As soon as Jas was out of hearing distance, Theo rose and walked to where the tent’s fourth side was rolled back and secured to the corner post. He started to unfasten it. Just before he rolled it closed and tied it securely to the canvas roof—keeping the warmth in and prying eyes out—Roa looked out into the darkness, toward Dax’s tent.
The lamp was out.
She couldn’t stay long.
Theo came back and sat down, planting one hand behind Roa, on the sheepskins laid down on the sand. Their shoulders brushed.
If she had ridden hard, Theo had ridden harder. She could see it in the hunch of his shoulders, the droop of his head. Exhaustion carved deep shadows under his eyes, made deeper by the fire’s light. But in his gaze burned a familiar longing. One that hadn’t diminished in spite of everything she’d done.
Her brother’s warning flashed through Roa’s mind.
She looked quickly away, fixing her eyes on Essie, still curled up asleep in her lap.
Dax might be a vow breaker, but Roa wasn’t.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “For marrying him.”
Theo stiffened, then grabbed the stick perched on the stones ringing the fire. He prodded the flames with it. “We don’t need to do this. I already know what you’re going to say. I knew it before you ever left.”
Roa needed to say it anyway.
“I married him to bring down a tyrant.” She traced her sister’s wings, gently and softly, so as not to wake her. “And solidify an alliance.”
His grip tightened around the stick. “Marryingmewould have solidified an alliance. But I suppose scrublander alliances are less important than Firgaardian ones.”
The fire crackled and sparked, lighting up his skin and dancing in his eyes. Those soft lips of his were set in a firm, hard line.
She looked him in the face. “Dax’s father needed to be removed. He tried to kill his own son.”
Theo shrugged. “I wish he had.”
Roa’s fingers stopped stroking Essie. “Don’t say that.”
“Can you blame me? Dax tookour peopleand marched them across the sand sea to fighthis war. He stole a daughter of the House of Song and made her queen so the rest of us would be compliant.”
“Imarched that army across the sand sea. And Dax didn’t—”
“Remember what happened to the last scrublander girl who married a king?”
He was talking about Amina, Dax and Asha’s mother. Roa’s fists tightened. No one stole Amina. She’d done what she’d done, the same as Roa had: of her own free will.
“She’s dead,” said Theo. After rounding up the wood still left to burn, he nudged it all toward the center. The smoke curled up through the hole at the top of the tent. “Don’t be upset with me for not wanting you to end up like her.” Much more quietly, he said, “Don’t be upset with me for not wanting him to have you.”
“Nobodyhasme.” She bristled. “And this isn’t a contest Dax set out to win in order to humiliate you.”
“Are you sure?” he said, brow darkening. He stopped prodding the flames and lowered his voice. “Daxwillbecome his father. Just like his father became the monster before him. Dax’s heir will do the same. This is the way it’s always been, Roa. Blood is blood. You can’t run from yours as much as I can’t run from mine.”
A chill crept across Roa’s skin. Her gaze searched his shadowed face. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Dax’s bloodline has only ever borne monstrous kings. I’m saying so long as adraksorsits on the throne, scrublanders will never be free of their tyranny. We will never have autonomy. We will never have peace.”
He stared down at her, rigid as stone, as if daring her to contradict him.
“And?” she whispered. “What’s your solution?”
“That he give up his crown—by force if necessary.”
Roa’s blood ran cold.
