True to her word, Drake is unmolested as he leaves the Throne room, except for the weight of the people's eyes upon him.

Discreetly he is watched so that he can not just leave, but instead finds himself back in the quarters that he was assigned so that he might refresh himself there.

Drake returns to the rooms that have been assigned to him and spends the time waiting by doing a trump card reading. He has the cards laid out on the small corner table where he's been sitting in a chair.

It's a mix mash sort of reading, lots of intimations but no definitive answers. Eric and Llewella are featured predominantly in the future, which is not surprising, and Llewella could also represent Rebma. Random crosses Drake, and Corradina sits in his hopes and fears.

Final outcome: damn, it's Thirteen. The Tower. Right side up at least.

An accomplished poker player himself, Drake lays out the spread with the careless looking ease of a card shark, fast and all at once, saving analysis until every card is played. But then one card slips out of his hands accidentally, landing face down and sideways.

Drake might pause to stare at it, this unexpected and uninvited presence.

Then he will remember Brand remarking on such 'accidents', years and years ago before Diomedes was even born. Don't ignore them, he said, and Fiona concurred with him. Peeking underneath, Drake finds that it's the Wheel of Fortune. Upside down, sideways, it's presence is.. cryptic.

Drake makes a note of the reading. Some of it makes a certain amount of sense, some of it doesn't, but he files it away for future reference. It's possible the information may help fill in some blanks at an opportune time.

He's pouring himself another drink when the knock on the door happens.

"Come in," Drake calls out, glass in hand.

The handle turns slowly and the door swings all the way open revealing Moire on the other side. She hasn't changed from Court except for a very thin and sheer shawl which she's draped around her shoulders. She peers around the room silently before stepping delicately across the threshold. Turning to look back at a Royal Guard who has escorted, she murmurs that she'll be fine, and pushes the door closed.

For her part, Moire notices that Drake's uniform jacket is hooked around the back of the chair where he was sitting. He's loosened and opened the collar of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves. He's still limping a little bit.

He turns with glass in hand and makes a bow. It's a formal rather than courtly bow. It marks her entrance into his rooms as a sovereign in her own realm with respect; nothing more, nothing less. With that formality over, Drake becomes more informal once again.

"Join me?" he asks, holding up his now full glass, so Moire can see what it is and make her own choice of the same or something different. "I imagine you've had as rotten a day as I have. Probably worse."

Moire settles herself on one end of a couch, her little feet on the floor but legs tucked a little beneath her. She doesn't rush to speak, but appears to consider her next words carefully. She sighs softly when she finally makes up her mind.

"I have made my feelings known," she begins, "and for better or for worse, in front of my entire Court. That was my decision this afternoon, and I accept it. I also realize as a son of Amber, and just as a 'man', I'm not going to shame you into saying you don't want to say. You'll stand with your back to the Gates of Hell, if that's your choice. So I'm prepared to just pass judgment right now and tell you what I'm going to do to you." Her long eyelashes flutter as she looks away for a second. "So that you can just get on with it."

Drake walks over slowly. He deposits the drink onto the table in front of her, or her hand, as she indicates. He's listening. He sits on the couch beside her. Not too close, but not too far away, either. He holds his own glass in his hand, but regards Moire closely.

But then Moire looks back up and meets Drake's gaze once more, and he can feel a definite strength to this woman. "I've spent countless years trying to make Random suffer, only to find out in the last few days that he may have been nothing but a symptom of something or someone else..."

He winces at that, but doesn't look away. Moire sees an emotion there that she is not used to seeing in Drake - genuine regret.

"...But I don't have enough rage or tears to start all over with you," she says quietly. "You have a right to be heard before I act, so I'm here.. for *you*, Drake," she says his name with familiarity, acknowledging for the first time that they were once acquainted. "Not for me."

"Would you like to talk to about it, or shall I just finish this and go?"

"Really," Drake begins honestly, "I don't want to talk about it. For my own benefit. I've spent years dodging it, locking it away, not pondering it, going out of my way to eradicate the memory. Funny that," he remarks, "considering the man who brought me back here again. But I can't eradicate her memory. She's still here. And every time I start talking about her, I end up lying. Mostly to myself."

He takes a hearty swallow of his drink. "But you deserve to know. Personally, I'd rather you didn't, because it's not pretty. I'd like to tell you that I was young, inexperienced, didn't know the value of what we had...But that's the lie. I knew exactly what I was doing. Your daughter..." Drake pauses. He drains the rest of his glass as he comes close to saying her name. He turns the glass over in his hand, pondering the way the water gleams against it and not looking back at Moire for the longest moment. He remembers Morganthe.

At last, he speaks again. "Your daughter was the one who was young and inexperienced. She was the one who was a joy to be around, uncomplicated as yet by cynicism or acquainted with grief. She was everything that someone else...wasn't."

Drake turns his head slowly to regard Moire again. "I don't tell you this part of my own story as an excuse. But maybe I can fill in some of the gaps, some of your questions about the part I played, so you can have the whole picture of your daughter again. It really is the very least I can do.

"This other someone and I...we're not good for each other. We know that. We don't agree on anything. Never have. We argue all the time. Either she's with someone else, or I'm with someone else. And heaven help us if we're both available at the same time. It never ends well. One of us abandons the other, just when it's starting to get interesting.

"Never gonna happen," he draws a deep breath. "That ship sailed a long time ago.

"Your daughter was a breath of fresh air, breathed into that situation, just when I needed one. I didn't want any strings. Didn't want to get tied down, but I wanted something different. Something...less convoluted and more genuine. I'm a cynic at heart. The jokes cover that up very neatly. I wear the mask so well, not even my own cousins know the real me. Sometimes, I don't even notice the mask I'm wearing myself. Those are the good days. I'd never known a carefree afternoon before I knew your daughter. I learned early about betrayal, watching for the knife in my back, maneouvring for position, learning how to take a gamble to make the big plays.

"Your daughter was none of that. She was different. I wanted something good for a change. Plain, old fashioned wholeness. Some goodness, somewhere. I needed to believe. I still do..."

He pauses and the frown gets harder, more pained. "Morganthe..." he says her name for the first time and shuts his eyes. "She believed. She believed in me. She was probably the first person I trusted in my entire life. I don't think I'd ever laughed and enjoyed myself that much before." Drake opens his eyes and smiles slightly at the memory before his expression fades back to the pained frown. "The fact that that I couldn't return the same to her brings me no end of...regret and something else..." he shakes his head. "I still don't know what that something else is."

He leans back to regard Moire with his own grief plainly visible in his gaze. "I do think it's possible for one of the blood of Amber to experience love. But I never have. Honestly, I don't ever expect to. That's the story. It's not much. It's not what I would have wanted to offer you. But it is, finally, the truth."