Letting out a sigh I gestured at myself. “Because you get messed up cases like myself. For five millennia I lived under that bastard. Every deal I made with him in the beginning he broke, one by one, until I was nothing more than a slave. The first woman I loved he killed, simply because I dared to have a heart. It was not just me either. He's subjected thousands of souls in Rahl to his will, broken all deals he has made with them. Sephora - she's a whole other subject in itself. He's a cruel man, and he will break promises as easily as one might crush a blade of straw. You cannot trust him, Morningstar.”

Imploringly, I stared at him. Though I did not intense feelings of brotherly love for him, I did not want to see him crushed as I had been. Where Morningstar was a villain, Morté was the ultimate nemesis, the powerful devil at the end of an exciting adventure series, whom the party had been seeking to destroy all seven books. All of this I knew, because I had experienced and seen.

“But he has power,” Morningstar said slowly, “and as you said, he threatened me. I did not miss that Charon. But if I dismiss and disregard every deal he tries to make, then that could be the end of all I have built.”

There was a pause, before Nyx murmured. “Can … can he be defeated?” Her eyes turned to me.

I blinked. “Well firstly, there is the whole issue of Thanatos possibly being alive …” I answered, raising my eyebrow.

“If it is him, I can deal with him,” she shrugged, a small smile on her face.

Them being close had always unnerved me, as we were all siblings, but then we had no technical genetic connected. We had literally been burped from Khaos, and only called ourselves siblings because of that connection.

“So you can flirt him back to sanity?” I chortled a note of laughter.

Her smile grew and she fluttered her eyelashes at me.

“Bringing this back to the topic in hand,” Morningstar said loudly. Our eyes turned back to him. He was looking at me again. “There is more danger here of refusing every alliance negotiation he tries to broker, rather than him breaking said deal. Thus, that cannot be done.”

“Then you should not have invited him here,” I sighed.

“I didn't,” Morningstar testily replied, “he invited himself.”

My brows rose and I stared at him, wondering why Morté would have done such a thing. The answer was, however, rather obvious when one considered it. It was me, being here now, rather than down below. It was the threat of the pretend Thanatos. It was the rumours everyone was speaking of, of the impending doom to come - except I was one of the only ones who had begun to decipher it.

“I see,” I said slowly, and I looked down at the top of the chair I leant on, considering. Slowly I breathed in. “'Researcher’,” I commented.

“Yes, Thaynes know where he found that out from,” Morningstar scowled, and he gestured at me. “You are not giving him any information.”

“Well. Lets just say I'd rather swear fealty to you,” I answered, tartly.

“Wait,” there was an interruption. A soft, light voice like sunlight drifting through trees in streams of white yellow. Looking up, I glanced at Hemera. “You're … you are the researcher Lord Morningstar has been speaking of?”

Tilting my head I glanced to Morningstar, “what have you been saying?”

He waved a hand at me, dismissively. “Indeed, sister. It is the main reason I am currently entertaining his defiance of me. Although he will of course, spend some time here for recompense of it.”

“I need to be back to classes on Monday,” I grunted.

Everyone seemed to ignore me. Hemera breathed out in astonishment. “I never … well it does explain much, my lord.”

“Indeed,” Morningstar said, with a nod, then he sat taller. “Not brokering a deal is not something I am willing to commit to, not with how volatile Charon suggests he can be. Therefore,” he clasped his hands before him and set them on the table. “We will agree to only what we can lose to afford.”

A beat of silence. Nyx lifted her head a little, asking a question lightly; “What about … I said before if we could destroy him?”

Morningstar glanced to the door, as if expecting someone to charge in. But his expression was thoughtful. “Charon?”

I looked impressed that he was even considering it. “If you're planning on ending Morté, I will happily sit at this table with you and tell you how proud I am as your big brother.” I grinned, then narrowed my eyes. “That is not my fealty though, you still won't get that.”

“Hmm,” he grunted, and looked at the nobles. “What resources do I have that would assist here? For trade or for … what Nyx suggested.”

“Lord Morningstar … what about making the deal with him with the view to eventually destroy him?” Nyx replied quietly. “He will likely be planning on doing something similar.”

Vitus nodded in agreement. “In that case, sir, we have four cities in which we hold property, estates and businesses in your name. If needed we could summon perhaps five thousand men between us for an army. I believe we have contacts with the newly risen Crimson Hand, and there is a small contingent of spies and assassins who call themselves the Sparrows, from what I have been told.”

“How much money are we currently making per month?”

“When one considers all of the voluntary tax and the donations we have received you are earning a hundred and fourteen thousand gold per month,” Marlina perked up. “For this month we are at a hundred and twenty three thousand and sixty silver.”

A lot of money. My brows rose, but Morningstar did not seem shocked. “Enough to work with,” he commented. “Now, the marriage issue.”

There was another pregnant pause. Nyx leant forwards.

“Lord Morningstar … would that not be a mistake, considering all that Charon has said. You yourself said we must only commit what we are willing to lose. Surely a marriage would be inadvisable. It would give Morté a reason to manipulate you more.”

Morningstar smiled slightly. “Not if it turned out the daughter was never his.”

All were stunned to silence. Including myself, gazing at him with a calculated look. As I thought about what he was saying, my head began to shake and I slowly rose from my heavy lean on the chair.

“You cannot mean …”

“Do you know for absolute certain she is not yours,” he asked me, matter of factly.

I cringed, “Morn, I don't know how you found out, but that history is past. She is his, in all ways that matter. Sephora never told her, I never told her. She's a princess, and she's Morté's child.”

“But what would genetics show?” He asked, a grin spreading to his face.

“Bah, I am not having you for a son in law.”

“Okay what is going on?!” Nyx was staring from one of us to the other, eyes wide.

Morningstar was beaming, eyes gloriously bright. “Charon here had an affair with Sephora. Morté's queen.”

I began to shake my head, looking at him disappointed, “you can't keep your mouth shut, can you?”

Nyx gasped, “does Morté know?”

I looked at her, “no, and he's never going to.” My eyes moved firmly to Morningstar. “You want me to stay around here, and still be as useful as I have been, then you make sure nobody talks of it outside of this room. It would mean her certain death.”

Morningstar surprisingly inclined his head in agreement. “Naturally. They will all agree. Everyone in here has my complete trust … aside from you.”

I rolled my eyes at him but concentrated back to Nyx. “Sephora and I … broke up, when she became pregnant, but is likely it is Morté's.”

“As are possibly more of them,” Morningstar nodded. “I know she has had many affairs over the millennia.”

“Then, why don't you go for one of them?” I scowled.

“Easy,” he shrugged, “I have confirmation she may be another man's daughter. That and she may come in handy in bribing yourself.”

My brow rose at the master manipulator before me, looking at him steadily. Slowly I leant back down, folding my arms along the top of the seat I was on, the dull golden manacles briefly glinting before I tugged the sleeves of the robe back down.

“If you are concerned I will not touch her. It will be nothing short of a deal of convenience, a power which Morté will believe has hold of me, before I find it apt to produce the truth.”

“And then destroy him?” I said in a low voice. “Because you have stopped me from doing that already. Or … can I just kill him now?”

“No, not now. But if the time is right we will destroy him, later,” he murmured in reply.

Slowly I breathed, judging him. Of course, it could turn out that Selene was Morté's after all. But then, if Morningstar was being sincere, he could claim the marriage was never consummated and thus have it annulled. For his own safety, and the personal wrath I would pour on him, were he to break that agreement, I hoped he would be true.