The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles, #2)

by Mary E. Pearson

I’ll get us both out of this. Rafe had to be questioning his promise to me now.

“What if you hadn’t found Princess Arabella at all? What if you’d only found me, a tavern maid named Lia?” “Then I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be in Terravin kissing the most infuriating girl I ever laid my eyes on, and not even two kingdoms could tear me away.” He stepped closer and hesitantly cradled my face in his hands. “But the fact is, I came for you, Lia, no matter who or what you are, and I don’t care what mistakes I made or what mistakes you made. I’d make every single one again, if that was the only way to be with you.”

“I want to explain everything. I want to spend a lifetime with you making up for the lies I told, but right now we don’t have time. They could be back for either of us any minute. We have to get our stories straight and make our plans.”

A lifetime. My thoughts turned liquid, the warmth of the word lifetime flooding through me. The hopes and dreams that I had pai...

“I have help coming,” he said, already moving on. “We just have to hold out until they get here.” He was confident, sure of himself the way a prince might be. Or a well-trained soldier. How had I not seen this side of him before? His troops were coming. “How many?” I asked. “Four.” I felt my hopes rise. “Four thousand?” His expression sobered. “No. Four.” “You mean four hundred?” He shook his head. “Four? Total?” I repeated. “Lia, I know how it sounds, but trust me, these four—they’re the best.”

A tear. As if that could make a difference.

I reminded myself of the look in her eyes when she first saw me before we crossed the bridge, her gaze that tore me sternum to soul, the one that said we were all that mattered, and I promised myself as I spit blood onto the floor, that one day I would see that look in her eyes again.

You haven’t made it this far for nothing.

The wind, time, it circles, repeats, some swaths cutting deeper than others.

This is Prince Jaxon Tyrus Rafferty kissing my hand, and I realized it mattered not one whit to me. He was still the person I had fallen in love with, crown prince or farmer. He was Rafe, and I was Lia, and everything else that we were to other people didn’t matter to us. I didn’t need to fall in love with him again. I had never fallen out.

The before and after of my life cleaved in two that day, in ways I could never have imagined.

I found no satisfaction in the fact that I had become as accomplished at deception as Kaden. All I tasted on my lips was my carefully calculated lie.

“Your hair,” he said. “Comb it. Do something with it. Don’t shame the vest you wear.”

That hit too close to home

We’re all part of a greater story too. One that transcends the soil, the wind, time.

I could taste the desperation in her kisses, and she whispered about the distant hills of Venda she had seen, endless hills we could get lost in. “For a few days if we’re lucky,” I said. “That’s not enough. I want a lifetime with you.”

It wasn’t just any child that Gaudrel told this history to. It was Morrighan.

Only one thing felt certain in my heart. Three women were torn apart. Three women who were once family.

“The rules of reason build towers that reach past the treetops. The rules of trust build towers that reach past the stars.”

“You,” he said. “The Komizar said if she didn’t convince everyone that she had embraced the marriage, you’d start losing fingers. Or more. She’s marrying him to save you.” I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes. For you. Only for you.

I thought about the last several days and all the times I’d had to restrain my natural impulses, the agonizing waiting when all I wanted to do was act, weighing the satisfaction of a victorious moment against a lifetime with Lia, calculating every move and word to make sure it gave her and us the best possible chance. If there was a torture in hell crafted specifically for me, this was it.

“But, Rafe, if things don’t go as planned, if you have to leave without me, promise me you will.” I could tell he was about to protest but then he paused, chewing his lip. “I will,” he said, “if you promise to do the same.”

“It was worth it, Lia,” he said. “Every mile, every day. I’d do it all again. I’d chase you across three continents if that’s what it took to be with you.”

“But you’re everything I want. Remember that. I love you, Lia. Not a title. And not because a piece of paper says I should. Because I do.”

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.

We’ve had a terrible start—it doesn’t mean we can’t have a better ending.

Taking another life, even a guilty one, should never be easy. If it were, we’d be little more than animals.

My thoughts just kept going back to Lia. I’d had her. I’d had her in my arms and then we were tumbling in the falls and she slipped from my grasp. I’d had her, and the river ripped her away.

“Don’t leave me, Lia. Promise you won’t leave me.” She reached up and wiped the tears from my face. “Rafe,” she whispered, “we made it this far. What’s another thousand miles or two?”

We made it this far. I didn’t even know where we were. We were lost on a riverbank with miles of dark forest surrounding us, but I scooped one arm under her knees and the other carefully behind her back and stood. I kissed her one more time, my lips gently resting on hers, trying to bring back their color. And I began walking. A thousand miles, or two, I would carry her all the way to Dalbreck if I had to. No one would pry her from my arms again. We already had three steps behind us.