Tavi stared at his friend in pure shock. It was true. He hadn’t. Antillus Dorotea had been a traitor to the Realm, along with her brother, High Lord Kalarus. She had been snapped up for her talents in the slave rebellion that had followed the destruction of Kalarus and the chaos in Kalaran lands, and no one had known or cared who she was—only what she could do. Had he brought her true identity to light, it would have forced him to bring charges against her as well. More importantly, she had all but begged him not to tell her husband or her son that she had survived. Trapped in a slave collar that could not be removed without killing her, it was, in a sense, true. The woman who had plotted against the Realm would never return.

She had saved Crassus once before, when he was unconscious, but he had never wakened during the procedure, and she had been gone before he was awake again. She never left the Free Aleran camp or train and had hidden virtually in plain sight for the past years.

But this time Crassus had seen her.

Crassus’s eyes burned. “Didn’t tell me.”

“She asked me not to,” Tavi said quietly.

Crassus squeezed his eyes shut, as if in agony. Given his injuries, there was every chance that he was—even without other considerations. “Get away from me, Octavian.”

“Rest,” Tavi said. “We’ll talk, later, when this is all—”

“Get out!” Crassus snarled. “How could you? Get out.”

He dropped back down, wheezing, and was asleep again, or unconscious, within seconds.

Tavi sat down on the stool Dorotea had vacated, shaking. He lowered his head to his hands and just sat there for a moment. Crows take it. He had never wanted this. And yet, it had been such a small worry among so many others. Truth be told, he’d barely thought about it. And now, the lie he’d felt he had no other choice than to make might have cost him the love and respect of a friend.

“Such a small concern, for a man with your problems,” said Alera quietly.

Tavi looked up to see the great fury, appearing as she usually did, but this time also covered in a misty grey cloak and hood that hid all of her features but her face. Her gemstone eyes were calm and gently amused.

“I don’t have so many friends that I can’t be worried about losing one,” Tavi said quietly. He looked at Max, silent and still in his tub. “Or more.”

Alera regarded him steadily.

“I saw Foss die. I saw what was going to happen seconds before it did, and I just wasn’t fast enough. I couldn’t stop the Queen. He died. She killed so many people. And they died for nothing. She escaped. I failed them.”

“She is most formidable. You knew that.”