Page 88 of Thief of Hearts

And I had shown him where they all were when I disarmed myself before the final event. I wanted to groan in frustration but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. This was so humiliating, to be tied up like some wild beast.

I glanced around to see where we were. We were no longer at the oasis. I could tell from the sand beneath me that we were still in the Wastelands. We were in some kind of natural fortress—surrounded by towers of rocks that enclosed the area around us, blocking out the sun.

“You’re awake? You shouldn’t be awake.”

Just a moment ago Zain had been fifteen feet away from me, and now he stood only a couple of feet away. How could he move so quickly and so quietly?

“I should have accounted for you being battle-favored.”

What had he drugged me with? How long had I been asleep because of it?

“No matter.”

It didn’t matter because I couldn’t break free. Was this why he had encouraged me to take the rope if I won? I remembered talking to him about it because I didn’t think I’d need it, and he had said that I shouldn’t turn down magical gifts. Had he been planning all this since then?

“Sorry about the gag. I couldn’t have you calling out when I ask my question. It’s what I would do if our situations were reversed.”

I wanted to tell him to take two steps closer to me and I’d reverse our situations. I didn’t need my hands to fight.

He took the diviner stone out of his pocket. It had a yellowish tinge and looked like a large diamond. It wasn’t in the box. He was going to use it.

Zain had told me that his interest in winning the tournament was the bag of gold. How could I have been so foolish as to believe that? I had seen how capable he was of stealing. He could have stolen the prize amount from Sagaris in a single night and they wouldn’t have even missed it.

When he lifted the stone, I protested as much as I could, struggling against my ropes. Fury licked through me and I wanted to scream.

“How do I get what’s mine?” he asked.

I went completely still, shocked that he’d done it. That he’d stolen my question when it hadn’t belonged to him.

After a few beats, the rock responded in a deep voice that I felt in the base of my soul: “Basileia.”

Then the stone disintegrated quickly, turning to dust that he shook off his hand.

I only had a moment to wonder why the diviner stone had said my name and then Zain was there, pulling the gag off my mouth and immediately stepping back.

“Invara Enyalius,” I said.

I tugged against the ropes. Nothing had changed. I wasn’t stronger. That aspect didn’t seem to be working for me.

“Did you do something to the stone?” he demanded.

“Did I do something?” I echoed. “That’s what you’re concerned about? Not the fact that you betrayed me? I gave my blood and my body to win that and you took it from me! You saw what I had to do to get it!”

“I needed it more than you.”

“Then you should have won!”

“How could I defeat someone who is battle-favored?”

That made me go silent. He had known that about me from the beginning. I thought about all our interactions, the things that he had learned about me, the things he had said.

What I had confessed to him.

And what I had seen in Sagaris. I began to put the pieces together. “This was always your plan. If not me, it would have been someone else. You were going to steal the stone from them. Because there was no way you could have stolen it from the bank. And if you won the tournament under a false identity from stolen papers, the Sagari might have started to ask questions.”

Him not answering confirmed my suspicions.

I was already furious with him, but his silence somehow managed to enrage me further. Had he been the one trying to kill me? “Then why did you sabotage me? You should have been helping me to win. Why cut the axle on my chariot? Did you give Levern that knife?”