“I play this game with Res. Be better than the crow, Kiva.” Res nipped at my fingers, and I snatched my hand away, sitting up.
Kiva half smiled, but it quickly died. “At least the pigeon doesn’t lie.”
“Omit occasional information,” I corrected halfheartedly.
“Lie.”
“Forget vital facts?” I tried, my guilt sinking deeper and deeper inside me.
Kiva raised an eyebrow, looking about as impressed as Estrel the first time I’d fired a bow.
I sighed. “I’m sorry, Kiva. I should have told you when I found the note. I knew what’d you say and—” I hesitated.
“And you didn’t want to hear it,” Kiva finished. “Because you knew I’d be right.”
“I didn’t know that,” I snapped. “Ericen isn’t a danger to me. He’s—” I stopped, on the brink of saying something I wasn’t quite sure I was ready to put into words.
Her expression darkened with each word until she looked ready to knock me upside the head. “He’s dangerous, Thia!” She threw up her hands in frustration. “You trust too easily.”
“And you don’t trust at all! You didn’t trust Caylus either. And Ericen, he… Ugh, that’s not what this is about! I’m trying to apologize.”
Kiva drew a sharp, deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why do you think I’m here, Thia?” she asked through gritted teeth.
I deflated, the answer coming immediately. “For me.”
“For you,” she agreed. “Solet mebe here for you. You don’t have to do this all alone.”
“I know,” I said softly, burying my face in my hands. “I ruined everything, Kiva. So many people are dead because of me, and now more will die.”
She dropped onto the side of the bed, wrapping me in her arms. I leaned into her. “It isn’t your fault,” she said. “What Onis did is his responsibility, not yours. You can’t let your guilt destroy you. You’ve worked too hard to get where you are, and I need you too much.”
I held my breath, the familiar words I’d once spoken to her slowly working away at the coiled tension in my chest.
“You’re my family, Thia, and I’ll always be here for you,” she said, and I held her tight. Res hopped to our side, his massive wings enfolding us in warmth and silk, and for a moment, I let myself believe that everything would be okay.
“You’re my family too,” I told her, lifting my head. “Which is why I need you to trust me. I know you don’t like Ericen, but you also don’t really know him. I do. Trustme, Kiva, even if you can’t trust him.”
She let out a heavy breath. “Fine. But if he so much as looks at you funny, I’m skewering him.”
I grinned.
* * *
A message arrived from Queen Luhara that she’d convened a council meeting in an hour, and I tried to prepare myself to face my friends and all the people who’d placed their faith in me and tell them that it was all for nothing.
Kiva had gone back to sit with Elko and Auma, only after I’d promised her I wouldn’t go back to sleep. Res, however, had made no such promises and promptly sprawled across the entire bed in a heap of slumbering feathers.
Feeling aimless and dreading the coming meeting, I followed the corridor around to Ericen’s guarded room. He called me in when I knocked, ignoring the looks the guards gave me as I entered.
The prince stood by a row of arched windows on the far wall, looking out over the expanse of vineyards that blanketed the rolling hills at the back of the compound before they jutted sharply into the Calase Mountains.
“I never thanked you.” He turned at the sound of my footsteps, his expression solemn. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“Of course. I don’t leave my friends behind.”
He stepped toward me, and suddenly, it wasn’t the looming meeting and threat of war that made my stomach flutter and my heart beat erratically. A gentle breeze tugged at my hair through an open window, soothing my hot skin. I tried to focus on its cool touch, but all I could think of was the disappearing distance between us.
When the prince slowed less than a hand’s width away, I found my throat too dry to speak. A depthless intensity shone in his gaze, strong enough to hold me aloft if the floor dropped out beneath me.
