Page 31 of Between Two Kings
“Do not underestimate your power, Temperance.”
“What do you mean?”
“You hold more sway over him than anyone else.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”
“But it is that way. Beyond a doubt. I have never seen him like this. Nobody has.”
“What was he like before me?”
Adelaide smiled. “Rather insufferable.”
“Really?”
“Yes. His ego was unprecedented.”
Tem supposed she could imagine that. Anyone with a father like Bastian would surely take after him.
“You have tamed him,” Adelaide continued. “He is…more careful now.”
“Careful with what?”
“His life.”
Tem frowned. “What do you mean?”
There was a pause as Adelaide tossed her hair over her shoulders.
“Before you, it did not matter to him whether he lived or died. He was always the first to step into a fight. Now he refrains. I know it is for you.”
“Why would he refrain for me?”
“He wishes to keep you safe, Temperance. He views it as his duty.”
Tem processed her words slowly. She couldn’t imagine another version of Caspen, one who was rash and impulsive and reckless. Those were qualities she possessed, not him. Tem was struck once more by the fact that he’d lived an entire lifetime before her—that while her adulthood was largely shaped by him, his had not at all been shaped by her.
As if on cue, Caspen chose that moment to return.
His eyes flicked first to Tem’s, then to Adelaide’s, his brow furrowing in concern.
“Tem?” he said before he even reached her.
“I’m fine,” she said preemptively.
Caspen’s face softened but just barely. He looked once more to Adelaide, and his eyes narrowed. “If you are filling her head with lies, I will—”
“I’m fine, Caspen,” Tem insisted. “Will you calm down? Adelaide and I are friends now.”
That got an amused laugh from Adelaide and a distressed grunt from Caspen, who pursed his lips but didn’t press the issue.
“How did it go with…” Tem didn’t know how to address the group of men he’d been talking to. “Them?”
Caspen sighed, and his expression darkened. “The Senecas are angry. They feel I am corrupting one of their own.”
“The Senecas consider me…one of them?”
“Yes,” Caspen said. “They do.”
