He told her, that night, something he had never told anyone else in his entire life. Not Garrick. Not Elder Maren. Not a single soul in twenty-nine years of carrying it alone.
They sat together in his private chambers, the fire burned low, the day's revelations about Corin Thackeray still sitting heavy and unresolved between them, and for a long while neither of them spoke at all — simply existed in the same quiet space, her shoulder against his, both of them working through the implications of a truth that had just rewritten everything they thought they understood about the m******e.
"My father has never once let me see the full account of that night," Kane said finally, breaking the silence without preamble, his voice low and unusually rough. "Not the official reports. Not the witness
