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When I was locked in the Hold in Kandala, it felt like poetic justice. It shouldn’t feel like it now, but it does.
Wes. The name tugs at me, reminding me of nights in the Wilds with Tessa. Her quiet smile, her quick hands, her gentle manner. Her intelligence. Her bravery. I fell in love with her by moonlight.
If Weston Lark were real, he’d probably be dead already.
pulling my jacket tightly against myself. Not my jacket. Harristan’s jacket. I’ll never see my brother again.
It’s not the most humiliating thing I’ve ever done, but it likely ranks among the top five.
“I’m not watching you kill yourself.”
“If you’re breathing, you’re alive. If you’re alive, there’s still hope. Don’t undo it on your own.”
“We need to get back to Kandala,” I say quietly. “But if we get out of this cage, I’m going for Tessa first. I’m not going back without her.”
I’ve had to play a thousand roles to help my brother hold Kandala together. I can play one more. I take a breath. Still breathing.
“I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.” I don’t smile back. “Maybe you should’ve picked a fight days ago.” “Welcome back, Your Highness.”
The whole time, I imagined holding Rian under the water until he drowned.
I need to reverse time. I need Corrick back. Sometimes I remember his voice so clearly it’s like he’s beside me, and the memory is so painful that I think my chest is caving in. Please, my love.
I spend a lot of time staring at the water, waiting. I’m not sure what I’m waiting for. It’s not like Corrick is coming back from the dead.
I swallow thickly, remembering how I practically begged Corrick to get on that ship. I listened to Rian’s stories of having acres of Moonflower, of the way he wanted to help his people, and I fell for every lie. But apparently no one else did. “So you never trusted Rian,” I say quietly. “No.”
“Are you in pain?” He glances away from the water to say, “No. But you were.”
Lord, Harristan. Is writing letters the best you can do? You might as well just turn yourself in. My brother is going to return from Ostriary and find the kingdom in shambles.
I swallow, and my throat is tight. I don’t know why the loyalty takes me by surprise, but it does. I barely knew their first names.
The kingdom is falling apart. I don’t deserve that kind of loyalty.
I grit my teeth and pull hard on the oars. “I have other skills.” I didn’t mean for it to sound coy or taunting, but some of the pirates whistle. Lina laughs from behind me, and then her breath is hot on my neck, her body pressed against my spine. “Is that so?” she purrs, her fingers tracing up the outside of my arm. “I can’t wait to hear.”
Her voice drops to a whisper as she traces a finger over my lips suggestively, then moves to stroke a hand down my chest. “What did he like you to do for him?” I grab hold of her wrist, spinning her around so quickly that I hear muscles tear—or bones crack. She cries out, but I jerk her back against my chest, gripping her throat with enough force that I could break her neck.
I have to shove aside thoughts of Tessa when I’m like this. She’s a weight in my heart that I feel every time it beats, but she hates this part of me.
Tessa would hate everything about this. I know, my love. I’m trying.
Tessa, I’m coming. Forgive me.
It feels like forever since I was last hiding in the darkness, and it’s weird to do it without Tessa beside me. I’d know her emotion without her having to say a word, whether she was feeling brave or frightened, angry or eager. I’d know the pattern of her breathing, the scent of her skin, the meaning of every indrawn breath or frown.
I’d give anything to have her here right now.
Forgive me, Tessa. We’re going to have to act.
Maybe it’s because he reminds me so much of an older version of my best friend, but I don’t think I can kill a doddering man who says things like you’re not a gull to an intruder.
I hear Tessa’s voice in my head. You could have been kind, and you could have been gentle, and you could’ve explained.
Lord. I run my hands across my face and wish I could undo so much about the last few weeks. Honestly, so much about the last few years.
“I knew you’d fail,” she says. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.” “The fact that you’ll never forget that I could have killed you with my bare hands, but you need two people to hold me down while you do it with a knife.”
“I just feel like people should do the right thing when they have the chance,” I say quietly. Then I scowl and kick at the rocks. “Ugh. Corrick always used to tell me that’s naive.”
I’m glad for all the distractions, because every step I take fills me with a different emotion. Longing. I miss Corrick so very much. Fury. I hate Rian for everything he did.
But then my fingers brush that dagger, and the steel is cold against my fingertips. Mind your mettle. It’s like Corrick’s voice is there in my head, cool and stabilizing, and I hold my breath against all that emotion. My entire body is tense, my stomach rolling, but I force back the tears, and they obey.
And I hate that the instant I see him, I’m reminded that Corrick might have seemed like an adversary in the beginning—but he was doing exactly the same thing.
All I keep remembering is Corrick on the deck one moment, and gone from my life in the next. Again.
Rian steps close to the wagon. “I’m not your enemy, Tessa.” That finally gets my attention, and I meet his eyes. “Your entire country is now my prison, Your Majesty. If I’m not your enemy, then find a way to send me home.”
I keep waiting for this to hit me like a fresh round of loss, but maybe there’s been too much. The sadness is already too thick, and there’s no room for more.
“Are we going to argue over semantics again, Quint?” His eyes hold mine, gleaming in the flickering light. “If it pleases you.”
My heart gives a little stutter. I have to look back at the page because I don’t know what to do with it. I feel flushed and uncertain and off-balance, and I haven’t felt like this since . . . I don’t know when.
But before the door falls closed, I notice Quint flip open the little book, just turning back the cover to that list of dates. At the bottom, he adds one more.
I couldn’t ask them to risk their lives if I’m not willing to risk my own.
Victory breeds hope, and there’s precious little of that. I need to nurture it, not squash it.
He’s trying so hard to protect you, but you have to know it’s destroying him. I didn’t know it was like this. I watched it time and time again, but I didn’t know. I should have known.
“I saw you crying,” she whispers. “Are you very sad?” She’s so young, and the words shouldn’t pierce me like an arrow, but they do.
When his hands land on my bare chest, it’s more than a jolt. It’s a lit match. A bonfire. An inferno. His eyes are full of stars, and his hands are so warm, and even though there are a million feelings I should keep buried, a million things I should be doing, I’ve simply run out of strength to care.
I seize the lapels of his jacket, and I press my mouth to his. If he’s surprised, it doesn’t show. I’m the one who’s surprised, because I was ready for there to be an edge to his response, a belligerence, but instead there’s a . . . a gentleness. A contentment, like this moment was a foregone conclusion.
“And then you cheapen it by calling it an act of pity, you insult me by treating me like a whore, and then you hurt me by calling it a mistake.”
“Every time you smile, it’s a reminder of how much of that you lock away. And that’s what I was falling for.”
“Good.” His fingers slip to the cord keeping my trousers knotted in place, and he gives it a tug. “As I said half an hour ago, these are filthy and damp, and you must be freezing.” His teeth graze the skin of my neck. “So let’s have them off.”
He was writing down the dates when I smiled. Good lord. It’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. If I’d ever found out, he wouldn’t have lasted one more second in the palace.
