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“But maybe she wanted to stay human, for her son, for the forest?”
Sigurd goes impossibly still. Doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t blink. “But I—”
“See, that’s the problem.” I scowl at him. “Everything is all I, I, I. Not what she wanted, not what’s best for your kingdom.” I gesture to the valley below. “A good king wouldn’t be such an idiot.”
He flinches, turning his head as if he’s been slapped. His jaw stiffens. “You’re bold to speak to me this way.”
I notch my chin higher. “Maybe I don’t care what you think of me.” It’d be so much easier if it were true. Even easier if he hated me. Then I could win this competition, leave, and never look back. “You did a horrible thing. Wrecked lives. And for what?”
“A king is not allowed mistakes?”
“Some mistake. I was told you plotted for years. You said it yourself with your spies.”
“I did.” He admits, voice hard as the marble we stand on. “But it didn’t turn out as I planned. I realized my mistake the moment a poison arrow plunged through Rivenean’s chest. I wanted him to feel my pain, not…die. But I can’t undo it. No magic can change the past.”
“Then do better. Apologize.”
Sigurd crosses his arms and looks back at me, nonplussed.
My lips thin. “But you’d have to be sorry to apologize, wouldn’t you? And you don’t entirely regret it, mistake or not.”
A hot ache burns in my chest, and I fight the urge to rub at it. Why does he have to be so lovely and awful all at once?
“Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to be with you,” I mumble. My hands clamp over my mouth, but it’s too late.
Sigurd slams his fist on the railing, and it cracks. Little bits of stone clatter to the floor.
A sharp gust of wind tugs at my hair and plasters the nightgown to my legs. My skin goes clammy. He could toss me off this balcony without a thought, just like he threw Moria across the room. Just like that tornado tore apart my home years ago and stole away my parents. I back away, edging toward the room.
All at once, the wind dies. His expression shatters, and he flinches.
My heart clenches, but the damage is done.
“Sleep, little Wren.” He looks away. “Tomorrow’s game will need all your wits.”
I turn to flee.
“Unless…”
My feet pause on the stonework.
“Unless you’ll quit the game. Let me keep you safe, here with me until the binding fades.”
Like I wanted to keep her.
He doesn’t say the last part. He doesn’t need to.
“I’m not her, Sigurd,” I whisper without looking back.
He’s quiet so long I assume he didn’t hear me, and I retreat inside.
But before I can seal myself in my borrowed room, his reply comes as a whisper on an icy breeze. “No. You really are nothing like her.”
Chapter 20
Thesetupforthethird game is even worse than I feared.
I bob on my toes, nearly vibrating with the force of the cheers raining down on us. Fae crowd into steep stands that look down over the stage for today’s game. A maze, or so it seems, from the little I can see. A long one. The stands run in two parallel lines facing one another, with the course between. High walls block the contestants’ view beyond the entrance.
