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Unarmed doesn’t mean helpless, though. Forcing my knuckles to flex, I form fists and step between Esme and the intruders, ignoring the way the motion sparks fresh bolts of agony through me.

King Edric stands in the doorway with guards behind him, four wide and three deep. “I see you’ve met my daughter.”

My swollen hands fall open, my arms raised as my brain tries to make sense of his words.

Daughter?

I pivot to look at Esme, waiting for an explanation.

She opens her mouth like she’s about to say something. Then she stops. She goes small in a way I’ve never seen, shrinking into herself, her eyes cast toward the ground and her usual defiant chin hidden.

Edric’s attention swivels back to me. His voice carries the weight of command, of someone used to being obeyed without question. “General Kerrin, we meet again.”

As if meeting him once wasn’t bad enough. He’d come to Tirene, ostensibly on a political visit with King Jasper, but he’d taken the time to offer me a job during his visit. I turned him down with my usual political aplomb by telling him to go fuck himself.

He hadn’t liked that answer, acting as if the fact that he was a king meant he was my king. I’d had to school him on that point of international diplomacy.

“I told you once that I could use a good man.” Edric enters the room. His golden hair flows to his shoulders in perfectly coiffed waves, and not a single wrinkle mars his royal robes. His guards follow, fanning out to surround Esme and me as they line up along the walls. “You told me you weren’t one. I’m inclined to agree, but that doesn’t mean you’re not useful. Look how well you’ve worked for the princess.”

Princess.

Princess Esme. Edric’s daughter.

The word rings hollow in my ears. The same nickname I gave her while mocking her prim demeanor and love of silkworm-down pillows. Now, it’s real. It’s true. I can’t reconcile the Esme I traveled with for weeks with a Meridian princess. I knew she was hiding something, but I looked past it because I was interested in her, and my mistake has come home to roost.

The guards shift, stepping between Esme and me.

And she…retreats. Away from me. Her eyes stay down, and she clasps her hands at her waist in a subservient posture, so different from the faux submission she showed me while taking off my armor. My arms fall to my sides. I no longer need to protect her. Her daddy and his men will take care of that. I’m used up, my service no longer required.

Did she know who I was all this time? Did I ever know who she was? This woman I’d fought and nearly died for, the partner I planned a life with, was it all a lie to get me to work for her father unknowingly?

The pain in my chest no longer has anything to do with broken ribs.

I can’t look away from her even though she won’t meet my eyes. She played me by pretending to be innocent and sincere. All the while, she dragged me on a merry journey to acquire the artifact, and I let her. Because I’m a fool.

Edric gestures at me. “He can still be of use.”

The guards surge forward, closing in on me before I can react.

I lift my swollen fists and fight anyway.

But exhaustion weighs on me, and the guards are as fresh as spring chickens. I manage to throw the first one into the wall hard enough to crack stone. The second gets my elbow in his throat. The third shouldn’t have kept such a wide stance. He goes down screaming and clutching himself.

I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all and rip this palace apart down to its bedrock. Then I’ll fly Esme to Tirene where the Truth Seekers can have their way with her until she regrets every lie she’s ever told me.

Edric ignores me like I’m already bound and on my way to the dungeon and addresses his daughter. “You did well. Finally.” The condescension in his tone fills me with the overpowering urge to break his perfect, noble nose. “We return to Meridia tonight.”

Esme’s blank face doesn’t betray even a hint of surprise or worry.

I try to transform the floor into sand, only to find the stone warded and inert. A bludgeon comes down on the back of my neck. I move with the blow, only to take a knee to the face. Grabbing that knee, I straighten, twisting it until it snaps and screams fill the room. But there are too many of them, and I’m running on fumes. I burned every reserve of strength fighting the Onyx Knight. Edric’s guards pile on me, using their numbers and combined weight to drag me down.

If I hadn’t stayed up last night to comfort Esme…

Hands close around my arms. Arms wrap around my legs. Someone drives a knee into the small of my back while another guard grinds my face into the floor.

No. Princess Esme. The liar.

The guards haul me toward the door.