I tilt my head to one side, trying to guess the reason behind this shift in him. “What do you mean?”
“This wouldn’t be the first time you showed up somewhere uninvited,” he says coldly.
My heartbeat quickens. His words are too delicately chosen to be anything other than an accusation. He knows about the first trial. But how?
I’m scrambling for a defense but coming up blank. I settle for playacting confused. My brows scrunch together. “I feel as if I’m missing something.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” he snarls. “Yesterday. The arena.”
My blood is ice. My throat clogs with fear. I swallow it.
I was completely covered in the arena. Kaidren didn’t see my face or touch my skin. How he guessed it was me, I don’t know, but so long as I deny it, he can’t prove anything.
“What about the arena?” I feign confusion.
“It wasyou. You hid amid the aikkari and disguised yourself as a soldier. Don’t bother denying it.” There’s not a trace of doubt in his tone. With the glare he’s leveling at me, I canno longer convincingly play the role of his dewy-eyed, eager-to-please friend. Whatever trust he had in me is up in smoke.
That doesn’t mean I can’t continue to manipulate him. I’ll just have to adjust my tactics for an opponent who sees me as a foe, rather than a friend.
I recall the patronizing way Yelina put a hand over her heart when she told me I wasn’t invited tonight. I mimic her. Place a hand on my chest and draw my brows together in a semblance of sympathy I know he’ll see right through. “Oh, I understand. You’re upset you lost the first trial, and now you’re lashing out.”
Kaidren bends closer to the table, eyes narrowed in fury. “Stars in hell, you can drop the act. I’ve got you all figured out, Remira.”
I doubt that.I’m enjoying myself too much to stop. Usually, I have to hide behind the Shadow Queen’s name to verbally spar like this. Taunting him now, watching the way my words burrow under his skin, gives a new kind of satisfaction.
“Why are you being so mean?” I widen my eyes the way I do when I want to appear innocent, but allow the corner of my mouth to tip up in the tiniest of smirks for him to see. “I thought we were friends?”
His palms slap against the table with a glare scorching enough to raze mountains. “You know damn well we were neverfriends. You’ve been playing me since the day we met.”
Finally, I allow the glass mask of feigned hurt to fall and shatter. My eyes harden to steel. “Now, how could I have possibly done that?” I drop the falsely sweet tone, and for the first time since we met, I address Kaidren Vale with all the derision I feel. “I thought I was justthe help?”
Kaidren reels back as though I’ve struck him.
I keep going, rising to my feet as I stare him down. “And you’re wrong.” There’s still a table between us, and he’s still tallenough to tower over me, but the shock on his face makes me feel as though I’m in total control. “I haven’t ‘played’ you—that suggests a risk of losing. We haven’t been playing a game; I’ve been beating you. Over and over again.”
Kaidren’s nostrils flare. He looks as though he’s seeing me for the first time and doesn’t like what he sees. “Clearly, I’ve underestimated you.”
“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said since you got here.”
Realization dawns in his eyes. “I told you I was Opheran when we met. The Shadow Queen mentioned it in her column, and I couldn’t figure out how she knew, but you wrote to her, didn’t you?”
“I did nothing of the sort. Although, I confess I’ve always thought ‘Bastard Vale’ had a nice ring to it.”
“And it wasyouwho accused me of murdering my father,” Kaidren continues as though I haven’t spoken. He slowly rounds the table, advancing on me as the revelations keep coming. “Not your brother. You must’ve had quite the laugh at my expense when I came to you for help.”
“I admit to laughing at you. Every other accusation is absurd.”
“You fought me yesterday in the Tournament.” He’s on my side of the table and moving steadily closer. “I’m certain of it.”
I step back. He takes another one forward.
“If you’re so convinced, prove it.” My back hits something hard and cold—the wall of windows. I can retreat no farther. My pulse is racing. I have no idea how he worked out I was in the arena, but if there’s evidence, I need to know what it is so I can destroy it.
Kaidren’s slow march in my direction falters. To mysurprise, he looks almost . . . embarrassed. “Your eyes gave you away.”
I’m so relieved, I chuckle. “You saw a girl with brown eyes you could barely see through a mask, and you think it was me?”
“Well, that, and . . .” He hesitates and, again, I catch a glimmer of embarrassment in his expression.
