Eager for them to leave, he said, “That is my intention, if I can find Stormlings strong enough to back me up. I do not want to simply wait and prepare for the Stormlord’s eventual siege. I want to take the fight to him. He might bring with him a multitude of storms, but he is still only one man. If I can fight him face-to-face, I know I will win.”

Finished with the conversation, Cassius removed the shirt he had undone upon his entry, and used it to wipe the sweat from his face and chest.

“Now if the two of you are done invading my privacy,” he said, “I would like to bathe and rest before the next storm comes. Unless, that is, one of you would like to take a shift?”

Casimir was the first to head for the door. “Sorry. I have things to do. The remnant population outside the city has grown out of control. And I still have some leads on the rebellion to run down.” Casimir looked around the room one more time and added, “You really should consider letting go of this obsession with the Pavan girl, brother. You are better off without her.”

Then he was gone, the door left ajar with Cassius shirtless and annoyed, facing off against his father. Rather than wait for his father’s next prod, Cassius chose one of his own. “How is Mother?”

The king shrugged. “Well, I suppose.”

“You suppose?”

The two had never been a love match, but they had shared an interest in power, and that had been enough to sustain their marriage all these years. But since their arrival in Pavan, Cassius’s mother had become withdrawn and disinterested in even the manipulative games her husband played with their sons and their new subjects.

“If you are so concerned, go find out for yourself.” With those words, his father left, closing the door to his rooms behind him as he went.

Cassius stood there for a long moment, thinking of his mother. He did not love her, not the way he knew children were supposed to love their mothers. But he wondered if she thought too much of home, the way he sometimes did. He had never been an affectionate or loving child. He never would have expected to feel homesick. But he missed the sea, the smell of salt on the air, the way you could hear the waves long before you could see them. His home had been alternatingly cold and brutal and dangerous, but sometimes … sometimes it had been beautiful and warm and soft. And Cassius missed it all—the brutal and the beautiful.

It was a place where he fit, and he supposed that was what made it home.