardonic, and terribly busy — but not so cruel as to lash a sick son. At the very least, he was a man who knew how to feel pity, that most human of emotions.
Karman had, on more than one occasion, lightened a criminal's sentence because the man had young children at home. Multiple times!
Dayson had griped about rulings like those, but I had rather liked that humane streak in Karman.
I'd believed he could be persuaded to help.
Honestly, my plan had been to stir Karman's compassion and use it to shore up Cassion. At the very least, I'd hoped he would hold to neutrality — but judging solely by what he'd said to his ailing son, even neutrality looked like too much to hope for.
Don't come up until you can stand straight on your own two feet. He couldn't have meant that literally. After never once replying to Cassion's letters, he had suddenly appeared just to tell him to stand up first... huh?
A light flashed on in my head all at once.
Karman was famous for his economy of words. What was more, buried under his crushing workload, he had next to no private time to call his own. Would a man that busy drop everything, come all the way to Cassion's door out of the blue, purely to spew abuse at him?
By any common measure, it didn't add up.
I turned the puzzle over and over. Why would Karman have come here? Having carved out the time to travel this far, why say come up of all things? And where was it that Cassion ought to go up to?
"Aha!"
I'd found it. Cassion cocked his head at my involuntary whoop of delight.
"What?"
I leaned in close to him. And looking at Cassion as he tipped himself backward away from me, I said,
"Your Highness, we had it all wrong."
Cassion's eyes said he couldn't begin to follow me.
"He told you to come up! His Majesty didn't come here to cast you out — he came to give you strength!"