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By Root 1439 0

you might say we founded the place. Thrived there. It was a well established family, highly respected, active in civil service through most of its generations. Its founder ...” He faltered then, and shook his head as if rejecting that line of disclosure. “I was the youngest of the main line, but there were others. So many others ...” She could feel his hand trembling now beneath her own. “Five years ago ... I was out all night....” He lowered his head, his shoulders trembling, and raised up his other hand as if to shield his face; clearly he was remembering that time, reliving some secret pain. “Just like any other night,” he whispered. “Or so it seemed. I came home ... I had no idea anything was wrong, you see, no reason to expect it.... I came home.” He looked up at her, but his eyes were focused upon another time, another plane. “They were dead,” he whispered, his voice shaking as he relived the past. “Murdered. All of them. The floor was covered with their blood....”

He lowered his head once more, overwhelmed by the memory. She longed to comfort him, to seek out some gentle words which would bring him back to the present, but the shock of his revelation had left her momentarily speechless. Because she knew about this tragedy. She remembered it. And the family name which had seemed vaguely familiar to her now sharpened into clear and horrible focus.

“That was you,” she breathed. Remembering the headlines. Bloody details splayed across local newspaper headings for months, exploitive articles that dwelled on every horrific aspect of the crime. And on every perceived weakness of the one survivor. “You.”

He managed to look up at her. “I was wondering how long it would take you,” he said bitterly. “The murder of the century, they called it. It must have made all the papers.”

Stunned, she whispered, “They thought you did it.”

He nodded tightly. “They wanted to punish someone, and I was the obvious candidate. The youngest son of the Tarrant line, selfish, undisciplined, the black sheep of the clan ... it was no great secret that the family and I fought a lot, usually about money. And it was likewise no secret that the slaughter of every other Tarrant had guaranteed me an inheritance that many men would kill for. As you can see,” he said bitterly, indicating his person: the rich clothes, the fine jewelry, the air of easy wealth. “Only I would never have killed for that. Not my own family! I could never....”

She tightened her hand about his, and it seemed to her that his pain flowed through the contact. Maybe it did. Maybe the fae was so stirred by his emotion that it allowed her to glimpse the very core of his despair, unmasked by social repartee, unfettered by the bonds of language. The sheer intensity of it left her breathless. She could only hope that the same faeborn link would allow her to give something of herself in return, if only a shadow of emotional support. Even that little, she sensed, was more than he’d had in years.

“Of course not,” she whispered.

He took a deep drink of wine; it seemed to lend him strength. “The trial lasted over a year,” he told her. “It seemed like forever. A year of having to relive that dreadful night over and over again, so that strangers could pick it apart for incriminating details. I thought I’d go crazy. I nearly did. There are whole segments of time I don’t remember now, parts of the trial I’ve blocked. I was so close to the edge back then. Once I even tried to give up all the money, to sign away my inheritance in the hope that they would take that for proof of my innocence. I guess it seemed the only way, at the time. My lawyers stopped me. Thank God.” He laughed bitterly; his hand tightened into a fist beneath her grasp. “What did I know about earning a living? What did I understand of poverty? They knew. They gave me meaningless forms to sign, and didn’t tell me the truth until the fit had passed. Thank God for them. Thank God.”

She made her voice as gentle as it could become. “So what happened?”

“The state let me go, in the end. Not because it judged me innocent, but because