William Alexston had a purpose the morning after his rather exhausting evening with Merripen, and that purpose was a talk with the grand architect of this particular scheme to rid him of his pleb.

She was having her morning tea, as it happened, and as he entered, she looked up from blowing lightly on the surface of her drink, and one brow hovered above the other. He didn't look crushed, or dead, as Roselyn had suggested.

"I didn't leave her," he told her without hesitation as he went to stand in front of the fire, his back to it.

She looked at him for a long moment.

"You didn't leave her," she repeated, in that tone that suggested mother had every desire of twatting him upside the head. With a frying pan.

"No," he concluded.

Her mouth opened to begin saying something, but he stopped her.

"I know," he said. "I know you disapprove, I know she's never going to be a Lady, I know I can't marry her, I know you want her gone." He paused. He had to be mad. "But this is my life, and if I want to ruin it by loving a pleb, I will."

That familiar angry tightening at the edge of her eyes alerted him. He was going to have to talk faster if he wanted to stave off the inevitable fury and poke it mid-stretch.

"I am not ungrateful," he murmured. "I love you, you're my mother, I will always love you far more than any other woman. I respect you. I respect what you've done to bring us here. I am sorry you have had to endure pain in order to further us. But I am your son, not your puppet, and it would be a bad show for Mereavus Alexston's son to be too afraid of her to stand up for himself. So, I am standing up for myself. I'm standing up for myself and I'm standing up for Merripen."

Her expression thoroughly darkened. He was sure he was going to get disowned. Disowned.

"Mother, you married a man of little standing because you loved him," he reminded her. "So, I know that somewhere you understand. I know that somewhere you know what all-consuming love feels like, I know what you've done to keep yours safe and to ensure Valys didn't destroy it when it self-destructed. I won't say it out loud, but we both know what you did to get father out of that city. We both know the lengths you went to, to keep him safe. And you're fooling yourself if you think I'm not going to go to those lengths for her."

"She betrayed you," she countered, setting the teacup down on the table.

"Kergard, mother," he answered, not stopping to think about what left his lips. "You betrayed father, and he forgave you. Perhaps you didn't do it on purpose, but you still did, and he still forgave you. You remember how it feels to be that close to losing something through your own actions."

"I know," she replied. "I don't expect you to live by my example, William. I am not the perfect example."

"No," he agreed. "But you have taught all of us things. It's time you trusted us to take our own lessons from you rather than extending them to us. Mother, I am not rebuking the knowledge you have given me. I am not trying to piss over everything you've ever told me. I am learning from you."

She gave him a long, quizzical look that didn't seem to quite grasp his meaning.

He would have to phrase this so, so carefully if he didn't want to break her.

"How much better would you feel now, had you forgiven people rather than ruined them?"

She stared incredulously at him.

"Had you forgiven Violet, had you forgiven Danele, Verity, had you not ruined everyone you thought needed ruining, had you not sacrificed pieces of your humanity in order to ensure they weren't a threat? A threat to what, mother? What did they threaten that wouldn't withstand it? How much happier would you feel now, had you just let your anger go and not let it burn the life out of people who never intended to hurt you?"

Her face drained of colour, and she simply continued looking at him. The hands around her teacup were white, and no doubt had she his physical strength, it would have mimicked the previous evening's shattering.

He could read the pain he'd just caused her all across her face, and though he instantly regretted it, he knew his anguish the previous evening had been of her doing. He knew that at some point, if he wanted to be free of her, he was going to have to bite back when she bit him.

"I will not become you," he asserted. "I will not become a person people love and trust only to realise in their last moment that they've made a horrid mistake in trusting you to be anything but a cold, cruel politician. I will not spend my elder years suffering for my decisions. I will not have to walk empty halls with skinless lovers shrieking at me, I will not have to comprehend my own jaded vision."

Mahogany half-curls lowered along with her gaze, eyelids slowly closing to kiss lashes down against skin. Pools of unstreaked tears gathered between them, and sat as little lakes underneath her brows.

"I will learn from your mistakes," was his final thrust at her, and then he turned to go. He stopped before the door. "I will work with you on selecting a wife. I will wear whatever ridiculous frills you want me to wear. I will give you endless reams of grandchildren and ensure everyone knows my success would never have existed without you. But if I find out you've so much as breathed in the wrong way around Penny, I will bring it crashing down on both of us. She is my only condition for surrendering to your will."

And then he was gone. The door closed, and left Mereavus with the skinless spirits, whose ether was disturbed by her breath when she whispered in a particularly sorrowful voice;

"That's my boy."