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No,she told herself firmly. He didn't deserve that. No one deserved it.
They'd crossed rivers, mountains, had been challenged half a dozen times. He fought with care and precision, crippling, disabling, never killing. Even in the throne room, with Lucan on his knees.
He'd told her, early on, that he'd meant to kill only once more.
She'd never fathomed it might be his own brother.
A small, hiccuping sob tore free of her throat before she could catch it.
Rilion startled at the sound.
“I don't know what's happened,” Thea choked. “I don't know how it came to this. Everything's fallen apart in the last hour.”
The prince looked troubled. He studied her, then glanced away. For a time, the only sound was the rustle of the wind in the grasses and the sound of their horses as they moved along the brook and drank.
Eventually, Rilion sighed and returned his eyes to the western horizon. “I warned him, once. Said this was a possibility. I was... too soon in sharing it, I think.”
Thea lifted her head.
“There are poisons that mimic death,” he said slowly. “I cautioned him that with the extent of Lucan's paranoia, and with Kentorian burial traditions, we couldn't be certain. In Ranor, bodies are burned and returned to the earth.”
And in Kentoria, they were buried in hardwood caskets lined with dried leaves. She rubbed her brow. The dead kings were buried privately, somewhere on castle grounds. How hard would it have been to dig up Lucan's body so he could be revived with an antidote? Not hard, if your replacement was seldom home. Gil's determination to find his brothers' killer had provided a perfect window for escape.
If only things had spun in favor of Gil's escape this time.
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand before more tears could form. “He told you to do this, didn't he? Ahead of time?”
Rilion's brows knit. “Do what?”
“Take me. Leave him there.”
He hesitated.
Thea nodded and lowered her eyes to the water, watching as it trickled over the rocks. “I thought so.”
“If I am being honest, I don't know why he let you come to begin with. To scare you off, maybe. He's never...” He exhaled. “He doesn't work with others anymore. Not often. Too many people have died because of things he's had to do.”
Don't look.
Her eyes burned anew. She turned away. “That's what I'm afraid of.” And what she desperately wished she'd had a moment to ask. Lucan's face, the wicked satisfaction it bore as he gave the order, was burned into her memory. But the king had only given the order. Execute the traitors. Another hand had swung the axe, and the executioner's mask the man wore had haunted her dreams every night.
Now her mind blurred that memory with the moment in the woodshed, when she'd seen Gil pull that mask from his face.
She tried to force it away. No matter what she'd seen, she did not know.
If he didn't make it out of that fortress, she never would.
“I needed to be here,” Rilion said after a time. He gazed toward the west, a tense sort of hope betrayed in the set of his shoulders. He didn't owe her any explanation, but she sensed that he wanted her to ask.
“Is that why he brought you?” Or was he trying to frighten Rilion off, too?
He waved a hand at the valley around them. “Someone has to clean up all this. The people, that fortress. Someone will have to answer for it, and it's closest to the Ranorsh border. He wanted me to know what we needed to expect. A favor, in his own way.”
“That favor could have gotten you killed.”
“Well, yes. That tends to happen with him. That's why I don't know why he let you come.” The smile he gave her this time was nervous, but resigned. “We have to keep moving.”
No sign of Gil's escape, then. Thea dipped her hands in the frigid water and wiped her face clean, then rose. “How far?”
