Page 33 of The Mercy of Dawn

He stopped a few feet from the side doors leading out to the covered walkways and outbuildings beyond. Not even a gods damned arm’s length away.

“Mika,” she chided, “did you think you could just slip away to the barracks without me noticing?”

Truthfully? He had.

Once his father cracked opened a bottle of spirits, and the fleeting remnants of their dinner party filtered into the lounge, Mikael took that as his opportunity to get the fuck out.

After three grueling weeks overseeing alpine training in the Stygias, he was desperate to unwind on his own terms, to get even an ounce of normalcy back in his veins. The barracks were his sanctuary. The one place he could fucking breathe without the refined bullshit of the palace proper. Plus, by this time of day, they were bound to have women and booze in no short supply.

And after that piss-poor excuse of a dinner? He’d take either.

Both, preferably.

But as his mother looped her arm with his and guided him back into the palace, that budding hope withered.

She looked up at him with feigned sadness gleaming in her eyes and said, “Come and have a drink with your poor mother. I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

Mikael sighed and followed his mother back through the halls and corridors, up the main staircase and to the residential wing—right past the door that he hoped the miserable Rhodea woman was having an awful time behind—and into his parents’ suite.

His mother was quick to pour them each a generous glass of red wine and drag him straight onto the sprawling terrace. Even though the rain had stopped some few hours ago, dampness clung to the cool night air, and Mikael was grateful all the braziers were lit.

But before his damn ass even made full contact with the chair his mother led him to, she had questions. For being a woman who usually had little concern with day-to-day military operations, she had a sudden vested interest in how the training exercise went.

How did the guards perform at their drills?

Who was promising? Who wasn’t?

Did they have any injuries?

How was the weather?

Even though she went on and on, her questions were simple enough to field after the three damn weeks cooped up at their mountain base. He knew, though, that an interest in his duties as commander was not why she guilted him into coming here.

His mother had taken a healthy sip of her wine and soaked in a moment of silence before she turned to him and asked, “What happened with Cyril at dinner?”

And just like that, there it was—her ulterior motive.

“What do you mean?”

He settled back in his chair, the picture of casual ease.

Runa raised her brow at him.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice she looked upset, and I know Reyna certainly wasn’t responsible for it. So I’ll ask you again, my prickly son, what happened with Cyril?”

Mikael had two options here.

He could give his mother the runaround and feign ignorance in hopes she would eventually fold, but that could take hours. Or he could endure her wrath now and get it all over with.

He didn’t feel like waiting.

“She refused to be cordial and thought it was appropriate to insinuate something was lacking about our military intelligence.”

Runa’s eyes flared as she bit out, “Mikael, what did you say to her?”

“I told her what Ezra’s briefing said about her.”

Mikael shrugged. Simple, really.