Summary: Mina leaves the Tartassis household; Adrian Rys-Lykel returns to Stormholt.
Mina tiptoed through the hall and made her way to the front door. She quietly opened it and slipped out, then hid until the morning came. She couldn’t stay in the Tartassis household any longer. Florinda had treated her much more cruelly since Adrian had left, and she felt even less safe.
Once the sun was up, she hurried away before anyone could find her, and wandered through the streets of Lykos. She kept moving until she came to the one place where she knew she would be safe. King Raydan of Stormholt had arranged with his sister, the Adder of Lykos, to set up a shelter to help the poor. There she would have a place to sleep, and would be given food to eat.
While she stayed at the shelter, she tried to figure out how she was going to support herself. Then one day an opportunity presented itself. One of the volunteers at the shelter told her that his uncle was looking for someone to cook and keep house for him. She was nervous about the idea of living alone with a strange man, so she asked for more information about him. She learned that he was an older man who had been widowed, that he had been a soldier in the Abanthus army, and that he lived in one of the villages in Abanthus. She asked if the man was hoping to find another wife. The volunteer assured her that his uncle had no interest in finding a wife, and told her about the man’s recently deceased husband. The situation sounded ideal, so she left Lykos to start her new life.
“Adrian! You’re home!” Kenna rushed over to her son and gave him a hug. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. Is everything all right?”
Adrian shrugged. “Not really. Florinda is no better than the rest of her family. Actually, she’s much worse. I don’t know what I ever saw in her.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
“In a few minutes.” Adrian wasn’t sure how much he should tell his mother. He didn’t want to tell her the whole story. They went to join the rest of the family, who were also surprised that he had already come home.
“You can do better than her,” his sister Adelia told him. “You’ll find someone else. We should take a trip to Fydoria. King Tevan and Queen Zenobia have the best parties.” She looked to Kenna and Raydan. “Mother? Father? May we go there soon? It would be so much fun.”
Adrian glanced at Adelia knowingly. “You just want to see Prince Zenon.”
Adelia blushed. “Well, you might meet someone there!”
“I’m not really in the mood for a party. Not after what happened.” Adrian paused, wondering what he should reveal. He thought of Florian’s words: “You’re a disgrace to your family.” He couldn’t tell them why Florinda had gotten angry with him, or about what had happened between him and Mina. But he could still tell them what kind of a person Florinda was. “I was wrong about Florinda. I thought I liked her, but she’s not a nice person. She was abusive to one of the servants, and just before I left, she told me that she had the girl killed.” He lowered his head as tears welled up in his eyes.
“She WHAT?” Adelia gasped. Gabrielle and Marcelline stared at him, wide-eyed.
Kenna looked at him sadly. “She’s much worse than her father ever was.”
“Did you kick her ass?” Leonidas asked.
Adrian frowned and shook his head. His young brother didn’t understand how complicated the situation was. And it’s not like he would have had time to do anything anyway, since Florian had made him leave immediately. “I wish I could have done something to stop her. But I didn’t know it was happening. I don’t even know how it happened.”
“I’ll see what the Black Asps can find out. And I’ll have them keep an eye on her,” Raydan assured him.
A wave of nausea washed over Mina. She ran outside, bent over, and began to vomit. She had been feeling sick all week. At first she thought that she had fallen ill. Then she realized that she had missed her monthly cycle. She knew what this must mean: she was pregnant with Adrian’s child.