Roman opened his mouth to speak but then snapped it closed. His fist clenched at his side, and then a hand raked through his hair.
Vaasa dropped her voice to a low demand. “How long?”
She didn’t believe an ounce of the guilt that racked his face. The part he was playing… it was that of the yearning lover. But that wasn’t true. Vaasa didn’t think he loved her at all.
Every moment she had lied to Roman, he had been lying to her.
Roman dropped his arm, and his voice turned sharp. Cruel. A brutal tone lacking any of the warmth she had once known of him. “For about two years, before you concocted some way to have him thrown from a window.”
Shock stole her breath. Her mind worked out the timeline on a wheel. “You were here before I was sent to Mireh. You were here when my parents died.”
He had been in the city before their deaths, and he hadn’t come for her. He hadn’t found a way to see her, to let her know that he was still alive.
“I clawed my way back to this city on a pirate ship,” Roman confessed. “Vlacik was the last connection I had here from my youth. Both of our fathers had died, and he was a lord with enough power to get me the connections I needed to survive here.”
Vaasa wanted to vomit. It wasn’t Ozik who had brought Roman back—it was Vlacik. “You knew what he was doing to me?”
“No,” Roman asserted with a strong step forward.
Vaasa backed up, trying to put as much space between them as she could. Roman watched the movement and his mouth turned downward. “I knew what he did to witches. After what I’ve seen, what I’ve been through…” Roman shook his head. “I take no qualms with it. Whatever your mother passed down to you, it has been excised.”
A prisoner of war. Roman had been in Wrultho under Ton’s reign, had likely seen more brutality than Vaasa could imagine. What had they done to him? Who had this life turned him into? “He torturedpeople, Roman. Witches are people.”
“Every soldier tortures people, Vaasa. That is a fact of war, which is probably something you should get used to, considering you’re at the core of one.”
“He torturedme,” she whispered.
A small snarl escaped him. “And if I had known that, I would have killed him myself. I don’t know how you orchestrated—”
“I didn’t orchestrate his death!” Vaasa hissed.
“Then what were you doing there at the brothel? What the fuck are you and Ozik doing in the greenhouse every morning?” Roman shook his head in disbelief. “You’re looking at me like you can’t believe I deigned to tell you a lie when mistruths are all you have offered me.”
“You know Ozik is a witch, right? You watched what happened in that stairwell.”
“Of course I do.”
“So only some witches deserve to be tortured?”
Roman released a chuckle. “Ozik deserves a knife through his heart, and if I have anything to say about it, that’s what he’ll get.”
Vaasa narrowed her eyes. “How did you earn your position as lead sentinel?”
Roman crossed his arms. “That was part of Vlacik’s demands. He wanted me close to you.”
It was like a cold rush of water thrown on the back of her neck—of course. How hadn’t she seen it? It was no accident when he’d found her in that hallway, nor when he returned to the very place she had once spent nights in his arms. He went there not because he wanted to see her, but because he wanted to take advantage of her. He believed her desperate and lovesick enough to seek him out, to trust him.
He’d been right. She had been moments away from telling him everything, from indulging in that piece of her youth that she so badly wanted to cling to. The little glimmer of love that had once grown so large in her mind because it had been takenfrom her, and she’d never been given the chance to leave it first. “You were telling Vlacik things about me? Spying on me for him?”
“Not a single thing that mattered,” Roman swore. “I told you that first night that I am here foryou, and that hasn’t changed.”
“Are you one of Sutherland’s men?” she demanded. “Is that how you have access to this room? Is that the pirate you allied with in order to come back here?”
Roman stared at her for a moment, and then crossed his arms. “Yes. I was on a job for him until Vlacik had me reassigned here.”
Vaasa didn’t dare move. Her power jostled to life, risking exposure. Roman uncrossed his arms and stepped toward her, and she had nowhere to go. She stumbled, and her back hit the table.
“He found me in the Loursevain. Put me on my first crew three years ago. I fought and murdered my way back to this city. But I was nothing when I stepped off a boat; just an escaped prisoner, a soldier who deserted and paid the price. I swore I was going to be somebody worth an empire. Worth you.” Roman shook his head, as if he could hardly stand to relive the memories. “But then you were married off to another man, and there was nothing left here to save. So I helped Sutherland take the city guard, and then the prison. And when Sutherland told me Vlacik wanted to overthrow Dominik, it was a cause I could get behind. But then you came back, and Vlacik offered me access to you, Vaasa.You.The only woman I have ever loved. I was staring at a chance to have everything we ever wanted, and I took it.”
