At the same time, I couldn’t forget the people of Venda who had taken me in either. They had adopted me as one of their own. Nourished me. I was Vendan now, and I knew their need was great. We were a kingdom that struggled every day at the hands of those who showed no compassion. Didn’t this land deserve some measure of justice? And the answer to that I knew was an undeniable yes.
I won’t let any harm come to them.
I had made a promise to Lia I wasn’t sure I could keep.
The meetings were running long. Governor Obraun was remarkably easy to sway, agreeing to double the loads from his mines in Arleston. Almost too agreeable. The other governors balked, claiming they couldn’t squeeze blood from a stone. The Komizar assured them they could.
You have an agreement. How wonderful for you.
“Nothing to say, Assassin?”
I looked up, and Malich smirked at me from across the table, delighting in catching me in other thoughts.
“We all have practice at squeezing blood from stone. We’ve done it for years. We can do it through one more winter.”
His smile faded while the Komizar’s grew, pleased that I had pushed the cause. He nodded, our long-held understanding reestablished.
CHAPTER SIXTY
PAULINE
We were waiting on the fringe of the citadelle plaza for Bryn and Regan, hanging in the shadows of the towering spruce, when a soldier galloped wildly past us. He fell from his horse at the foot of the steps, appearing half dead. A sentry rushed to his side, and the soldier said a few words we were too far away to hear, and then he passed out. The sentry disappeared into the citadelle as two guards lifted the soldier and carried him inside.
A crowd began to gather as word spread of the soldier. He had been identified as being from Walther’s platoon. Minutes passed and then an hour, and there was still no sign of Bryn or Regan.
By the time anyone emerged from the citadelle again, the square was full. The Lord Viceregent came out and stood at the top of the steps, his face stricken. He smoothed back his white-blond hair as if trying to compose himself—or perhaps wishing to postpone what he had to say. His voice cracked in his first few words, but then he gathered his strength and announced that Crown Prince Walther of Morrighan was dead, along with his platoon, butchered by the barbarians.
My knees weakened, and Berdi grabbed my arm.
Silence choked the crowd for a moment and then mother after mother, sister, father, wife, brother, fell to their knees. Their anguished wails filled the air, and then the queen appeared on the steps, thinner than I remembered, her face ashen. She walked into the crowd, and she wept with them. The Viceregent tried to offer comfort, but there was no consoling her or anyone else.
Finally I saw the brothers emerge and stop at the top of the steps. Their expressions were grim, their eyes hollow. There was no sign of the king, but then the Chancellor appeared on their heels. Gwyneth and I both tugged on our hoods to be sure we were thoroughly covered. The Chancellor’s face wasn’t stricken, but severe. He told everyone there was more bad news he had to share—news that would make their grief twice as hard to bear.
“We have news of Princess Arabella.” A hush fell, and sobs were choked back as everyone waited to hear what had become of her. “When she shirked her duty as First Daughter, she put us all in peril, and we see the fruit of that treachery with the death of Prince Walther and thirty-two of our finest soldiers. Now word comes that her betrayal runs even deeper. She is creating a new alliance with the enemy. It was part of her plan all along. She has forsaken us and announced her plans to marry the barbarian ruler to become the Queen of Venda.”
There was a collective sucking in of breaths. Disbelief. No, it wasn’t possible. But I looked at Bryn and Regan. Standing like statues, they made no attempt to defend their sister or discredit the Chancellor.
“It is declared,” he continued, “that from this moment forward, she is the most reviled enemy of the Kingdom of Morrighan. Her name will be stricken from all records, and if the gods should deliver her into our hands, she will be executed on sight for her crimes against the chosen Remnant.”
I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t possible.
Regan made eye contact with me at last, but his gaze was empty. He made no effort to show he didn’t believe it. Bryn’s head drooped, and he turned and walked back into the citadelle. Regan followed.
They were grieving for Walther. That had to be it. Surely, in their hearts, they knew it was a lie. She’d been abducted. I told them myself. I know what I saw and heard.
We walked back to our inn in shocked silence.
“She wouldn’t do it,” I finally said. “Lia would never join forces with the enemy against Morrighan. Never.”
“I know,” Berdi said.
My abdomen cramped, and I bent over, clutching myself. Berdi and Gwyneth were immediately at my sides, holding me in case I fell. “The baby’s just stretching,” I said and took a deep, calming breath.
“Let’s get you back to the inn,” Gwyneth said. “We’ll sort this out about Lia. There has to be some explanation.”
The cramp eased, and I straightened. I still had two months to go. Don’t come early, child. I’m not ready.
“Do you need to rest?” Berdi asked. “We can stop in this tavern and get you a bite to eat.”
I looked at the nearby tavern. It was tempting, but I only wanted to get back to—
I froze.
“What’s wrong?” Gwyneth asked.
Something caught my eye. I shook off their assistance and walked closer to the tavern, trying to get a better view through the window.
I blinked, trying to refocus again and again.
He’s dead.
