“And in the sand sea, when Theo came to our aid... you weren’t in her tent?”
He ran a hand roughly over his eyes. “Stars, Roa. Is this really how you think of me?”
“You retired before everyone else did that night,” she said. “And when I came, you weren’t there.”
“No,youweren’t there.” His grip tightened on his hilt. “You didn’t come to bed, so I went to see if you were all right.” He looked away from her, jaw clenched. “I shouldn’t have bothered. You were with Theo. You weremorethan all right, weren’t you?”
Hurt flickered in his eyes, as if Roa wasn’t a girl but a knife that wounds.
Roa thought back to that night, to the moments before she’d gone to bed. How Theo asked her to stay. How he’d wrapped his arms around her waist and planted kisses down her throat.
How she’d let him.
If Dax wasn’t in Lirabel’s tent, nor in his own...
He saw,she thought. She could see it plain on his face. He was remembering the two of them—Roa and Theo—alone in Theo’s tent.He saw all of it.
Roa looked down to her bare feet. “If you weren’t in our room the night before we left Song... who was?”
“Jas and Lirabel.”
Roa glanced back up, startled. “What?”
“I knew you wouldn’t be sleeping with me. And they needed... somewhere to go. So I let them stay in our room.” He shook his head. “I was sleeping on the roof of the garden shed that night.Alone.”
Roa stared at him.
Jas... and Lirabel? That can’t be.
“Lirabel can’t stand my brother. Whenever they’re in the same room, she flees his presence.”
He shook his head incredulously. As if he couldn’t believe he had to explain this to her. “Her three younger siblings arewards in your house, Roa. She’s at the mercy of your father’s generosity. What is she supposed to do?”
Roa frowned. “What are you saying? That my parents would disapprove of them?”
Silence was his answer.
Roa fell back, out of her fighting stance.
“Are you saying,” she said, “that all this time, Lirabel has been secretly in love with my brother?”
You gave us a place here so easily,Lirabel told her once.You could take it away with just as little effort.
Roa had dismissed her friend’s fear as nonsensical at the time. What reason would her parents ever have for sending Lirabel and her siblings out to starve?
Thiswas Lirabel’s reason. The one she was afraid to tell Roa.
Lirabel, who had nothing to offer Jas—the heir to a Great House—was in love with him. She had no wealth, no connections, no family except her younger sisters. Nothing to convince Roa’s parents she was more than just a destitute girl trying to secure a higher social standing for herself and her sisters.
Is this why she always spurned and ignored him?Roa wondered.Because she thought if it came to the attention of our parents, they would do exactly as she feared?
Roa’s parents would disapprove—that was certain. But only at first. Her parents would come around because they taught Roa and her siblings to think for themselves and make their own decisions. They would respect Jas for making this one.
And if they didn’t... well. Roa would change their minds.
Another thought struck her. She looked to Dax.
“Does this mean the baby ishis?”
