"A peerless existence, isn't she?"
He'd sent Rosie after them, of course, and received detailed reports for the entire trip. But that information... The king did not receive it.
"That is not the word I..." Alexios gave up halfway through the sentence. He wasn't one to badmouth other men's wives.
But he did not take another step backward.
Because the math had changed, and Alexios Valorian had never once refused to run new numbers just because he hated them.
Dying on schedule meant leaving Felicity to a guardian who called 'that' parenting. It meant leaving his life's work, the political plays, the succession, all of it half-built in hands he could no longer correct.
Set against all of that stood one disgusting, scheming, pearl-colored insult in a primordial's hand.
It was the best option among the terrible ones. That, too, was math.
