Cass nodded and began to move to follow his men and assist them in dealing with what must be done.

Frey stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Ruling through fear is risky,” he advised low.

“It worked for me,” Lahn stated, and Cassius shifted his eyes up to the Korwahkian king.

“And then you shifted to something else,” Frey reminded him.

Lahn shrugged. “I would give my son a peaceable kingdom. It is his mother’s wish.”

Frey sighed and took his hand from Cassius.

Cassius almost smiled, for it was not lost on anyone that anything Circe might wish would be something Lahn would see to her having.

He did not smile.

“I would give my daughters a safe kingdom,” he stated, and earned both men’s attention. “It is their right.”

And after he said that, he strode away.

It was late in the evening when she found him, standing on the ramparts, staring down at Sky Bay.

He felt her approach, and then he felt her hand at his back before she laid her cheek there and her other arm slinked around his stomach.

She held him even as she gave him some of her weight.

“Are you all right?” Elena asked.

“What else have you done?” he queried in return.

“Sorry?”

“To make this nightmare a home.”

She pressed closer to him and whispered, “Cass.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, the royal gardener has said it’s actually optimal to plant ivy in the autumn, so he has done so. And, erm…there may be quite a few wisteria vines come spring as well.”

Cass stared down at the lights in windows, streetlamps on avenues, dark smoke curling from chimneys in Sky Bay.

And he heard Elena’s words.

But he did not say anything.

She slid to his side, forcing herself under his arm. Therefore, he moved it for her as she pressed her front to his side, her hand gliding up to put pressure on his neck to look down at her.

He did so, seeing her peeking up at him from her place, wedged under his arm.

“You’re frightening me,” she said quietly.

He lifted a hand and smoothed it over her cheek before cupping her jaw, watching his hand’s movements, murmuring, “I wonder what your life would have been like, if the fates had allowed you to have True.”

She wound both her arms around him, shook him, and ordered, “Stop it.”

“You saw that,” he replied.

“So did you, and that’s what I’m worried about.”

“You saw my father raping his wife.”

She shook him again, harder. “Cass, I need you to focus on me.”

“Is she all right?”

A shadow crossed her face.

Domitia was not all right.

But then, how could she be? Without her consent, married to a man more than twice her age, used, abused, debased.

“Cassius,” Elena whispered.

“Flowers will not transform it, my beautiful warrior,” he whispered back.

At his words, she forced herself to his front and took his head firmly in both her hands.