Rene seized Solae’s hand and squeezed grateful for the comfort implicit in the offer. His mind raced with the potential implications of what they had just learned. Had someone in the Chastain family arranged his disgrace to forge a marriage alliance with his father. On the face of it, this seemed an insane risk as unless it were pulled off perfectly, the vengeance of the Empress would be swift and terrible. Young Mercedez Vilantre was, but having grown up watching people endure the mad whims of her father, she made rather a point of dealing out justice with a firm hand. If it came out that a noble family had conspired in the murder of a handmaiden, they might be stripped of titles, their property seized and the ring leaders imprisoned and executed. 

A failing noble family would gain much from an alliance with the Du Quentains, whose holdings, Rene knew, were vast. Though neither Alric nor his father had been particularly focused on the acquisition of wealth, the Du Quentains enjoyed hundreds of lucrative imperial monopolies, held tax rights on several of the core worlds of the Empire and even had their own colonies on the Western Marches, many of which were already high profitable. That kind of old money, focused as it was in a single bloodline was beyond that even most nobles could imagine. Rene’s father and grandfather were taciturn men, with no interest in showing off their wealth and power as many of their peers did, but it wasn’t exactly a secret either.

“It makes sense that the Chastains would want a marriage connection,” Rene said slowly, realising only after he spoke that he had been silent for long minutes. 

“But why would my father agree to it and why so soon after my arrest? He would have had to have..” Rene trailed off, the kernel of an idea growing in his mind, though not yet developed to a point he could articulate it. The Empress’s Justice. Rene had always assumed that his father had played a role in allowing him to escape custody long enough to enlist in the marines, banking on his status and connection with the Empress to shield him from harm, but what if that wasn’t what happened. What if his father had made a deal to save him, a deal that included taking another wife and producing an heir who would in turn, destroy Rene’s claim to his father's titles.  Such an agreement would leave him disinherited but alive and it would account for the unseemly speed of the union. That didn’t necessarily mean that the Chastains had been behind it of course, but they were an unusual choice for such a match, politically there were better candidates, one of the Hesperii or even one of the cadet branches of the the Vilantre family, someone who would bind the wealth and power of the Du Quentains to the Imperial family and preventing them from becoming the focus of a rival power block. 

It didn’t mean they were behind it, but someone had killed Amelia and framed Rene for it as so far the Chastains were the clear winners, they had been in position to make the match at the right time and they had had the political backing they needed to make it happen, that was even more suspicious if they were in the kind of financial trouble Solae indicated. They had to at least be involved. Something he couldn’t have known if he hadn’t met Solae, he realised. Their meeting and her knowledge were something the conspirators could never have counted on, it was a minor miracle he had ever even seen another noble much less one with the family connections to give him this intelligence. Ordinarily he would have been horrified to realize that this put her in more danger, or would if anyone involved found out about thier relationship, but given the events in the Eastern Cross at the moment, a threat from a cabal on Capella was a problem for another day. 

“He did it for me,” Rene breathed, realizing that Solae had been patiently silent while his mind wheeled through rings of conspiracy. In hindsight the conclusion was an obvious one. He had been escaped the custody of the Imperial Guard in the most secure area of the most secure world in the Empire. What were the odds that he could have made his way to a recruiting station without people deliberately turning a blind eye. Rene shivered and sweated as his body roiled with unfamiliar combinations of thoughts and feelings. Grimly he tried to lock down his emotions and regain his ordinary equilibrium.

“He must have done it in exchange for letting me enlist, and so that I didn’t have an ‘accident’ during training. That is the only explanation I can see,” he murmured.

“They had to have at least known it was going to happen…” he told Solae. The veins in his temple throbbed with anger even though he kept his face in a calm disciplined mask.

“Sir Rene, you heart level is elevated,” Mia commented in the tone of a hopeful flirt. Renes head swam as he stood up unsteadily. Thick walls of glass appeared to be closing around his mind and his vision narrowed. 

“We will know more once Mia has a chance to dig,” Rene said haltingly.

“Lady Solae, Sir Rene may be going into shock as a result of a combination of emotional trauma and the wounds he …” Blackness stole over Rene, cutting off the end of the sentence as he slumped into unconsciousness.