She motioned to the empty stable. “We’re alone. No one would hear. You could do it now and be through with me.”
Dax stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
Maybe it was her grief over Essie. Or maybe it was more than that. But something was burning in Roa, and she couldn’t stop until it was all burned out.
“I found your seal in Sirin’s pocket. Right after he tried to kill me.”
Dax’s mouth flattened into a hard line and his eyes went black.“What?”
Roa had never seen him look like that. The edge in his voice made whatever was burning in her flicker.
She stepped back.
Dax came toward her, closing the gap, tense with fury. “Speak plainly. What are you telling me?”
“Sirin cornered me in an alley,” she said. “He told me he’d been paid to rid the king of his problem.” She shook now from the memory of it. “I found your seal in his pocket.”
For a moment, Dax was silent, remembering the night previous. When she’d run straight into him, alone, without her guards.
“And so,” he said, voice bitter, gaze never leaving her face, “you think I’m the one who gave the order.”
Roa’s voice came out like a whisper. “What else am I to think?”
“That seal was a fake.” Dax’s jaw hardened. “Someone forged it.”
Roa wanted to laugh. “Easy to say.”
He didn’t move away. Just stood there, studying her.
“I made you a promise, Roa.” His voice softened. “The night I married you.”
The memory of it glimmered in his eyes: the two of them lying side by side in his tent, in the middle of the war camp.
He lifted his hand and, to Roa’s surprise, gently brushed his thumb across her jaw. “I would never hurt you.”
Roa stared up at him, immobilized.
But you hurt me every day.
She hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
Dax looked stricken, his hand immediately retreating as he stepped back.Roa felt the world rush in, separating them.
“Do I?” he whispered. When Roa didn’t answer, he said, “Then I won’t impose on you any longer.”
Without another word, he turned and walked out of the stall.
The moment he was gone, Roa fell back against the wall. Whatever had been burning in her vanished. She slid down into the hay and pressed her palms against her eyes, trying to numb herself to the storm of confusion within her. Trying to will away the fear.
In the dark and the silence, it was Torwin she saw. His hands bound behind his back as he stared down Rebekah. Love burned out all his fear. As if he’d stared death in the face so many times, Rebekah was nothing more than a mere annoyance.
Roa knew what it felt like to love someone like that.
Reaching for the Skyweaver’s knife, she slid the blade from its sheath hidden beneath her hem. It glowed in the darkness, and Roa felt its strange chill sink into her bones. As she studied its sharp edge and the unknown symbols in its hilt, she thought of a white hawk trapped in a cage.
She loved her sister more than anything or anyone. She would do whatever it took to free her.
Even if it meant killing a king.
