“Why did you choose today to confront me with this, when you’ve known for months?” I clarified. “You could’ve told me you knew long before this, instead of asking leading questions, testingme. You let me hang as you reeled in the rope.”
“Don’t you dare try to turn this back on me,” she warned, quiet fury in her tone, her fingers sliding down to curl around the hilt of her sword. She stood just outside my reach, were I to draw my own broadsword on her—a distance she knew precisely from all the times we’d sparred.
“Will you draw on me?” I asked softly. I didn’t think she would.We’d come a long way with each other, and she’d promised never pull a weapon on me again. Not a physical one, anyway, or rather, not with lethal intent. But my Essla was a woman of strong passions and not always predictable. I could best her with my strength where she outmatched me in speed.
I, however, could never harm her. Not physically. In her righteous anger, she might have no such scrupleswith me.
“I’m tempted,” she replied.
“Then do it,” I dared her. Better to fight it out and get it done.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Then she sagged, releasing her blade and lifting her hands to her face. “It would beeasier. I’m aware that’s one of the ways you manage me.”
Reflexively, I stepped toward her, to comfort her, to—
“Don’t.” Her hard voice cut me short. She dropped her handsand gazed at me. “To answer your question, two reasons why today. The first…” Her voice shook as it never did, and she firmed her jaw. “I think I couldn’t stand it anymore. I promised you a long time ago that I wouldn’t walk away again without letting you explain, but I waited every day for you to tell me about this—even pieces of it—and day after day you pretended it wasn’t there, carving a holebetween us. Yes, it would be easier to call you out, to match blades and see who takes first blood, but that would be redundant. First blood is yours. This cut me, Harlan. Cut me to the quick and I’m still bleeding.”
“Essla, I’m sorry,” I said, fully realizing the weakness of those words, how ineffective to express anything at all.
“I’m sure you are.” She smiled slightly, but it didn’t touchthe sorrow in her eyes. “And I wish that could be enough for me. Maybe it’s a flaw in my character, but it isn’t enough. There aren’t that many people in my life I can believe will always tell me the truth—now more than ever. You were one of those people.”
The past tense hit me like a knife to the kidneys, and I groped for breath to reply.
“You have a choice, I think,” she continued. “The secondreason is that starting two weeks ago I received a series of messages from Dasnaria, relaying information supposedly leaked from the Imperial Palace.”
I grappled with that equally astonishing news—as well as the fact that she’d kept it from me. “How do you know that’s where it’s from?” I asked.
“I don’t have a way of verifying, do I?” She snapped. “The information is coded to make me think itcomes from someone in your family. ‘From inside the fist,’ it said.”
The stunning blows kept coming. That would indeed imply from a Konyngrr—the silver fist being our family emblem—as Ursula knew, but few others would.
“If it’s legitimate, I think the messages come from one or both of your sisters.”
“My sisters?” I echoed, pondering the absolute implausibility of that.
“Aspects of the messagesare decidedly feminine. What are the odds it’s them—or perhaps another femaleassociateof yours?” she pressed. “What can you tell me without violating yourvows?”
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. Mostly I wanted to fight back, to growl at her not to interrogate me like one of her subjects—especially that jab about some unknown female associate—even as I knew I deserved every bit of it. “It’snot easy to untangle those threads, what I can and can’t reveal. That’s why I never mentioned any of my sisters, because it was easier to put everything about them behind the same door.”
She nodded slightly, unsurprised. “I think you have to consider that your loyalties are divided. We face a war with your family and—”
“There is no question that my loyalty lies with you,” I interrupted her furiously.
She held up a hand, icily calm. Quite the reversal for us. “I’ve given this a lot of thought,” she reminded me. “You need to do the same. You’ve withheld information from me that’s arguably critical to this impending war. I know you want to believe that theElskastholrryou swore to me makes everything clear cut, but you have other vows, too, ones you made before that to keep your sisters secret.Which vows take precedence, Harlan?”
Flummoxed, I had no reply. I didn’t need one, evidently, because she nodded again, smiling sadly. “There is no easy way out of this,” she repeated. “If you have to leave in order to reconcile your conflicting interests, I’ll understand.”
Leave?The thought of leaving her shredded my heart. “How can you even think I would?” I asked, my voice coming out ragged.“Or could?”
“We always knew our love affair might be short-lived,” she replied, softly, with deep sorrow. “That our differences might end at exactly this sort of conflict. I told you from the beginning that I belonged to the High Throne first, and because of that I’m a warrior for my kingdom, and only incidentally a woman.”
“And I told you that’s only because you don’t put the woman first,”I said with more bitterness than I’d intended.
“You’re absolutely right.” She inclined her chin, acknowledging the problem, but not apologizing. “I don’t put the woman first. I can’t, and I never will. I don’t want you to leave. You’ll tear my heart out and take it with you if you go. But I belonged to the High Throne from the day of my birth, and I can’t let you stay if you’re a threat to it.”
