Chapter Three
No amount ofbracing could’ve prepared me for that.
Hearing the name I hadn’t spoken—or heard anyone else speak—in over twenty years fall from Ursula’s lips shocked me as little else could. She’d timed her attack perfectly, distracting me by evoking the fear for her that plagued me, outmaneuvering me, then slipping under my guard to deliver that strike directly to my heart.
Shewatched me with keen attention, no doubt cataloguing every whisper of reaction. I’d had to fall in love with a woman with an intellect as razor sharp as her sword. I should’ve known she’d ferret out my secrets eventually.
Even those I’d vowed to keep, because they weren’t only mine.
“How?” I finally managed to ask, once I had the breath to sound reasonably in control of myself. “Kral told you,”I realized, my thoughts finally catching up.
My brother Kral had unexpectedly defected to our side of the war, becoming the only member of my family I didn’t have to dread facing on a battlefield. He also formed the third point of our lethal family triangle: Kral, Jenna, and me. The bad blood had festered between us for years until we agreed to put it away. Not that we’d actually dealt with it.I’d thought he didn’t care to discuss it any more than I did.
“Not Kral.” Ursula replied, confirming that. “He’s as tight-lipped on the topic as you are. Jepp told me.”
“Jepp,” I echoed, feeling thick and stupid. Former scout in Ursula’s elite troop of Hawks, Jepp had inexplicably fallen in love with my domineering and arrogant brother, and was the reason he’d left the Empire. She didn’t giveup her footloose ways and settle down—she hadn’t changed that dramatically—instead she sailed the seas with Kral on his ship theHákyrling. And Ursula had restored Kral’s title and status as General, but of our forces in the field. TheHákyrlingwas patrolling the magic barrier, watching for incursions from Deyrr and monitoring the build-up of the Dasnarian navy.
Surely Jepp hadn’t learned aboutJenna from Kral. Ah… but, Jepp had gone to Dasnaria as a spy. She’d been to the Imperial Palace.
Acutely aware of Ursula’s scrutiny as I put it together, I sat, the weight of the past and the secrets I’d carried so long suddenly feeling too heavy to bear. “Jepp learned the story in Dasnaria.” I nodded to myself when Ursula’s expression confirmed it. “Who told her?”
“Yourothersisters, Ingaand Helva—more sisters I had no idea existed—told her the whole story. She reported it to me.”
I winced, rubbing my eyes with one hand, bracing myself on the wall with the other, as I felt oddly dizzy. Of course Jepp had reported everything to her captain and queen. “How long have you known?”
Ursula’s mouth thinned, not pleased with that response. Truly I was lucky she hadn’t cut my throat inmy sleep. The last time she’d discovered I’d kept a secret from her about my family—that I was a former prince of the imperial household in Dasnaria—she’d drawn blood, then coolly cut me out of her life. Not that she’d had much luck with that. As she’d noted, I could be a stubborn man.
“I debriefed Jepp on the Tala ship while I was recovering from myinjury.” She raised a brow, daring me to quibblewith the term again. I wouldn’t. I needed to pick my battles with her very carefully now.
I nodded, assimilating all of it. That had happened months ago. All this time, Ursula had known and said nothing. I could take comfort that she’d continued to share my bed and welcomed me with her body, but I could see now that we hadn’t been quite the same—and that I’d been too preoccupied to notice.
“It seems then that the distance between us isn’t entirely of my own making,” I said, more of a feint than a strike, just to test her defenses.
Her jaw tightened, her thumb caressing the faceted ruby in the hilt of her sword. “I’m right here,” she said, tossing my words back at me. “And I’ve given you plenty of opportunities to tell me all of this. Including just a moment ago.”
She had, I realized,asking me all those leading questions about my family, about the bad blood between me and Kral. Asking me to confide my worries in her. And I’d deflected them all, out of habit, in part. Also out of the comfortable assumption that she didn’t know that history. Over time it had been easier not to talk aboutanyof the sisters I’d left behind, when I talked about Dasnaria at all. That’s the greatproblem with lies of omission—over time, they begin to feel less like lies than an alternate truth, one that becomes a façade that weakens with age.
Because I hadn’t replied, she continued. “Jepp explained that these vows of yours are related to this family history, so I should give you latitude for that—in fact, she thought long and hard whether to tellmeeverything she knew—but I’ve had alot of time, and enforced inactivity, to contemplate this and I think there’s a lot you could have confided in me, had you chosen to.”
I couldn’t argue with that. The fact that Jepp had considered not reporting everything she knew… that would’ve lodged in Ursula’s heart, and craw, as well. I’d well and truly fucked this up.
I spread my hands, making myself meet her penetrating gaze. “I apologize.I’m at fault and I don’t expect forgiveness.”
She stared at me, unrelenting. “You do that so easily, but I don’t think this is that simple for me.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t tried to kill me,” I ventured, trying for the joke.
“I thought about it,” she answered crisply, but without her usual fire. Then she looked away. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t at least tell me about Inga and Helva.Brothers. You only ever mentioned brothers. You knoweverythingabout me—things no other living person does, because you wouldn’t settle for anything less—and you didn’t trust me with the smallest thing. All I can think about is what else I don’t know about you. I’m not at all sure where to go from here.”
“Court should be starting soon,” I offered, still hoping for levity. The other possibility,that I’d destroyed her trust in me, didn’t bear thinking about. Ursula didn’t trust easily. What another woman might be able to forgive and forget would feel like the ultimate betrayal to her.
She leveled an icy glare on me. “As you so love to say, they can hardly start without me.”
I braced my hands on my thighs, studying them. “Why today?” I asked.
“Excuse me?” She’d drawn her High Queenimperious attitude around herself like a protective cloak, the offense clear in her voice. When I looked at her, she’d indeed straightened her spine, looking every inch the warrior queen.
I barreled on, eager to at least extract myself from this corner she’d boxed me into. Standing, I gestured to the heights of Ordnung’s walls, arguably one of the very few places we could speak without beinginterrupted or overheard by the ubiquitous staff and anxious courtiers who plagued every moment of Ursula’s day. She’d picked this spot and plotted her attack, meticulously planned and devastatingly thorough.
