“This way,” Brevan says.
I follow the enforcer toward a waiting carriage, then hesitate. Am I actually getting into a carriage with this man? What if he knows who I really am? What if he recognizes me as one of the people who fled that night?
Guilt squeezes my chest so hard I can’t suck in a full breath. I ran that night. I thought that was the best thing I could do. I’m not a fighter, and I didn’t want to be a liability to my brothers. When they told me to run, I listened.
I was able to reunite with the few survivors in our meeting place in the catacombs the following day, and I discovered what happened. I spent the next three days in a drunken stupor until my best friend, Anya, found me. We left the rebellion and rented a room. She got a job at a tavern, and I worked at a printer, setting type. Three months later, Lee knocked on my door, begging for my help.
Three months. Or was it four? I’d tried to forget. It was too painful to think about it.
Either way, I should still be mourning their loss. Not playing nice with their killer.
“Princess?” Brevan asks.
I blink a few times and notice he’s got his hand out to help me into the carriage. “It’s just the two of us?”
“As I said before, the prince extends his apologies for not being able to attend. He assured me he set aside time for dinner with you tonight, though.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. I can do this. I must do this. I have to play the part.
I let him help me into the carriage, but his touch feels like betrayal against my skin.
He sits across from me, and I pull the curtain aside so I can stare out the window instead of looking at him. My fingers twitch. I’m not a trained killer, and I always struggled with that part of the rebellion. It’s why I worked on the inside. Why I helped with strategy and supplies. Why I didn’t go out in the field.
Now, I’m holding myself back. I want to lunge at this man and claw and scratch and scream and kick and hurt him as much as he hurt me.
But I know if I kill him, the emperor will put another in his place. A new enforcer who will do the same harm. And I’ll be dead. We’ll lose our chance to find out where the emperor is and how he stays alive.
I’m the best chance at actual change. If I can keep myself from breaking first.
That is assuming this ride alone with him isn’t to quietly dispose of me. Well, if it is, I’ll make him work for it.
“It must be difficult to be so far from home,” he says.
I turn to look at him. He’s wearing his armor again but doesn’t have his sword. I still have no idea what we’re doing. “Do ladies here often travel alone with men?”
“The prince trusts me. And I can assure you, I want this trip to be quick even more than you do.”
“How very reassuring.” That doesn’t ease my anxiety. I wish I had a weapon. If I survive this, I wonder if I can find a dagger to hide under my skirts.
The carriage rumbles as we transition from the smooth castle road. We must have passed between the opening of the dark hedges.
The castle is atop a hill overlooking the city, and it’ll take a few minutes to reach the luxurious neighborhoods nearest the royal home. I look out the window at the gates that keep people away.
“Many of the emperor’s most loyal nobles live here,” Brevan says. “This is Duke Glass’s residence. He also has a vineyard estate in the country.”
“How nice for the duke that he has two homes while so many have none,” I snap.
“Doesn’t your family have six estates across Iskvaland?”
“It doesn’t mean I have to agree with it,” I reply.
“How very modern of you.” He lifts one of the black velvet curtains to peer outside.
“Have you spent a lot of time in the slums, enforcer?”
He closes the curtain, then turns back in my direction. “I spent all my early years in the legion there.”
“And it didn’t bother you to see all the suffering?”
