“I looked into your past,” Caden said.
Eva halted, her head tilting as she blinked at him. “I had assumed as much.”
He took Fallon’s safety very seriously. As soon as Eva had become someone of interest, Caden would have turned over every rock trying to see whether she presented a threat.
“Ollie never told you that some of the warband who found you also visited your village afterwards.”
Eva went still. No, he hadn’t. She cast her mind back, remembering how half the warband split-off from them only to rejoin them a few days later.
At the time, the Trateri had been too new and scary for her to ask questions. Ollie had told her it was normal behavior for the warriors, and she had believed him.
“It’s not every day one of our warbands finds a woman who elects to tagalong.” There was a slight quirk to Caden’s lips as he used Eva’s term. “It made them curious.”
And curious Trateri weren’t used to walking away.
“They arrived to find the village preparing to sacrifice another,” Caden said.
A sound like that of a wounded animal was ripped from Eva’s throat.
“They stopped it,” Caden assured her. “They saved the woman and put to death all those participating.”
Eva closed her eyes. “Who was it?”
“She said her name was Elena.”
Eva’s mother.
“When the warband questioned her, she said they’d intended to sacrifice her eldest daughter. She’d managed to warn the girl to flee. When they came for her second daughter, she volunteered in her place.”
Eva took a shuddering breath. The conversation she’d overheard that night. She’d never thought it strange her parents were arguing at a time she often returned from the forest, in a place she wouldn’t have been able to help overhearing.
Now, it seemed, there was a reason for all that, and the reason threatened to steal her strength and send her toppling. Her mother had fought for her after all. She’d fought for Elise too.
Eva found herself at the balustrade walls, her hands clutching the stone ledge as she stared unseeing at the mountains in the distance.
Her entire history had just been rewritten.
“What happened to the woman?”
“She lives. She chose to stay in the village,” Caden said.
Eva nodded. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You blamed yourself for leaving another to take your place, but it was never your wrong to begin with. I wanted you to know so you could free yourself from this,” he said.
Eva’s laugh was raw and watery. “Such kindness.”
“Don’t let anyone know I have my moments. It might ruin my reputation.”
Eva snorted and faced him. “I’m not good at goodbyes.”
Caden leaned against the wall, watching her with an enigmatic expression. “I can see that. Your last one left a lot to be desired as well, but at least it ended with a kiss.”
“Would it make you feel better if this one ended with one too?” Eva asked.
He lifted an eyebrow. “It might.”
She scowled at him. He’d given her relief from a guilt that had at times felt suffocating. Why was he making this so hard now?
