“No. I’ll hang on to it. It’s very fragile, as you know-and dangerous. If anyone dies carrying it, I want it to be me. As for resting, I don’t think it will make a difference. I’m not strong enough for this sort of travel. We both know that.”

“You can’t give up.”

“I’m not. I’m handing off the charge to you. You’ll manage.”

“But I don’t know what to do. You’ve never told me the plan.”

Arcadius chuckled. “That’s because it changes frequently. I had hoped the regents would have accepted Mercy as Modina’s heir, but they refused.”

“So now what?”

“Modina is on the throne now, so we have a second chance. The best you can do is get to Aquesta and seek an audience with her.”

“But I don’t know how-”

“You’ll figure it out. Introduce Mercy to the empress. That will be a start in the right direction. Soon you will be the only one who knows the truth. I hate placing this burden on you, but I have no choice.”

Miranda shook her head. “No, it was my mother who placed the burden on me. Not you.”

“A deathbed confession is a weighty thing.” The old man nodded. “But doing so allowed her to die in peace.”

“Do you think so? Or is her spirit still lingering? Sometimes I feel as if she is watching-haunting me. I’m paying the price for her weakness, her cowardice.”

“Your mother was young, poor, and ignorant. She witnessed the death of dozens of men, the butchery of a mother and child, and narrowly escaped. She lived in constant fear that someday, someone would discover there were twins and she rescued one of them.”

“But,” Miranda said bitterly, “what she did was wrong and unconscionable. And the worst part is she couldn’t let the sin die with her. She had to tell me. Make it my responsibility to correct her mistakes. She should-”