I nod and follow her into the dim passageway, where even the midday sun struggles to reach the hunched figures and tired faces. We pass makeshift shelters pieced together with tattered fabric and old crates. Marion leads me toward a small square, sunlight illuminating the skeletal outlines of children huddled together near a crumbling stone fountain and a ramshackle blacksmith’s barn. Their faces are gaunt, their cheeks hollowed, eyes large and sunken with hunger. The eldest wraps a tattered blanket around a younger child who can’t be more than three. They sit silently with their gazes fixed on the cobblestones. Their thin fingers dig into their ragged clothes. A few others linger nearby, hands outstretched, muttering softly.
“Please, miss,” the older girl says, her voice barely a whisper. “Do you have any food?”
My heart aches as I glance at Marion, who takes out the napkin she stuffed into her pocket.
They gobble up the cakes, the bright frosting like Technicolor against their sallow skin. My gaze falls to the elder sister as she rocks her brother back and forth. I kneel beside her, and she glances up, her expression guarded and cautious.
“What’s your name?” I ask gently.
“Lila,” she replies, her voice hoarse. She’s thinner, her skin an ashen gray, and her hair isn’t as bouncy and shiny, but she’s the mirror image of the president of Posh Pulse’s granddaughter.
“Lila,” I repeat, a weak smile tugging at my lips. “Lila, I promise to do something about this. I promise to help.”
“They’ve made promises before. No one helps us.”
I swallow, my throat thick. For the first time, I wish Kane was right. I wish the Tower did send the Empress to find me and that this whole thing wasn’t a big mistake. I wish there was something I could do. But there’s not. I’m not special. I wasn’t chosen. There’s nothing I can say, nothing I can do in this realm that isn’t mine, where I’m masquerading as a lady who’s dead and buried under branches in the forest.
Marion touches my back, and I stand. “We must go.”
I follow Marion back toward the bustling market streets, casting a glance over my shoulder to Lila. My heart squeezes as my eyes settle on a black horse and a man I could never mistake.
The sun glints off Kane’s dark hair and the silver chalice embroidered on his eye patch as he approaches on horseback. My heart quickens as Shadow brings him closer, his strong frame silhouetted against the bright daylight.
He slows near the forgotten fountain and cluster of children, then dismounts, his boots crunching against the cobblestones as he leads Shadow to a sun-bleached wooden post outside the weathered blacksmith’s barn and loops her reins around it.
Kane opens one of the saddlebags slung over Shadow’s back, reaching inside to pull out a bundle wrapped in cloth. My heart skips a beat as he kneels before the children and unwraps the offering: several loaves of freshly baked bread still steaming from the oven. Lila leans forward, and the other children follow as she pulls her brother with her.
“Go ahead, take it all.” Kane’s deep voice is soft as he speaks. “It’s left over from a boring meeting I had at the palace with the dullest men you could be left in a room with.”
Lila giggles and reaches out. She snatches a loaf and holds it close to her chest. Seeing her boldness, the others follow, taking pieces and tearing into the bread with hungry eagerness. A flicker of relief passes over Kane’s features, but his eye remains shadowed as he watches the children devour their meal.
He hands out more food from his saddlebags: dried fruits, nuts, and jerky. Lila steps forward with her mouth full, offering a mumbled thank-you before gathering her spoils and leading her brother back to their makeshift shelter.
“It appears we’re not alone in our efforts,” Marion says. “I had no idea Ashwood was so gallant.”
Neither did I.
It’s best like this, when he’s not looking at me, when he’s unaware of my gaze and I can admire the sheer physicality of him—the way his jaw cuts the backdrop of the city, the way the light plays across the planes of his chest and the peaks and valleys of his muscles.
To say I’m attracted to him is an understatement. It’s more than just the way he looks. It’s a pull to the very essence of him, to the vulnerability, the resilience, the hidden depths that his body merely protects. I’m acutely aware of his presence, of the space he occupies, of how he makes me feel, and of the undeniable passion that sparks like fireworks between us.
Kane musses a child’s hair and stands, and the realization hits me like a wave, unexpected and powerful. Myheart seems to cease beating as I see him, truly see him for the first time.
Something shifts inside me, and before I can stop myself, the thought comes rushing in.
“Shit,” I murmur. “I’m falling for Kane.”
Twenty
As the last of the children scamper off, small arms overloaded with food, a townsperson approaches and offers a small curtsy. I stiffen, aware that in the wrong hands, recognition could get us killed.
Marion stretches out her arms and envelops the young woman in a hug. “Clara, how are you? How is your sister?”
“She had the baby not two days ago, Lady Marion. A healthy little girl,” she reports, pride swelling in her chest.
“A baby girl!” Marion lifts onto her toes. “May I visit? I don’t want to intrude.”
“Of course, Lady Marion. She would love to see you.”
