Jim Butcher - Captain's Fury

"No," the singulare said quietly.

Tavi threw the cloak around his shoulders. "The Senator isn't going to appreciate it if we hold him up. Let's move."

Araris looked steadily at Tavi for a second. Then he locked the door, folded his arms, and leaned back against it. "The Senator," he said, "can wait."

Tavi drew up short and stared at the older man until he had managed to shake the list out of the forefront of his thoughts. He studied Araris for a minute, taking in his wary posture, his obvious tension. Tavi concentrated for a moment and was able to feel a vague sense of unease tinting an iron shell of resolve.

"Oh," Tavi said quietly. "This talk."

Araris nodded. "It's time."

Boots thudded dully on the floors overhead, probably the Subtribunes Lo-gistica moving the Legion's treasury chest along with two full spears of guards.

"Why now?"

Araris nodded up at the world above. "Because you're leaving on campaign. There's always the possibility that you might not come back from it. And because you're a grown man, Tavi. Because rumors are spreading, and you've got to be ready. You need to know. You deserve to know."

Tavi felt a flash of old, hot frustration flare through him, but he pushed it back. "I'm listening."

Araris nodded. "There's a lot. Tell me what you've already worked out."

Tavi took a deep breath. "I know," he said, "that you were a singulare to the Princeps Gaius Septimus. I know that he died at the First Battle of Calderon twenty-two years ago. His singulares were thought to have died with him. They were buried with him at the Princeps Memorium back in Calderon.

"I know," Tavi continued, "that you pledged your loyalty to me. That Gaius didn't seem to care for that, but that he kept you close to me for years."

Araris nodded. "All true."

"I know that Aunt Isana doesn't talk about my mother much. Neither does Uncle Bernard." Tavi glanced down. "The only thing they've ever said about my father is that he was a soldier." He tried not to let it happen, but his voice turned bitter. "Which means I'm just a legionare's bastard. There are plenty of those around."

Araris looked up sharply. "Bastard? No. No, your parents were wed, Tavi."

Tavi felt his heart begin to speed up. He'd spent a lifetime knowing almost nothing about his mother and father. No one had ever been willing to speak of them in anything but the vaguest terms. Tavi barely trusted himself to speak. "You… you knew them?"

Araris's eyes grew distant for a moment. "Oh, yes," he said quietly. "Very well."

"How-" Tavi began, but his throat clenched shut. "Who… What did

Araris held up a hand. "First," he said, "I must tell you this. I did not want to be the one to speak. That duty by rights belonged to Isana. But she…" He shook his head. "When someone goes through as much grief and loss as she did, in such a short amount of time, it can leave wounds as surely as any sword. You can recover from some wounds. But sometimes they're lasting. Crippling. And the best you can hope for is to survive them."

"I don't understand," Tavi said.

"Isana… doesn't think very clearly where you are concerned. Not about this. She loves you desperately, Tavi."

Tavi chewed on his lip and nodded. "I know."

"She's terrified of losing you. It clouds her judgment, I think. Her resolve. I believe that she wanted to tell you the truth long before now. But she'd kept it locked up so tightly, for so long, I'm not sure she knew how to let it out again."

Tavi shook his head. "Wait. Araris-what truth?"

"The truth about your father," Araris said quietly. "The truth about Gaius Septimus."

The bottom fell out of Tavi's stomach upon hearing the words.

He'd known-no, not known , but speculated, analyzing what he knew and putting it together in a theory, as the Cursors had trained him to do. It had been an idle exercise, or so he thought, though it might be more accurate to say that he had simply found a new way to daydream about what it would have been like actually to have parents in his life. He'd done that often as a child, spending hours picturing them, imagining what they might have looked like, sounded like, what they might have said.

What life would have been like. How much better it might have been.

Of course, the idea of the Princeps as Tavi's unknown father had a single major stumbling block-the utter lack of furycraft that had haunted Tavi until two years before.

But that wasn't an issue anymore.

In fact, as he thought on it, it should have been more obvious to him. Tavi's crafting was still sharply limited by his lack of ability to control a manifest fury, but had he been in the Academy, he would have earned two or three beads in every single branch of crafting by now. While it was not unheard of for a crafter-especially a scion of the Citizenry-to be gifted in several areas of craft, it was exceedingly rare for anyone but the upper tiers of talent to possess skills that ran the entire spectrum of furycraft.

It should have been more obvious, but he supposed it was possible he hadn't wanted it to be true. If Araris was correct, if the Princeps truly was wed to his mother, it meant that he was a legitimate heir of the House of Gaius. It meant…

Bloody crows. It meant that the First Lord had an heir.

And it was him. Tavi.

Bloody crows. It meant that the most dangerous and ruthless people on the face of Carna were going to want him dead.

Him. Tavi.

Other pieces fell into place. He could see why Gaius had brought him to the Academy-to give him a sound education. To expose him to the children of the Citizenry. He'd been trained with the Cursors, learning the arts of intrigue and deception. He'd been assigned to a room with Max-another outcast to Aleran high society, just as Tavi himself was. That a friendship of mutual alliance would grow between them had been all but inevitable, and Tavi abruptly felt certain that Gaius had planned deliberately to secure Tavi at least one ally with the crafting power of a High Lord.

And the First Lord's designs hadn't stopped there. Tavi had been sent out into a Legion to learn the arts of strategy, tactics, logistics, and leadership. Granted, Gaius hadn't expected Tavi to wind up in command of the bloody thing, but the First Lord-his grandfather -couldn't have been terribly displeased with the results.

Gaius.

His grandfather.

He had a grandfather .

Tavi knew he was breathing too quickly, and it was making him dizzy, but too many thoughts were spinning through his mind to pay any attention. He wasn't sure if he wanted to scream, or hit something, or run, or laugh, or burst out weeping. His mind was an enormous blur of ideas and memories and possible futures, and only one thing was certain.

Everything had changed.

Everything.

"I've… I've…" Tavi swallowed and forced himself to stop stammering. "I've known that there were things Aunt Isana wasn't telling me about my parents, but…"

Araris closed his eyes and sighed. Then he opened them and faced Tavi. "No, Tavi. There's a lot your mother hasn't told you about your father."

Tavi frowned and opened his mouth to ask another question-then stopped suddenly as he heard the very gentle emphasis Araris put on the word mother .

A lot his mother hadn't told him.

Not Aunt Isana.

His mother .

Isana. Isana was his mother.

Tavi's heart suddenly throbbed and clenched, and the searing flame of shock and pain seared through his vitals. It was as if every tiny wound his heart had received over the years, every little momentary pain of a lonely child, every jab of self-loathing he felt when other children had asked who his parents were, every moment of longing for anything to fill that emptiness where his parents should have been- all of it came back to him at the same instant, in the same place, the concentrated heartache of a lifetime.