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The room was dark when Riona awoke. A lantern sat on the table beside her, its flame turned low. She rolled over, wincing at the soreness in her ribs, and found Amaris curled up next to her. The girl’s lips were parted, and her chest slowly rose and fell with soft, slumbering breaths. Riona rose and opened the shutters to find a blanket of stars stretching over the city. The street below was quiet, empty with the exception of a few merchants and sailors heading toward the harbor. It was almost morning, then.
Creeping on silent feet, Riona pulled on her boots, slipped Auberon’s dagger into her waistband, and left the room. When she descended the stairs to the lodging house’s main room, she found a short, round woman kneading dough at a table behind the bar. She glanced up when Riona approached, revealing a smudge of flour across one cheek. Her attention immediately went to the bump protruding from Riona’s temple.
“Are ye alright, miss? My niece said some girl came in ’ere yesterday with a ragtag group of strangers, looking like she’d taken a beatin’. I’m assumin’ yer her,” she said, rounding the table to examine Riona in the light of the lantern hanging over the bar. “Do ye need anythin’? Did— Did the people yer with do this to ye? Should I send for the guards?”
“No, no, they protected me. All I need is something to eat. I know it’s early, but I’ll take anything you can spare, please.”
Riona pulled a few aurums out of her pocket, but the woman waved them away with a warm smile. “Keep yer money, girl. My niece is around yer age, and if she walked into some stranger’s lodgin’ house lookin’ the way ye do, I’d want the owner to take care of her the same way. Sit down. I’ll fix ye up somethin’ fresh and warm to eat. Ye look like ye need it.”
She patted Riona’s hand and bustled into the kitchen, her dough forgotten. Warmed by the stranger’s kindness, Riona set the coins on the bar beside a decanter of whiskey, then turned to find a place to sit. Her gaze landed on a table near the rear of the room, where a young man sat with his back to her. The light from the lanterns played across his hair, illuminating the auburn strands. She started toward him.
“Shouldn’t you be resting?” she asked as she approached Auberon’s table. A chipped mug sat before him, and he idly toyed with the handle, his fingers tapping out a rhythm on the ceramic.
“I could ask you the same question.” His tone was light, casual, but his stare remained fixed on his drink as he spoke. “Seeing as you’re the one who nearly died yesterday.”
“I was bound and held captive. There’s a difference,” she joked. When he still did not look at her, did not smile, did not act like Auberon at all, her mirth faded. She pulled out one of the chairs and sat. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”
“For the same reasons as you, I suspect. Too many troubling thoughts. Too many things to consider.”
“And not enough time to brood and make vague, cryptic responses. How very mysterious of you.” Riona raised a brow. “Is that how you make all the girls in Erduria swoon?”
At last, his eyes met hers. “No. None of those girls matter.”
“The rumors from Torch tell a different story.”
“I may indulge in a few…distractions…from time to time, but none of them are like you.”
She looked away too quickly, heat creeping up her cheeks. “Oh? I’m a distraction now, am I?”
“Eternally. Relentlessly.” His fingers tapped that same rhythm again, and after listening for a moment, Riona realized it was the melody of the song his mother loved. He was tapping out the notes she had shown him on the piano. Then his fingers curled around the handle, and he lifted the mug to his lips, downing the contents in a few long gulps. “Which is why it’s a good thing that you’ll soon be promised to Drystan.”
At his words, her blood ran cold. He was going to use the mines to blackmail her uncle into accepting the betrothal. And although Riona wanted a peaceful end to the war—wanted more than anything to spare her people from more needless fighting—she had never wanted it to happen likethis. With her uncle choosing to fight rather than seek peace. With her betraying her kingdom’s most closely guarded secret. With knowing that once word of the mines spread, there would be no end to the armies that would come to stake their claim on Rivosa’s land.
“None of this was supposed to happen,” Riona said quietly. “I only wanted to find Cathal’s killer. I didn’t expect… I didn’t want you to find out—”
“Riona,” Auberon interrupted, his voice deathly soft. “I was always going to find out. Why do you think I suggested our partnership in the first place? Why do you think I steered you toward the possibility of the king’s involvement in Cathal’s murder? You were always going to lead me to the mine.”
The apology in his tone struck her like a blow. She had thought she could manipulate an Erdurian prince, but he had been two steps ahead of her the entire time.Hehad suggested that they search for Cathal’s killer.Hehad convinced her that the king was mining eudorite in secret.
Auberon had been planning this from the beginning.
And now, her kingdom would pay the price for her mistakes.
“I wish things could have been different between us,” Auberon murmured, still idly tapping out that melody on the handle of his mug. “I wish there were another way to convince your uncle to accept a peace treaty. I wish that ending this war did not require ripping you away from the city you love, but this is how it must be. I have no other choice. I was given my orders, and I must obey them.”
She opened her mouth to respond just as the woman from the bar arrived with a platter of bread, fruit, and a steaming-hot meat pie. Riona’s mouth immediately began to water at the scent. It was all she could do not to lunge for the spoon the second the woman set the food before her.
“I’ll bring ye somethin’ to drink, as well.” The woman studied Auberon, then glanced at Riona, trying to read the tension hanging between them. “Is…there anythin’ else I can do for ye?”
“No, thank you. This is perfect.”
“I should try to get some rest,” Auberon said as the woman walked off. “And you should, too. Once you’re feeling better, we’ll see about hiring a carriage to the capital.”
He stood and reached for his mug, but Riona caught his hand before he could grab it. A dozen things she wanted to say tangled on her tongue, caught in the stress from the past several weeks and the storm of emotions raging within her.
In the end, she simply reached into her waistband and pulled out the emerald-hilted dagger. Auberon stilled when she set the weapon in his palm. “Thank you for saving my life.”
He stared at the blade, a torn expression on his face. Riona wondered whether he was thinking, as she was, of the moment he’d found her in the mine—his hands cupping her cheeks, his breath shaking as he pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, his eyes shining with devastation and devotion.
