She spun to him. “You named my husband. Do you recognize him?”
The prisoner didn’t even bother to look. “We never met. I only know he had access to the mines.”
From the far side of the room, Atsadi said, “Everyone has access.”
Technically, that was true, though it was limited outside the assigned miners. Atsadi, being an architect, had free range of them all.
Atsadi’s gaze shifted to Fala. “Cut me open and apply the scorchbane. I have nothing to confess to. You will see.”
Shadi pulled Kai aside and kept her tone low. “We must consider all possibilities.”
“What other possibilities could there be? Atsadi has been named. It is done.”
The words tasted bitter rolling off her tongue.
Shadi shook her head. “The Eternal One is a liar, too, then? She said you should trust him. This commander has never seen him, and Usti is clever enough to know what this lie would do?—”
“How can you, of all people, stand in support of him? You have hated this union from the second it was announced. Here is your chance to annul it.Take it,” she finished on a hissed breath.
Take him from us, she wanted to beg. Take the choice from her handsbecause she didn’t want to decide this on her own. It was too hard. It hurt too much.
Shadi shifted weight to her back foot. “I cannot take what the gods have given. He is yours for a reason we cannot see yet.” To her consorts, she said, “We will hold Atsadi here until this has been resolved. No one else needs to hear of this. Not yet.”
Fala wiped a tear from her face but lengthened her spine. “His family will question his absence.”
“Then we will have to work fast,” Shadi said. “It is the only thing we can do.”
Atsadi offered another solution. “If you wish for more time, hide Fala and Kai as well. It will be assumed we have stolen away to consummate our union in private.”
Kai’s stomach turned, but she nodded. “He’s right.”
There was space for them all here. They wouldn’t have the comforts of home, but they would have privacy. And she would be near enough to keep an eye on her prisoners.
Shadi squeezed Kai’s hand. “I will get to the bottom of this. I swear it.”
Kai tore her hand away. “Do what you must. I’m going to find my answers elsewhere.”
She strode for the exit, passing Atsadi, who watched her every move.
“Kai,” he implored.
Like a fish on a hook, she rocked to a stop and slowly followed the lure of his voice. “What?”
Atsadi’s head cocked to the side and lines burrowed deep grooves through the tattoo between his brows. “I never broke my word to you. Please.”
“Please, what?” she asked, but her voice cracked on the last word.
“Please trust me.”
Kai snapped free from his gaze and started for the exit. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
She didn’t know what she was sorry for—doubting him, believing him, or loving him at all.
Kai didn’t simply climb the steps to the Unseen Clan’s hexagonal chamber—she tore up them with her fists in tight balls and her breath seething.
Trust.
Trust.
