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He pulls the stick back so suddenly, I think for a moment he is coming for me. Instead, he tears meat from the end of it, leans over and hands a piece to me.

I take it.

Eating in silence, I wonder why he’s started a fire. My husband’s men did not do so on our journey to Craighcebor. But then, they were attempting to avoid notice, slinking through the countryside toward the Merian border. As usual, Whitley kept me close to his side, though he was careful to say nothing in my presence. Only by hiding in the shadows did I learn anything at all.

I watch, and wait. I may not have Cettina’s fearless nature, but I did inherit our mother’s share of patience. One cannot have all the virtues, she was fond of saying when I would wish to be more like my sister.

“You balance each other, my daughters,” she would say.

Staring into the fire, I can see her, an older version of my sister with her long, pale locks always flowing nearly to the small of her back. The day she died, all of Edingham wept, Cettina and I alongside them. She’d kept father in check, somehow. Not, certainly, in any outward way. He ruled as king of Edingham without ever asking for her council. And yes, she gave it, but in such subtle ways Father never guessed her intentions.

When she died, even he mourned. And our kingdoms paid the price for her loss.

Feeling his eyes on me, I look up, suddenly aware the Elderman must have been watching me for some time. He inspects me as one would a berry, determining if it offers sustenance . . . or poison.

“You are Lady Hilla Borea, daughter of the late King Malcom, sister to Queen Cettina of Edingham. And wife to Lord Whitley of the Borderlands.”

He knows my identity. “You took me for ransom.”

Some say the church has more coin than the kingdoms of Meria and Edingham combined. So it would seem a risky endeavor to risk my sister’s anger for more of what he does not need.

Father Silvester and his Elderman move freely throughout the Isle. Enemies since the Kingdom of Meria split into two, Merians and Mountain Men, as those in Edingham are known, very rarely cross the border. While those in Murwood End to the north travel freely to both southern kingdoms, we do not venture into Meria often. Some traders do, of course. But none other, except the church, collecting coin along the way.

“Then you know my sister will be most displeased by your actions?”

I had not wanted to give him leverage by revealing my identity, but if he already knows...

“No, I am helping her. I think she will be grateful to me for keeping her guarded.”

He says it with no emotion, no judgment. In fact, it takes me a moment to decipher the words. Is this man actually suggesting . . . ?

“Safe?” I explode, forgetting for a moment to whom I speak. “You think to keep Cettina safe from me?”

The Elderman is back to not answering.

Refusing to look at him, to acknowledge him, I consider his words. I consider all I know of the man he serves, as the Shadow Warriors are the Prima’s army.

I’ve met Father Silvester on many occasions. When my father was alive, the Prima came to court regularly. Although he primarily resides in Avalon, a port town on the west coast in Meria, he and his men traveled to Edingham often. The church owns properties throughout the Isle, all of which benefit from being free from taxation.

While he and Father enjoyed an amicable relationship, the Prima and my sister do not. She feels they have grown too powerful, Father Silvester too invasive. Does he mean to assert his power over my sister by taking me captive? Then again, how could this have been planned? There was no way for the Elderman to know I would be traveling with my husband.

By rights, I should not have been there, in the midst of battle. Only a monster like my husband would put a woman, his wife, in such danger—unarmed, with no way to defend myself, the consequences evident as I sit here this moment.

A captive.

So if it was not planned, what does this Elderman think to gain? And does he truly believe he is aiding my sister, as if I am a threat to her?

My hand drops, the last few bites of meat still gripped in my fingers. “You believe that I was complicit in the attack?”

He watches me but says nothing.

My shoulders sag in relief. We are on the same side, this Elderman and I. He just doesn’t know it yet. At the moment, he thinks I approve of my husband’s vile actions. And that I would condone an attack on innocent villagers, even if they are Merians, simply to provoke a war. One that Meria started, and which some in Edingham aim to finish.

Some, like my husband, will never forgive the fact that King Galfrid of Meria sent more than two hundred warriors into Galmouth Bay. Indeed, if that ship had not sunk, Galfrid’s own son along with it, those men would have unleashed devastation on my people unlike anything we’ve seen in years.

But the ship never made it.

This, however, does not excuse men like Whitley who hate the fact that my sister has not retaliated.