“Ethyan is a decent shot.”
“I can vouch for that.”
I chuckled, a small smile pulling at my lips.
“You know how we met?” I didn’t wait for his reply. “Not long after I arrived in Port Siren, I stumbled into trouble with a bad lot at a tavern. They bested me of my coin, and I was about to lose the shirt off my back when Ethyan intervened, winning a game of knife toss. He and Lyana managed to win enough to keep me from going hungry, and I’ve been with them ever since.”
Sainte was silent, either waiting for me to go on or he had fallen asleep.
“I guess when you want a family, you’ll build it with anyone you find,” I breathed, studying the night.
Stars twinkled, blue and purple streaks above, illuminated by the moon. I had a vague recollection of the night in Wynterborne being more vibrant. In my memories, the northern sky swarmed with bright auroras, dancing streams of green and blue.
“I left you with a family.”
Apparently, he hadn’t fallen asleep.
“You dumped me in a house as a burden and inconvenience, Sainte. Sure, I had food and a roof overhead, but that was all. I was surviving, not thriving.”
“I suppose running the streets and thieving is where you thrived.”
Annoyed, I rolled onto my side and squinted at his shadowy figure. “You don’t get it. I didn’t fit in—wasn’t welcome. There was no kindness in Landing’s End, aside from you—then you left.”
“Strange, I remember you being the one to leave.”
“You walked away first.”
Heavy silence lapsed, and I flopped onto my back. Now was not the time to hash this out. I wanted to lash out, to make him feel the same pain he caused me.
“I had to.”
“So you’ve said,” I spat. I didn’t want to talk to him anymore.
“I had to secure my position at the palace. Without that, your return would’ve been impossible.”
“Just a tool,” I muttered. How had I ever found this man charming?
I scrunched my face to keep from getting sappy. He did not deserve my tears. I could hold myself together. He saw me as a pawn, using gifts to sway my loyalty. Butter me up so I’d blindly follow his lead.
His voice dropped to a low rumble. “Do you know what I did when I returned on your seventeenth birthday?”
I didn’t grace him with a reply.
But,gods, how I wanted to know.
“I tore Landing’s End apart. Didn’t rest, didn’t sleep. I scoured whorehouses and slums, searched the common man’s graves. I hunted for three weeks, Elspeth.”
“Because your pawn was gone.”
“Because the girl I… cared for was gone.”
Pig guts.
My heart twitched in response to his words, the fragmented shards trying to fuse together. I didn’t care about him. Not one bit. Nothing he could say would ever take away the hurt he caused.
“Why didn’t you stay?” I whispered, half-hoping he wouldn’t hear me.
There was a pregnant pause before he spoke again.
