His once-stately room felt excessive and wasteful for one person. Walking around his desk to the shelves, he let his fingers traced the spine of an old book. Everything was just as he had left it. The only thing missing was the personal items he’d asked Kendra to burn.
“I did not think you were ever coming back.” Seth’s voice startled Kai, and he spun around to see his half-brother’s silhouette in the doorway, his arm in a sling.
Kai offered a kind smile. “You’ve grown, little brother.”
“I have grown.” Seth puffed up his chest. “Not enough, though. I’m still not as tall as you.”
Seth ran to Kai, and they embraced. The guard at the door interrupted. “Your Highness Seth, perhaps you should wait for your mother to speak with this traitor.”
Taken back by the words. Kai let his half-brother go. “I mean my brother no harm.” He wanted to chastise the guard for his insult, for addressing a prince in this manner, but he did not know this man, and something about him gave Kai the impression he did not see him as his prince.
Seth closed the door. “Pay him no mind, he is the Regent’s man. You are home and everything will be better now.”
Doubt stabbed at Kai’s heart. He did not belong here, and those men knew it. The word traitor shook his core. Did they really see him as a traitor? Had he been gone that long?
“You were noticing my growth,” Seth reminded Kai, salvaging the conversation.
“Give it time, little brother, you are only twelve.” Kai tussled Seth’s hair and gleaned his brother’s arm. A white hairline crack streaked across the bone beneath the skin. “What happened to your arm?”
“I fell off my horse. Sigry says in a few more weeks I should be able to get rid of the and sling. Since you left, life is not the same.” Seth stepped in close and whispered. “One thing remains—mother keeps things from me. She must think I am blind. I know she has plans for Aaron. While she includes me in some discussions, it did not take long to realize my suggestions were of no value. So now I keep my nose in a book or ride my horse, and mother ignores me.”
“But you listen, right?” Kai studied his brother’s posture. “You know something.”
“I do,” Seth whispered. “She harbors ill will toward you. Ever since mother and father returned from sea to find you gone, she started spreading rumors about you abandoning the Diu people. People believe you’ve been living in the woods among the Katori and that you do not wish to return.”
Seth paused to look around the room. His hand covered his mouth.
Kai gleaned the room and the secret passageway to ensure they were alone. “Seth, what is it?”
“Mother told Dante you are not the true heir to the throne. That Iver is not your real father. She is the one who utters the word traitor. The guards listen and believe her words as fact. Do not let the uniforms fool you, most of the new men are not even from Diu. They are Regent Maxwell’s soldiers from Milnos.” Seth nodded to the door, suggesting that the man outside was such.
A lump formed in Kai’s throat; Seth had no idea how right Nola was about his parentage. “Do you trust me?” Kai asked him.
“More than I trust my own mother. I have the feeling she is doing something to father. Every time they are apart for any length of time, he improves. Then, when they are together, he backslides and can barely say three words together. She caught me in their room one day. You would have thought I’d committed treason by her reaction.” Seth shook his head. “I was touching some bottles on the night table, trying to talk with father. She has not let me see him since—four months ago this happened.”
Kai grabbed the back of Seth’s neck and pulled him close. “Do you trust me?”
“Why do you keep asking that? Yes, of course I trust you. Mother claims the Katori mountainfolk have brainwashed you against Diu these many months, and now you are one of them. I don’t believe her—but what really happened to you, Kai? Even I can tell there is something different about you.”
There was no time to test Seth’s loyalty. And Kai could not share what he knew or burden his young brother with his destiny. “I only hope that you never lose faith in me. Remember these words—I love our father. And you.”
“I believe in you, Kai. I know your loyalty is true. Tell me you are here to stay.” Seth’s eyes begged to hear it was so.
Confined to his room, Kai had no idea what came next. He had been separated from Rayna at the palace entrance, and his only solace was gleaning her arrival to her parent’s home within the palace grounds. Wishing they could go back to Katori did not make it so. “Dear brother, I wish I knew what to do next. I need to speak with Cazier. He must know I am here, and maybe he can help me see our father.”
“Do you plan to stay?” Seth pressed.
He did not imagine Nola would let him get anywhere near Iver. Given his vision about his father’s impending death, and his role in Iver’s demise, he clung to the hope he could somehow change his destiny. “I am here for the Winter Festival. Maybe longer,” he responded.
“I believed you would be the next king.” Seth fidgeted with his cuff link. “Dante and Cazier agree.”
Kai wanted to calm his brother’s concerns, but frankly, he did not have the words.
“I heard the Regent,” Seth persisted. “Though mother . . .” He swallowed hard before continuing. “Mother has plans for
