Casimir crossed in front of him and threw himself lazily onto the settee in the middle of the room, kicking dirty boots up on one end without a care. “You are not the only one working around here, brother. I ferreted out a rebellion rat just this morning. He was caught stealing supplies, and I cut off his hands to set an example. His head too, of course. But the hands first, so he could watch. Made quite a pretty display out by that gaudy palace gate. It really livened up the place, I think.”

Ignoring his brother’s sadistic boasts, Cassius let his eyes drift to the far side of the room where his father sat coolly at Cassius’s desk, his fingers steepled and the slightest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“And you?” Cassius asked. “What have you been doing?”

“Overseeing things, as a king does. Casimir has made quite the impression in his assignments so far. How goes your training?”

Cassius’s stomach turned sour. This was always how things went with his father. He saw everything as an opportunity to manipulate, and he would pit the brothers against each other again and again until one or the other was dead most likely.

“Badly. They are ill-prepared for the strength the Stormlord will bring.”

His father sat up straighter. “Then make them prepared.”

“Don’t you think I am trying?” He scowled. “I don’t want to be here when another kingdom falls. But I cannot do it alone, and there simply is not enough skill among the Stormlings that remain to survive a siege for long.”

“Then figure out something else,” his father snarled.

“It’s not too late to leave,” Cassius suggested. “If the Stormlord followed us here as you believe, maybe it would be better if we disappeared for a while.”

The king rose abruptly, knocking the chair back against the bookshelf. “That bastard will not make me leave. I am a Stormling. I am a king. I will not flee because some aberration with a measure of magic thinks he will change the way of things.”

“Technically, you already did flee once.”

Cassius should not enjoy the sour grimace that crossed his father’s face, but he did. The man was an arrogant fool, and father or not, Cassius had no plans to die for him.

“We simply have to do things differently this time,” the king said, wandering from the desk to graze his fingertips over the spines of the books that sat on Aurora’s bookshelves. Cassius fought the urge to snap at his father for touching one of the few things remaining that gave him some sense of connection to his almost-bride. He did not like either his father or his brother being in these rooms. It made his skin itch deep beneath the surface, where he could not reach to scratch.