‘Oh, Vasin. Mother is gone. Attacking Yadavendra won’t bring her back. He won’t go with the Tanzanites. In fact, they’ll be lucky not to be put between lives. If you stand with them, you’ll die with them too, only you won’t get to come back.’

This was the moment of crisis. Do I tell him about Mother? She had always said that when the time came, Gada would support them. He was not so sure. If he told his brother about her, he would soon have to tell him about Rochant, which would mean confessing his own crimes against the house. Did he trust his brother with their lives?

I don’t know.

His instincts told him to wait. His mother had told him to act. He hesitated, unable to commit to either path.

I don’t know what to do!

But when Gada started to speak again, Vasin grabbed him, so sudden and fierce that he saw genuine fear on his brother’s face. ‘Mother is not gone,’ he hissed. ‘She lives. I have seen her and talked with her. Do you understand? She lives! And she deserves justice, not Yadavendra’s madness. We can get rid of Yadavendra, restore the house, and restore her. We can bring her back!’

For once, Gada had nothing to say.

‘Don’t you see?’ continued Vasin, unable to stop now he’d started. ‘We have a chance to put things right. We have to take it, together. Yadva will stand with us, maybe Umed too. It’s going to happen. When the celebrations are over, the Tanzanites will make their decree on behalf of the Council of High Lords. We have to be ready.’

There was a long pause, and then Gada nodded to himself. He removed Vasin’s left hand from his arm, then his right. ‘We did not have this conversation. Whatever you saw was not our mother. She has been exiled by official decree and is dead to us. Our first loyalty is to our High Lord, not the political games of the other houses. We live and die by his decree, not theirs. We follow his lead in all things, not theirs. We did not have this conversation.’

Gada nodded to himself again, and walked out, leaving Vasin confused. Did he mean those things or was he saying them in case we were overheard? Was that nod a signal that he did support me?

He pressed his knuckles against his temples, trying to ease the pressure there. His brother may have just pledged himself to restoring their mother or washed his hands of her. The only thing Vasin knew for certain was that either way, all of the risk would be his and his alone.