Lia had told me. I heard her words as clearly as if she were saying them to me now. She had stared at her feet, and her words had run together in a quick, nervous string. His patrol was ambushed. The captain of the guard buried him in a distant field. His last words were of you—tell Pauline I love her. He’s dead, Pauline. He’s dead. He isn’t coming back.
But her eyes had darted away from mine time and again.
Lia had lied to me.
Because there he was, plain as day. Mikael was sitting in the tavern, an ale on one knee and a girl on the other.
The world spun, and I reached out to a lantern post to steady myself. I wasn’t sure what hit me harder, that Mikael was alive and well or that Lia, whom I had trusted like a sister, had deceived me so completely.
Berdi was at my side gripping my arm. “Do you want to go in?” she asked.
Gwyneth was there too, but she was looking through the window where I still stared. “No,” she said quickly. “She doesn’t want to go in. Not right now.”
And Gwyneth was right. I knew where to find him when I was ready, but I wasn’t ready now.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
The guards were escorting me down the corridor to Sanctum Hall when we heard footsteps coming our way. Hurried footsteps. Kaden rounded the corner into our hallway and stopped.
“Wait for her at the stairs,” he said, dismissing the guards. “I need to speak to the princess.”
They did as they were ordered, and he pulled me into a narrow dark passage. His eyes grazed over my cheek.
“It was only a clumsy fall, Kaden. Don’t make more of it than it is.”
He reached up, gently running his thumb beneath my cheekbone. His jaw clenched. “How long are we going to go on like this, Lia? When are you going to be honest with me?”
I saw the earnestness in his eyes, and I was surprised that my chest ached with wanting to tell him everything, but Rafe and I were too close to freedom now for the luxury of honesty. I still didn’t know what Kaden might do. His devotion to me was obvious, but his loyalty to Venda and the Komizar was proven.
“I’m not hiding anything from you.”
“What about the emissary? Who is he?”
It was more of an accusation than a question. I lifted my lip in revulsion. “
A liar and a manipulator. That’s all I know of him. I promise.”
“You give me your word.”
I nodded.
He was appeased. I saw it in his eyes and by the relieved breath rising in his chest. He believed for now that I wasn’t conspiring with the emissary. But his confidence in me was fleeting. He moved on to other suspicions.
“I know you don’t love the Komizar.”
“I already admitted that to you. Are we going to go through this again?”
“If you think marrying him will bring you power, you’re wrong. He won’t share it with you.”
“We’ll see.”
“Dammit, Lia! You’re spinning a lie. I know you are. You told me you would, and I believe you. What are you up to?”
I remained silent.
He sighed. “Don’t do it. It won’t go well. Trust me. You are going to be staying here.”
I tried to show no response, but the way he said it made my blood stop cold in my chest. There was no anger in his tone or taunting. Just fact.
He stepped away, raking his fingers through his hair, then leaned back against the opposite wall. His eyes burned with need. “I heard your name,” he explained. “It floated on the wind, whispering to me before I ever got to Terravin. And then that day on the tavern porch when you bandaged my shoulder, I saw us, Lia. Together. Here.”
My mouth went dry. He didn’t need to say more. With those few words, it added up—our time across the Cam Lanteux when he seemed to sense things before they happened, my mother’s own words racing back to me when I had asked her about sons having the gift. It’s happened, but not to be expected.
Kaden had the gift. At least some small degree of it.
“Have you always known you had it?”
“It’s part of the reason why my father gave me away. I used it against his wife in anger. I’ve denied the gift ever since, but there are times—” He shook his head. “Like when I was coming for you. I knew it was the gift, even if I didn’t want to admit it. And then I saw us. Here.”
My heart jumped when I thought of my own dreams of Rafe leaving me behind. They seemed to confirm what Kaden thought he saw.
We had to be wrong. It wasn’t what I felt in my heart.
“And we are here,” I said breathlessly. “For now. Seeing us here together isn’t much of a revelation.”
“Not now. I saw us a long time from now. I had a baby in my arms.”
“And I had a dream last night that I could fly. It doesn’t mean I’ll grow wings.”
“Dreams and knowing are two different things.”
“But sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. Especially when you haven’t nurtured the gift. You’re as inexperienced at this as I am, Kaden.”
“True,” he said, and stepped closer. “But I know this with certainty. I love you, Lia. I will always love you. Remember that tomorrow when you bind your life forever to the Komizar’s.… I love you, and I know you care for me.”
He turned and left, and I closed my eyes. My head pounded with my deceits and lies, because the gods help me, I knew I shouldn’t, but I cared about Kaden too—only not in the way that he so desperately wanted me to. Nothing, not even time or a gift, could change that.
I saw us, Lia. Together. Maybe he just wanted to see us and conjured an image in his own mind, the way I had daydreamed about one boy or another countless times back in Civica. I opened my eyes, staring at the opposite wall. I wished that love could be simple, that it was always given and returned in the same measure, equally and at the same time, that all the planets aligned in a perfect way to dispel all doubts, that it was easy to understand and never painful.
