I don’t love her. She’s nothing to me. I was just using her to get to where I needed to go.
So that’s why he didn’t want to make love last night. It had nothing to do with being in the dungeon. Sure, he was aroused, but he was just a man with a man’s needs. That’s all. That’s why he kissed me. And he stopped himself because he didn’t really want it. He doesn’t really wantme.
What a fucking bastard.
I grip the edge of the table so tightly, my fingers ache. I should have married one of the farmers who propositioned me back in Evandale.
Dear goddess, is this real? I can’t breathe, can’t move.
I don’t love her.She’s nothing to me.His words echo in my head, empty and flat.
I can’t believe it. I thought I knew him. But I don’t know everything, do I? It’s now clear there are other reasons for his journey—reasons he didn’t share with me, like looking for the Vindar. Even as he put my life in danger again and again—likenow—he was lying to me.
A lie of omission is still a lie. He definitely drank the same henbane water that I did. I saw him do it. He can’t help but tell the truth.
“Well, nowthatis a twist,” Namreth says. “Your engagement was just a ruse to get here?” He looks at me, his smile only widening, as if the drama unfolding is too delicious to be true.
Dietan actually smiles back. “Could anyone ever really believe I fell for a woman like her? Does shelooklike a princess?”
Namreth beams and turns to me. “Did you know?”
My entire body is shaking as I vacillate between disbelief and anguish. “I knew we weren’t really engaged, but…”
“Oh, no,” Namreth says with false shock, then laughs. “My dear, you… You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
The truth is there, right there, on my tongue. I grimace, trying to form a lie, trying keep it in, to protect myself, but the henbane is too strong. “Yes,” I spit like it’s a curse. The urge to cry burns at the back of my nose, but I hold it at bay, refusing to break down in front of these pricks.
Dietan remains impassive. He shrugs as if my feelings are inconsequential. I suppose they are. I suppose they’ve always been. How could I have been so fucking stupid?
I don’t love her.
His words carve themselves into my bones, breaking me apart and reassembling me all wrong.
Last night, when he kissed me and pressed his body against mine, when he held me to keep me warm and I looked at his face, at his smile, his kind eyes, the gentle slope of his cheek against the dim dungeon light, I thought I knew him. I thought we’d become something more to each other than mere traveling partners, that our bond had grown deeper than the roots of a mountain.
But I was wrong.
So wrong.
I was right about one thing, though. From the moment I met him, I saw him for what he is. A liar. I should’ve remembered that. I should’ve known I couldn’t trust a prince, a man, him.
The first time I saw Dietan in the Raven’s Beak wearing that ludicrous disguise, I knew everything I needed to know about him, yet I was swept up in this grand fantasy. I’m not my sisters, who think the world is theirs. Only a dumbass fool would believe that someone like him could ever love someone like me.
All these years as a spinster should have prepared me for reality, but I foolishly threw all those hard-fought lessons away, falling for the very fairy tale I’ve always said was bullshit.
Against my will, a single tear rolls down my cheek, and I lower my head, unable to meet either man’s eyes any longer.
“What’s wrong, dear?” Namreth asks, his lips curling into a grin over the rim of his cup. “Is something the matter?”
“Yes,” I say, because the damned poison is making me answer honestly. I want to sayno, nothing’s the matter, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass, but I can’t.
“By now, you probably realize that what you’ve been drinking this whole time isn’t water,” Namreth says. “It’s henbane. Delicious, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I reply, because it’s true.
“It’s a local delicacy. Secrets are quite the currency in our quiet little kingdom. Do you like it?”
I try to force myself not to answer, but the longer I try to fight it, the worse the itch in my head becomes. I want to rip off the top of my skull and dig my fingers into my brain to stop myself from speaking, but instead I let out a ragged, “No, I don’t like it one bit.”
