We appraise each other in silence for a long time.
“Why didn’t you just kill me?” I ask.
He blinks. “Because I fell in love with you.”
I have to look away. “And yet you still sold me out to your father.”
“I—” His face crumples. “That is the single greatest regret of my life.”
“What were you thinking?”
“I convinced myself it would be selfish to leave you in the Ironwoods. I told myself I had a duty to the Crown, and to my family…and that if we didn’t intervene, the next time I’d see you would be on a battlefield. So I proposed that I could persuade you instead. But after you got here, it didn’t take me long to realize what a terrible thing I’d done. And then I was at war with myself constantly. Half of me thought I should stay as far away from you as possible so that I wouldn’t inflict any more damage. But the other half…just…couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. And I’m sorry for that. I will always be sorry that I was too weak to stay out of your life.”
“How much of it was real?” I ask softly.
“All of it,” Finn answers immediately. “All my feelings were real. They still are.”
The words are an arrow straight through my heart. Poisoned by everything that might have been.
He steps toward me, as if to offer an embrace. “Lyria—”
“No.” I pull back, retreating against the wall. “Don’t.”
I will never let him touch me again.
Finn draws a ragged breath. Whatever he plans to say next, I am positive that I don’t want to hear it. The haze has lifted. It’s not a hero or liberator or prince standing in front of me. It’s King Rodrick’s son.
And right now he looks just like his father.
“You need to leave,” I say, in the same unfamiliar, venomous voice.
“Wait—”
“NOW!”
Finn doesn’t move. But I’m done asking.
I surge forward and shove his chest, hard, screaming, “I said get OUT!”
Finn’s never felt the full extent of my strength before, and fear flashes across his face as he crashes back into the door. I feel like a wild thing.
And he’s still not leaving.
So I summon the foulest thing I can think of to push him away. The truth. And I look Finn straight in the eyes as I spit out the words: “I should have left you for dead.”
His eyes are sunken with sorrow as he finally heads out the door.
I’m caged again.
I sit in the tower for a very long time, while the sun sets and the room gets much colder. The next interruption comes when I hear the guard bark from the hall, “Five minutes.”
“Go away!” I say, ready for another fight if it’s Finn on the other side of that door.
But it’s not Finn. Instead, it’s the last person I expected to see.
The princess of Ursandor steps into the chamber.
Sandria and I stare at each other for a long moment as the door swings shut behind her.“Wow,” she says. “You look likeshit.”
