“You lied to me.”
Harmon’s hands stilled. She lifted her eyes. “Did I?”
“You forged a letter from your father back in Igor. You said Dourin was dead.”
“I never said that toyou.”
Venick locked his jaw. “Are we really going to play that game?”
“I’m not playing.”
“You let me believe Ellina wanted to stay behind when we went east,” he snapped, at last leaving his spot by the door to stride forward. “And you lied toher. You pretended a letter had come from Parith, that her best friend was dead. From the looks of it, you even went so far as to intercept our messages, cutting off all communication between Dourin and us.” Venick’s voice, which had been steadily rising, reached its full volume. “How? How could you do that?”
“I did it for your own good.”
The air whooshed out of his lungs. “Mywhat?”
“Your own good,” Harmon repeated, pressing her hands to the top of the desk. “And for Ellina’s own good, too.”
“You’re going to have to break that down for me.”
“I mean,really.The two of you were a catastrophe. You, because you were so preoccupied by her, and her, because she wasn’t ready to join us. She should never have come to Igor in the first place, and being around you was only making things worse. So I…helped a little.”
Venick gave a disbelieving laugh. “You meddled.”
“I thought that if Ellina believed Dourin was dead, she would go to Parith. Once she was there, she’d realize he was still alive, that there’d been a mistake. But the time apart would have been good for you. For us. This war.”
Venick didn’t think he could be any more furious. “Reeking gods, Harmon. Ellina didn’t go to Parith. She tried to catch up to us instead. Only, she was stranded in Igor, so to make up for lost time, she swam the Taro.” The words, like dust in his throat. “It nearly killed her.”
It wasn’t often that he could render Harmon speechless. Wide eyes, round mouth, utter astonishment. “I didn’t know she would do that.”
“And somehow, you’re still not sorry.”
“No, Venick, I’m not. When we set out for war, I promised to do whatever I could to win. To protect my people. My father, too, even if he’ll never see it that way. So yes, if that meant deceiving you for the good of our cause, then that’s what I had to do.”
“You couldn’t have talked to me about this?”
“And said what?”
“I don’t know.” Venick threw up his hands. “Anything would have been better than the lie.”
“Really? You lie all the time for the greater cause. You’re lying to half a world right now about our engagement.”
“Yeah, well, the engagement is off.”
“The engagement was already off.”
“The fake engagement.”
Harmon rolled her eyes. “Now you’re just being petulant.”
“I’m not doing it anymore, Harmon. All this deception—you’re right. It’s too much. The engagement has served its purpose, but I’m putting it to an end.”
“Because of Ellina.”
“Because I’mdone.”
“We need this—”
