“Then you shouldn’t have left it behind.”
Brela laughed but didn’t snap back.
Cason lifted his gaze when he knew her attention turned to her shoulder. The ice from Ripley had lashed and burned the skin, but the bruise and sticky blood made it look more gruesome than it actually was. The colors only made the scar between her neck and shoulder more obvious. She had a few other bruises, a cut on her throat, and a split lip, but any other damage was hidden by her clothes.
Her hand pressed into the shard as she winced. “Gods, did one of you try to rip this out of me?” She rolled her shoulder and glanced around the dimly lit prison wagon before her eyes landed on him. “What?”
Cason raised his eyebrow. “I don’t get you.”
She let out a harsh chuckle and yanked at her chains. “Don’t worry, Valkip. Sometimes I don’t get myself either.”
“You tried to get Ripley to kill you.”
“Wouldn’t you do the same given my situation?” Brela asked, gesturing toward the shard in her chest. “I should have pulled his knife into me with that move. If you want a death done right, apparently you have to do it yourself.”
“Then why didn’t you do it?”
“Why did you give me the silent order to get away from him?” she countered. Cason gritted his teeth but didn’t answer. Brela just shrugged her good shoulder and leaned back against the wall, wiggling her bound feet and then holding her chained hands in front of her. “Well, I’m not going anywhere. Ask your questions. Might as well answer what I can before the torture starts.”
“We aren’t going to torture you, we’re taking you to Aelstow,” he replied.
Brela frowned slightly before huffing dramatically. “Right, I’m only alive until you get me to the public execution. As if the dress and hisses from tonight weren’t humiliation enough.” She picked at her nails. “As for your question, I didn’t drag Ripley’s blade over my neck because I saw a chance at escape.”
“You didn’t try to escape. You turned around and stopped.”
“You would have chased me down. Maybe I thought I could kill all of you.”
Cason snorted. “With one knife?”
Brela shrugged as if she actually thought she could have taken all of them. After seeing what she had done to Warley when four trained men couldn’t take him down, Cason almost believed it.
“Then why did you miss hurling this into my skull?” She raised her brow as Cason held up the knife in his bloodied palm. “Instead of holding onto your last weapon or driving it into your heart, you threw it. I saw what you did to Warley. I saw the knife in Ripley’s magic-dominant arm. You don’t miss your targets.”
Her eye twitched. “I was blasted back by the shield and ice.”
“You threw it before that happened.”
A flash of a smile on her face, barely visible with the flickering lantern. “Nothing gets by the sun-blessed captain, I see.”
Except that the assassin was right under his nose this entire time, hence her smile. He growled. “Don’t mock me.”
Brela’s smile disappeared as her pale gaze met his, taken aback by his statement. “I wasn’t mocking you, I was protecting you.” Cason froze. Was that a flash of pain in her eyes? She held his stare for a moment before returning to her hands. “You’re right. I didn’t miss. That knife went exactly where I threw it.”
Cason turned his palm over, staring at the bloodied gash. He hadn’t imagined it—she had aimed at empty space just a breath away from his head. Where Remont and Boelyn couldn’t see that she missed on purpose. Even if he hadn’t reached out to catch it, the knife wouldn’t have struck him. She didn’t want to kill him.
“Why?” he rasped.
She chewed her cheek. “I had to see if you’d catch it. I had to see what kind of man you were.”
Oh, gods. Shehadprotected him. Because almost immediately, Remont had challenged his loyalties—his skills as a captain tasked with protecting the prince from an assassin or any other threats to Serill’s life.
Brela had given him a choice. Let the knife go and face those accusations or catch it and save himself while she suffered the consequences of being a Veil Worshipper.
If he caught the knife—if he let the blade cut his hand as if he’d barely saved himself from being impaled—it would make it look like she hadtriedto kill him, even though she hadn’t. It would clear him of those doubts Remont had voiced.
Cason looked at the blonde woman sitting in chains across from him. She was one of those cruel Veil cultists. A murderer and a thief and a trickster that had been using him. Making him feel bad for her. But she hadhelpedhim. Her scars were real—the internal and external ones. She hadn’t tried to hide them, and she had been kind when Cason revealed his own scars. She’d helped him calm a magic that could have gotten her killed.
She had purposely missed with that knife to see if he would let it go. To see if he would defend the woman behind the assassin. But she had also known the choice he would make. The one he made without hesitation.
