She’d been like a mother to me, and I’d thought her dead. All this time, she’d been hiding, abandoning Caliza and me with a failing kingdom.
Tomorrow, I would ask her why, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for her answer.
A gentle breeze rustled the leaves. As it settled, I heard something shift, like the scrape of small rocks being ground into dirt.
I rolled onto my back and froze.
Standing above me, the moonlight turning his blue eyes to glittering ice, stood Ericen.
My breath caught in my throat. He was there long enough to meet my gaze, and then he was gone, slipping silently deeper into the forest. I lay there, my heart stuttering back to life in a jagged beat, knowing he meant for me to follow.
As quietly as I could, I laced on my boots, strapped on my bow and quiver, and went after him. The guard who’d been watching him snored softly against the trunk of a tree, and a small knife lay discarded beside the remnants of the rope binding Ericen to the tree. He must have slipped it from one of the guards earlier.
I found the prince standing in a circle of moonlight. The beams flowed like ribbons through the canopy, bathing the forest floor in an ethereal light and creating a dreamlike tableau—the whispering of the leaves, Ericen’s broad shadow on the grass, darker than night, the way he looked at me as if he both wanted to close the distance between us and couldn’t bear me coming a step closer.
“Well, this is certainly dramatic,” I noted.
He smirked. “I try.”
A severed rope dangled from the end of his shackles. I searched the dark for the glint of a blade. Despite defending him to Kiva, it still made me uneasy being out here alone with him. Even without the sleek black leather of his Vykryn’s uniform, his sharp features and rigid stance whispered of violence. Except I knew there was more to him than that, more than the training, the blood, and the steel that had consumed his life.
“We needed to talk, and you weren’t going to do it in front of the others,” he said.
“They’ll think you tried to escape.” Convincing them he wasn’t their enemy had already been hard enough.
He almost looked offended. “If I wanted to escape, I’d be gone.”
“I said ‘they.’ I—” I stopped, glancing up. A dark shape circled overhead, and a moment later, Res glided down on silent wings. He dropped something sharp and shining at Ericen’s feet: the knife the prince had used to cut his ropes.
I stared at it. “Res, what in the Saints’ name are you doing? Now is not the time to be giving out gifts.”
Ericen made no move to take the knife. He simply watched me and waited.
“What’s your angle?” I asked, my nerves rising. “Befriend the crow and hope he puts a good word in for you?”
Ericen leaned his weight to one side, giving the impression of a lounging jungle cat. “We do have quite a lot in common.”
“Such as an incredibly high opinion of yourselves.”
“I was going to say we’re both handsome and capable.”
“Like I said.”
He shrugged. “And we both have a habit of rescuing you. Perhaps that’s why, unlike everyone else, the crow seems to get that I’m not here to hurt you.”
Pulses of agreement thrummed along the bond along with several faint impressions. A storm. A figure falling. The raging sea.
Ericen had saved me when Res couldn’t.
“That was one time,” I said.
“Only because you ignored my warning the first time.” His expression tightened. “You didn’t believe me then and you don’t believe me now.”
“How can I?” I wanted to. Deep down, I could feel that trusting him was right. But I’d rushed headfirst into his friendship last time, and it’d turned around and bit me.
“I’m trying to help you, Thia.” He moved toward me, and I stepped back reflexively. He hesitated. “What I said to you in Isair wasn’t a lie. The Sellas are still alive. Or at least one of them is. He’s been aiding my mother, perhaps since she destroyed the crows. She’s made some sort of deal with them. You have to listen—”
A twig snapped. Someone materialized from the shadows beside him, their sword drawn. Kiva held the tip of Sinvarra to Ericen’s neck. “Move,” she said, “and I’ll slit your throat.”
