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“I’m not afraid of you,” I said on a thin breath, and he gave me a challenging look. Because he’d felt the slush of my power when I’d first tried to lash it against him.

He knew that this was the weakest lie I’d ever told.

Voices drifted from outside and I went rigid with panic, my specter flooding past the surface again.

“Easy.” Erik flicked his blade, cutting a little slash in the ripple of my power.

My specter snapped back into me, and I winced at the sharp pain. Winced again at how Erik had used the knife in his admonishment—giving me a careless little nick, the way someone might train an animal with a smack on the nose.

“You said you would be good.” He sheathed the blade, then wrapped his hand around my throat, the grip light enough that it could be mistaken for an embrace. Still, I quivered, remembering the pressure he could apply with that hand. Remembering the weak, life-ending feeling as he’d crushed my windpipe once before. “So you’re going to uphold the pretense you have been maintaining since you arrived here,” he continued, leaning close again to bury his face in my hair. My skin chilled as he whispered into my ear, “And you will be very glad to see me.”

The tent swished open, breaking our solitude. There was a pause as the new arrivals saw us together.

Then Holden’s laughter boomed out.

Erik didn’t immediately react. He drew away from me languidly, throwing me one last conspiratorial half smile.

“Our apologies,” he said to Holden and Finbar, who stood at the entrance. “We have simply been away from each other for too long.” It was only when he turned that I realized this was the first time I’d seen him without his embroidered finery. Yet even in a plain white shirt and a pair of dark trousers tucked into polished knee-high boots, he appeared devastatingly regal. Because his power was in the way he moved, in the confident set of his shoulders as he slipped my lace glove into his pocket, as though everything I had belonged to him anyway.

“You’re on Banarrat, Your Majesty.” Holden’s grin widened. “Here, we don’t apologize for our pleasures.” He looked at Finbar, as though expecting him to confirm the sentiment.

But the prince was scrutinizing me with eyes no longer glazed from drink. And I knew he was comparing Erik’s smooth composure to my own appearance: wide-eyed and flustered, still trembling in shock.

“Are you quite all right, Lady Alissa?” Finbar asked, his voice uncharacteristically soft. And I realized why he’d apologized earlier tonight. Because Erik had arrived and played along with the story I’d told, confirming my purpose for being here.

I felt no victory in knowing that Erik had painted himself as a friend of the Ansorans, a fact that would most definitely induce Holden to sign Rheya’s treaty after all. Because it also meant that Erik had made himself essential to maintaining my lies.

I swallowed, unable to unstick my voice before Erik’s arm snaked around my waist, making me jolt.

“I’m afraid I startled my bride nearly out of her senses,” he said, radiant with joy. “Forgive me, my love, and forgive the general and His Highness for keeping my little secret. I couldn’t resist the temptation to surprise you for the end of the fete. I can only thank General Holden for accepting my request for an invitation.”

“You made a rather convincing argument,” Holden said, his smile tighter now.

The empty envelope. It must have contained a request for passage into Banarrat, along with a thinly veiled threat, which was why it had been punctuated with that handful of thorns.

Erik chuckled as he took my hand and raised it, his lips hovering over my knuckles. “A king must do all he can to spend his birthday with his bride.”

My breath caught. It was Erik’s birthday. How had I forgotten? Only a few weeks ago, I’d been leaning against him in the ballroom, discussing a suitable gift for the occasion.

You’re already giving me everything I want, he’d said. And he’d been wrong. I could not give him everything he wanted.

But this island could.

With the uncorking of that realization, the rest of the world rushed back to me: the Unbreakable Blade, our plan to rescue Perla, our group scattered around Banarrat, thinning our numbers.

And now my skin bristled with a more potent urgency. Because Erik’s presence here did not begin and end with me. He, too, must have come for the Unbreakable Blade.

Which meant he had not won yet.

I straightened, suddenly determined to think past the deafening thud of my heartbeat. I’d made my choice to act as Erik’s betrothed, and changing my story now would put our entire group at risk. Holden wouldn’t take kindly to the Ansorans lying to him, and he would likely lend his soldiers to Erik’s efforts to subdue me, leaving me helpless to warn the others upon their return.

So I forced myself to breathe deeply, to lean into Erik’s touch. Because although I didn’t yet know what route would take me away from him . . . I knew I wouldn’t make it past the first step without playing along with his games.

“It seems you’ve all played me rather deviously,” I said. My voice came out surprisingly steady, if a little more breathless than I’d wanted. “But since my king is allowed one birthday wish”—I met Erik’s gaze with a playful smirk—“I will grant his request for forgiveness.”

Erik gave me a slow, satisfied smile as he dropped a kiss on my knuckles. “You are too generous,” he said.

The tent swayed open again, and my mask briefly slipped as Perla walked in. The moment her eyes landed on Erik, she blanched, stopping dead in her tracks. But I took her horrified shock as a good sign.