Page 190 of Feralheart

I gripped his good shoulder. “Maybe the real question is… Did this trial kill him at all?”

His face blanched.

If his father had made it this far and he’d carved his name in this stone, then the story told about his death was a lie. And if his mother had lied about when he died, what else had she lied about?

“The blade someone stabbed you with.” I said it before he could. “It was your father’s initial in the hilt, right? I told you that Lord Andra visited Lady Severine. I saw them talking. Someone could be managing us, keeping certain riders alive, removing others, and watching how we respond.”

His head tilted. “Why how they respond?”

I frowned. “I’m not sure, but we were given a different trial than the others for the second one. I think…” I met his gaze, holding it. “I think that someone wanted to see if you’d abandon me or I’d leave you behind.”

“Testing us. The Oracle?”

It could be part of the “proving worthy” they’d mentioned at the start.

“Does the Oracle control the test or does someone else?”

“You mean the fates?”

I shrugged and gestured to the rock. “We’re dealing with a couple of mysteries, or one, all wrapped together.”

“Someone knew my father was alive at least until this rest spot. This person has known for twenty-three years and needed to keep that information hidden. They needed me to believe a story that kept me manageable.” His voice had gone very even. “This person has access to the trials, the fortress, and to professional killers and ornate blades with personal markings.” He lifted his chin. “They used my father’s blade to stab me. Monogrammed. I remember him carrying it always.” He dragged his palms across my face. “My mother.”

“We might be wrong,” I said, because one of us had to.

“I don’t think we are.”

He ran his fingertip across the marking on the stone.

That was what decided it for me. Not the shaking that had stopped, the cracked voice, or the misery in his eyes, but the fact that he was seeking some sort of connection in the carving. The ground had gone out from under him, and his body didn’t know yet that he’d already fallen.

I’d stood at my mother’s herb shelf for an hour after she died. Counting jars. Not moving.

“Come with me.” I gently touched his arm. “Let’s get you somewhere you can sit down.”

He stood and followed me without argument, his body going through the motions while his brain tried to process what he’d found. What all this could mean.

We reached his tent. The flap hung open. Servants had laid out food on a low table, a meal elaborate enough for three people. The smell of roasted meat and herbs filled the space.

My stomach didn’t register any of it.

I settled on the floor near the entrance, my back against a support pole. Close enough to talk yet far enough away that anyone passing would see nothing inappropriate.

Except Fen didn’t sit across from me.

He lowered himself beside me near enough I could feel the heat of him along my left side. Our shoulders would brush if either of us breathed too deeply.

The tent suddenly felt smaller. The air thicker.

He cleared his throat. “Sorry. I⁠—”

“It’s fine.”

It wasn’t fine. Nothing about this would ever be fine.

But it could be ours.

He shifted slightly to look at me, and his shoulder pressed against mine when he settled back.