Sairis's POV
If someone had told Sairis a month ago that he would one day sit in the king's office and hear his family's name spoken about with innocence attached to it, he would not have believed it.
He had spent years telling himself to be realistic, to gather what evidence he could and do what he could with it and not expect too much from the truth even when he found it.
The world did not always reward the truth. He had learned that early.
And yet here he was.
Sairis had expected to feel something when this moment arrived. He had imagined it more than once during the long and quiet hours of the investigation, lying awake in his room turning things over.
He had thought he might cry, shout. He had thought he might need to leave the room out of anger. He had thought something large and significant would move through him, or perhaps he would announce who he really was; Sairis Locke.
