Intimacy isn’t openly talked about back in the castle, so Sig’s blunt remarks take me off guard. My responsibility as the future queen is to produce an heir, and I’m well aware of how that happens, but I guess when it isn’t a transaction to seal a marriage alliance or produce that heir, it is a more accepted part of life. More normal. Definitely less scandalous discussion. Sig doesn’t seem to mind at all, which must be why she was so willing to tell me that everyone saw Dane and me on the beach.
“Speak for yourself!” Stassia calls out, spinning on one foot until she is facing us.
A laugh bellows from my chest. The rushing water next to us is loud enough that I needed to raise my voice when talking to Sig, but I didn’t realize they could hear us from where they stand.
Which means they heard our entire conversation.
Including me asking if Weston has ever been with anyone before.
Shit.
“Stassia, I have a hard time believing that you have trouble with men,” I say, hopefully diverting the conversation away from any of my previous inquiries.
She leaps from boulder to boulder toward us. “What can I say? I’m an acquired taste. How about you, Lennox? Are the men lining up to court you back home as much as they are here?”
“There’s no one lining up, at home or here,” I say.
Stassia laughs her high-pitched giggle, and spins back around, heading over the boulders in the other direction. “You’re so funny, Lennox.”
“I’m with Dane, remember?”
“Oh, we remember,” Stassia says. “How could we forget after thatwarming upby the bonfire?” She looks back and wiggles her eyebrows at me before cackling again.
Sig wasn’t lying when she said the Castaways had seen what happened on the beach. After getting to know her for weeks, it doesn’t at all surprise me that Stassia was probably front and center to observe.
“Alright, that’s enough. Get back to searching,” Sig calls out.
“You’re no fun, Sig.” Stassia giggles before bending down and feeling between the cracks of two large boulders. Auralie shakes her head with a smile and heads down the river, leaving Sig and me alone again.
This is it.
This is my chance to tell her. Dropping my shoulders and lowering my voice, I try to look as genuine as possible. I don’t want her to suspect that I overheard the conversation between her and Weston.
“I’ve already made my peace with never leaving Dawnlin, anyway,” I say with a deep sigh as I stare out over the rushing river.
“You want to stay here?” Sig says, a hint of surprise in her question.
She took my bait, and now I just need to drop the most crucial piece of information. When Dane trusted me with the knowledge about the dust, he didn’t want any of the other Voyagers to know. Telling Sig, and eventually Weston, goes directly against his wishes, but if it helps me get back to him sooner, I don’t think he will be upset. With as frantic as he was to find me over a week ago, I hope escaping sooner will bring him nothing but relief.
I shrug and look toward her, keeping my face as neutral as possible. “I never intended to stay, but I don’t really have a choice now. You all have been searching for a way off the island for years, and Dane’s dust is almost gone.”
Sig’s jaw slackens. “I’m sorry, say that again?”
“Dane’s dust? It’s almost gone. The pouch is almost empty, and he doesn’t know how to refill it.”
Sig’s face draws in as her shoulders pull back. Her eyes flutter around, never settling on any one place for more than a second as her thoughts reel, processing everything I just said.
It’s exactly how I want her to react.
She needs to see the severity of the situation, needs to know how important it is for me to go back. I fit right into her plan, the plan she pitched to Weston that he immediately shot down. But now, time is of the essence. It’s now or never, because once it is gone, it could be gone forever.
“What do you mean, he doesn’t know how to get more?”
“It was full when he became the Guardian, and he never had any instruction on how to replenish it,” I say and step onto a new rock. “We were trying to figure it out before I found the waters, but now I’m here. By the sound of his conversation the other night, I don’t think he’s made much progress.”
She shifts on her feet, glancing down the bank toward Stassia and Auralie. She stays silent, her jaw working, before looking back at me.
“We need to tell Cap,” she says finally, her voice lower than before.
