I had been trained to ignore it.
By my own mother.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
KADEN
I woke up on the floor of Lia’s wagon and thought she had finally planted an ax in my skull. Then I remembered at least some of last night, and my head hurt even more. When I saw she was gone, I tried to get up quickly, but that was as big a mistake as drinking the vagabond fireshine in the first place.
The world splintered into a thousand blinding lights, and my stomach lurched to my throat. I grabbed the wall for support and yanked down Reena’s curtains in the process. I made it out of the wagon and found Dihara, who told me Lia had just walked back down to the meadow. She sat me down and gave me some of her slimy antidote to drink and a pail of water to wash my face.
Griz and the others laughed at my state. They knew I didn’t usually drink more than a polite sip because of who I was trained to be, a prepared assassin. What made me lose my good sense last night? But I knew the answer to that. Lia. I’d never been on a journey across the Cam Lanteux as agonizing as this one.
I cleaned up and went to face her. She saw me coming across the meadow and stood. Was she glaring at me? I wished I could remember more of last night. She was still dressed in the garb of the vagabonds. It suited her far too well.
I stopped a few steps away. “Good morning.”
She looked at me, her head tilted and one brow raised. “You do know that it’s not morning?”
“Good afternoon,” I corrected.
She stared at me, saying nothing when I’d hoped she’d fill in the blanks. I cleared my throat. “About last night—” I didn’t know quite how to broach the subject.
“Yes?” she prompted.
I stepped closer. “Lia, I hope you know I didn’t get the wagon because I intended to sleep in there with you.”
She still said nothing. This wasn’t the day I wanted her to acquire the skill of holding her tongue. I yielded. “Did I do anything that—”
“If you had, you’d still be on the floor of that wagon, only you wouldn’t be breathing.” She sighed. “You were, for the most part, a gentleman, Kaden—well, as much as a drunken fool who barges in can be.”
I breathed deeply. One concern out of the way. “I may have said some things, though.”
“You did.”
“Things I should know about?”
“I imagine if you said them, you already know them.” She shrugged and turned her gaze to the river. “But you gave away no guarded Vendan secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I walked over and took her hand in mine. She looked up at me, surprised. I held it gently so she could pull away if she chose to, but she didn’t. “Kaden, please, let’s—”
“I’m not worried about Vendan secrets, Lia. I think you know that.”
Her lips pulled tight, and then her eyes blazed. “You said nothing I could understand. All right? Just drunken nonsense.”
I didn’t know if I could really believe her. I knew what fireshine could do to a tongue, and I also knew the words I said in my head a hundred times a day against my will when I looked at her. And then there were the things about myself that I wanted no one to know.
She met my gaze, her eyes resolute, her chin raised the way she always held it when her mind was racing. I had studied every gesture, every blink, every nuance of her, all the language that was Lia in all the miles we had traveled, and with every bit of strength I had, I returned my hand to my side. A throb pierced my temples, and I squinted.
A wicked smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Good. I’m glad to see you’re paying for your excesses.” She nodded toward the river. “Let’s go get you some chiga weed. It grows along the banks. Dihara said it’s good for pain. This will be my thank-you for getting me the carvachi. It was a kindness.”
I watched her turn, watched the breeze catch her hair and lift it. I watched her walk away. I didn’t hate all royals. I didn’t hate her.
I followed after her and we walked along the banks, first up one side, then crossing on slick rocks and walking back down the other. She showed me the chiga weed and plucked several stalks as we walked, peeling back the outer leaves and breaking off a four-inch piece.
“Chew,” she said, handing it to me.
I looked at it suspiciously.
“It’s not poison,” she promised. “If I were trying to kill you, I’d find a much more painful way to do it.”
I smiled. “Yes, I suppose you would.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
RAFE
“Are you going to tell us or not?” Jeb gnawed on a bone, savoring every last bit of flavor from the first fresh meat we’d had in days, and then threw it in the fire. “Does she have the gift?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You spent half the summer with her, and you didn’t find out?”
Orrin snorted. “He was too busy putting his tongue down her throat to ask questions.”
They all laughed, but I shot Orrin a glare. I knew it was meant in jest—in their own way, an approval, counting me as a man who had hunted down a girl and bent her to my will. But I knew the truth. It was nothing like that. If anyone had been bent and broken, it was me. I didn’t like them talking about her that way. She would one day be their queen. At least I prayed she would be.
“What’s she like, this girl we’re going to get back?” Tavish asked.
I owed them that much, a few answers, a glimpse of Lia. They were risking their lives, coming along with few questions asked, embarking on the most grueling ride they’d ever endured. These answers they had earned. I was also grateful for the way Tavish said it—get back—never questioning whether we would accomplish our purpose. I needed that now. Even if we were spare in number, Sven had gotten the best of a dozen regiments. They were trained in all the duties and weaponry of a soldier, but each had his special strengths.
Though Orrin played crude, his skill with a bow was refined and unquestioned. His aim, even through wind and distance, was precise, and he could maintain the onslaught of three men. Jeb was skilled at silent attacks. He had an arresting smile and unimposing manner, but that was the last thing any of his victims noticed about him before he snapped their neck. Tavish was soft-spoken and sure. While others bragged, he downplayed his accomplishments, which were many. He wasn’t the strongest or quickest of the ranks, but he was the most calculating. He made every move count toward victory. We had all met and trained together as pledges.
I, too, had my strengths, but their consummate skills were a matter of fact in the field, whereas they had seen mine only in practice. Except for Tavish. We shared a secret between us—the time I killed eight men in the space of ten minutes. I came away from it with a hefty gash in my thigh that Tavish himself had had to stitch because that had to remain a secret as well. Not even Sven was aware of that night, and he knew almost everything about me.
I surveyed the four faces waiting for me to say something. Even Sven, who had thirty years on all of us and usually showed little interest in the idle chat of soldiers around a campfire, seemed to be waiting for some details about Lia.
“She’s nothing like the ladies of court,” I said. “She doesn’t fuss about clothing. Most of the time, if she wasn’t working in the tavern, she wore trousers. Ones with holes in them.”
“Trousers?” Jeb said in disbelief. His mother was master seamstress of the queen’s court, and he enjoyed the delights of fashion himself when he wasn’t in uniform.
Sven sat forward. “She worked in a tavern? A princess?”
I smiled. “Serving tables and washing dishes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Sven asked.
“You never asked.”
Sven grumbled something to himself and sat back.