Page 45 of The Mercy of Dawn

Dion released his hold on her, and he could have vanished into thin air for all that she knew.

Her vision was blurry and her ears hummed as every word he just maimed her with sank in. It was such an effortless thing for her uncle to wound like that. Easy, she supposed, when it was the truth. When the words were always there in his mind, waiting for the right time to deal their blow.

It took a minute for the feeling of his fingers digging into her face to subside, for her to feel sure enough of her legs to clear the final few paces to her room.

She needed air.

She needed cold, or warmth, or something, anything, to take away the tightness that threaded itself through her chest.

Cyril made it halfway to her balcony before her knees met the floor.

So Cyril’s mother had been a friend of his own.

At least now Mikael knew why Runa was so fond of an abrasive woman she had never met. She was a deeply sentimental person on a good day, but to have the daughter of a dead friend staying under her roof...

It shed a bit of light.

Watching Cyril and her uncle go head to head in the hall wasn’t something he should have watched, but Mikael had never been one to enjoy doing what he should do.

When his mother mentioned Dion wasn’t always an easy man to deal with, he hadn’t doubted her. A man of his rank and order was bound to have a confrontational streak. He just hadn’t realized that would include such a wicked streak of cruelty too.

To his own flesh and blood, no less.

Not that the dark-haired wisp of a woman didn’t have a lick of venom in her own eyes, of course. But he saw the fear that existed there too. And so did one of the stationed guards, who had taken part in the less-than-subtle eavesdropping with him. He’d surged a step forward when Dion moved in on her, but Mikael held out his arm and shook his head.

This was not the type of thing they'd engage in without cause. Was the entire display entirely inappropriate? Absolutely. But there wasn’t any danger in that domestic pissing contest.

So Mikael and the guardsman observed in silence as the Rogue Master berated his niece with a chilling calmness. To say the sort of things he’d said, to pick her to pieces and wield the entire notion of her dead parents as, what…some sort of leverage? Some sort of playing piece to get her to act on his terms? It was sickening, honestly, and familiar in a way Mikael wasn't proud to admit.

They’d continued watching, even as Dion stalked past them with a look of lethality in his eyes and muttered curses on his breath.

And Cyril had just stood there. She’d looked…absent, with her hands clenched at her sides and her eyes fixed on the floor.

Mikael wasn’t exactly a stranger to the burdens of familial conflict—and he almost felt bad for her.

Almost.

The miserable Rhodea woman had an equally miserable life, and, gods, if that’s how she was used to being spoken to…dinner made a shade more sense now.

The guard had just shrugged at him when Cyril finally turned and walked the rest of the way to her room, and he slipped back through the doors to join his partner at his post. That was likely the most excitement the poor man would ever see being posted in the residential wing.

Mikael should have followed him out and made his way back to the barracks. He had a criminal amount of paperwork left to finish for his reports on the alpine assessment, but his curiosity got the better of him.

It always fucking did.

With careful steps, he approached Cyril's door.

The last thing he needed was for her to hear someone poking about outside her room and come investigate. Explaining his way out of this would be…awkward, and being on the receiving end of her ire was low on his list of interests.

Truthfully, he expected to hear some sort of manifestation of anger on the other side of her door. Swearing and stomping, or things clattering about—she seemed expressive.

Instead, the sound of quiet sobbing reached his ears.

Mikael frowned and pulled himself away from her door.

Not his people, not his problem.

Chapter 12