I thought of all the boys I had chased in the village, longing for some hint of affection from them, the stolen kisses, the boys I was sure I was in love with, of Charles, who led me on but ultimately had no feelings for me. And then Rafe came along.
He changed everything. He consumed me in a different way—the way his eyes made everything jump inside of me when I looked into them, his laughter, temper, the way he sometimes struggled for words, the way his jaw twitched when he was angry, the thoughtful way he listened to me, his incredible restraint and resolve in the face of overwhelming odds. When I looked at him, I saw the easygoing farmer he could have been, but I also saw the soldier and prince that he was.
We’ve had a terrible start—it doesn’t mean we can’t have a better ending.
The way he filled me with hope.
But I couldn’t ignore the rocky path of love either. I thought of my parents, of Pauline, of Walther and Greta, even Calantha, and I wondered if love ever ended well. I knew only one thing with certainty—it couldn’t end the way Kaden hoped it would.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
The wind moaned through crevices and battered doors and shutters like a giant fist. Let me in. It was the kind of storm that sounded like it would never end. I’m here for you. This was snow. This was winter.
Two fires roared in Sanctum Hall, one at either end, but cold drafts still swirled at our feet. I watched for Venda, for a reassurance that I wasn’t mad, that Rafe’s plan of crossing the river wasn’t insanity itself, but the shadows were only shadows.
Rafe sat just a few seats down from me, and we all waited for the Komizar and the Rahtan to arrive. The chievdars bellowed among themselves as usual, but the absence of the Rahtan seemed to set the governors on edge. They were unusually subdued. None mentioned my cheek, but I saw them looking at it. “It was the stairs,” I finally blurted out, then caught myself, repeating more quietly, “I fell on the stairs.” I wanted no scenes, no words, nothing to raise the ire of the few governors who had been kind to me. Governor Faiwell shot me a brief, questioning glance. The low, stifled conversations resumed. Governor Umbrose sat staring into his mug, looking slightly dejected—or drunk. Was it their Council meetings today that had dampened their usual revelry? And then we heard the faint echo of footsteps.
I had never heard the Rahtan all approaching together. There was an ominous rhythm to their steps and a chilling ring to the weapons at their sides. It wasn’t that they walked in unison but with a deliberate demanding beat. Never fail. That’s what I heard.
“What’s this?” the Komizar asked as they entered. “Has someone died?”
There was an effort to fill the quiet pall. Instead of sitting in clusters as they usually did, the Rahtan spread out, dragging seats between governors. Kaden sat adjacent to me, and the Komizar took his place on my left. He didn’t bother with the pretense of a kiss—other matters seemed to occupy his thoughts. He called for ale and food, and the servants began bringing platters to the table.
Calantha sat at the other end of the table, almost as if she wanted to distance herself from Rafe and me. Was she already regretting her acts? Was she seeing the Komizar with the eyes of yesterday again? And more important, would she expose her transgression? Maybe she had already removed the knife from my room. I prayed Aster had hidden it well. Only when it was time for me to go would I dare to carry it.
The platter of bones was set before me for the blessing. I nearly spilled it as I lifted the heavy tray.
“Wedding jitters, Princess?” the Komizar asked.
I pasted on my most serene face. “On the contrary, sher Komizar. I’m eager for tomorrow. My fingers are only numb from the cold. I haven’t yet grown accustomed to your climate.”
I held the bleached sacrifice over my head for what I hoped was the last time and stared at the sooty ceiling of the Ancients. In an instant, I saw the sky and stars beyond, a universe spreading wide, with a long memory—and that’s when I heard the cries. Across time, thin as blood swirling in a river, I heard the cry of death, the grieving howls of mothers falling to their knees, the weeping of my own mother. They knew. The news had reached Morrighan. Their sons were gone. The grief stole my strength, and I thought my knees would buckle.
“Be done with it,” the Komizar snapped impatiently under his breath. “I’m hungry.”
The platter shook in my hands, and I wanted to bash it into his head. Rafe leaned forward, catching my gaze, and I saw the strength in his eyes, the restraint, the message—hold on, we’re almost there.
I said the acknowledgment of sacrifice, and when I set the tray down, I kissed two fingers and lifted them to the gods, my mother’s cries still ringing in my ears. We’re almost there.
The rest of the meal was uneventful, for which I was grateful. Each quiet step brought us closer to tomorrow. But it was almost too quiet.
Kaden had hardly spoken a word of consequence through the whole meal, but as I started to push away from the table, he grabbed my hand. “What did you see, Siarrah?”
It was the first time he had ever called me that.
The Komizar snorted, but everyone at the table waited to hear my response.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Your lashes fluttered before the blessing. You gasped. What did you see?”
The truths may wish to be known, but now was not the time. Instead I twisted lies into something golden and glorious that I knew Kaden wanted to hear. Something I hoped would stop him from searching for the truth.
I looked at him warmly and smiled. “I saw myself, Kaden. Here. Many years from now.”
I let my gaze linger on his for a few moments more, and though I didn’t say the words aloud, I know he heard, I saw myself here with you.