“I remember,” I said dully.
“But you arrived, a girl from the islands, strange and…” He cleared his throat, eyes carving a path back to me. I stiffened, suddenly unable to look at either of them. “No bloodlines, no lineage. No one knew you. It’s like they made you up. And Kye behaved so oddly—”
Kye shot his brother a look, silencing him. Hadrian let out a huff of exhaustion. I watched them both, a strand of sympathy weaving in and out of me.
“And I thought, well, you were it. Some sort of spy or assassin. You’d been hired to poison or knife me in my sleep. Kill me somehow and make it look like an accident. The perfect person to be from nowhere and return to nowhere once it was over.”
No one said a word. The wind picked up, whistling through the trees. Not far from where we stood, one of the horses chuffed.
You’d been hired to poison or knife me in my sleep.
The thought congealed in the back of my throat, sticking to my tongue as I swallowed. I felt Kye’s gaze on me, but I couldn’t look at him.
He’d been right. I was there to kill Hadrian. Just not yet.
“Why tell me this?” I breathed.
Hadrian shrugged, sighing. “Because I’m tired of waiting to decide who I can trust. Because we’re here, alone, without anyone to overhear. Because I wanted to look you in the eyes and ask outright, so that when I did die, I’d know if you’d lied to me.”
It wasn’t a question, but it was a question. They waited.
Head whirling, I sighed. Thoughts flew like sparrows in my mind, too quick to catch and muse over.
“Thaan brought me here because I have a rare skill that he shares,” I said carefully. “I didn’t know I had it in Leihani. He sensed it on the beach when we met. When he came to get you.” I stared at Kye. He stared back. “On the ship, he claimed to possess my death warrant, and said the only way to save myself was to join him in an upcoming war.”
A muscle in Kye’s brow feathered. “What skill does Thaan have?”
Heart pounding, I looked at him, and Hadrian fell into the background. The wind stopped blowing, the trees suddenly quiet and still. Roots tangled around my riding boots. The colors of the forest blurred. Golden eyes watched and waited.
Guilt wrenched into my chest as I met his stare, and I heard the apology in my own voice.
“Seduction.”
63
After a long, weighted silence, Hadrian sucked his lips in his mouth. He gave Kye an endearingly hard slap on the back and then bent to retrieve my riding hat from the mossy floor.
“You two will have time to talk,” he said, fitting it on my head the way a brother might, a twinkle lingering in his eye after my confession. I didn’t know how he could be so warm and accepting after the conversation we’d just shared. My stomach had raveled tight in self-induced humiliation, but it was the closest truth I could come to without admitting I’d someday kill Hadrian.
“That’s all?” I breathed as the heir to the throne turned toward the horses. “That’s it?”
“Not exactly.” Hadrian smiled, his hand massaging the base of his throat. “What did you do to me?” His voice had turned to pure curiosity as he studied me, waiting for an explanation.
I stared back at him, unable to give him one. It occurred to me that in saving his life, I likely sealed the fate of my own.
Behind Hadrian, Kye’s eyes hadn’t left mine, but his face had buried into the mask he wore whenever he was deep in hisown thoughts. His eyes roamed over me, my hair, my face, my body, and with no indication of what he was thinking, I felt bare standing before him.
“You’re working with Thaan,” Hadrian mused, fingers continuing to massage his chest as he stepped back. He cocked his head slightly in Kye’s direction. “We could use her to get to him.”
Kye stiffened. He waited long enough that Hadrian turned to face him. “No. She isn't a weapon.”
“If you’re worried about putting her at risk, she already is.”
Kye shot a glare through the woods, his jaw tensing.
“I’ll do it.” They both glanced at me, Kye’s glower burning into my eyes, but I met them unflinchingly. Married or not, I wasn’t about to let him make my decisions for me. Hadrian was right, I’d been straddling a dangerous line for months.
Kye turned his glare to me. “You will not.”
