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A bandage covered half his neck, front to back. He was lucky to be alive. Arin had said he’d interrupted the assailant moments before I’d arrived. He’d also said he hadn’t been able to get any information from Draven. But Arin could have brought the man a pencil and paper, like I had. Why hadn’t he if he was so desperate to find the imposter?
Perhaps Draven hadn’t been well enough until now.
Draven thrust the notepad out. His writing left a lot to be desired. He’d scrawled at an angle, the words written in capitals and looped together.
HAVE TO LEAVE. HELP ME?
He dragged a hand down his beard and nodded, big dark eyes full of hope.
“I’ll see what I can do. But you have to answer some questions for me. Can you do that?”
He blinked, made a huffing noise, and waved for the pad, then scribbled furiously on the page and thrust it back into my hands.
YOUR IN DANGER
I ignored the urge to correct his spelling. Why would Draven care if I was in danger? He’d all but called me out in the gardens—"traitor’s son.”I was a traitor here too. But now he was warning me, trying to help?
Unless he didn’t understand what“traitor’s son”meant.
Perhaps he didn’t know as much as I’d thought, or as much as the imposter had assumed, when they’d tried to kill him.
When I’d first seen him, I’d pegged him as a hapless lord, and my instincts were rarely wrong. If I assumed Draven was still the hapless lord, who knew very little, why had someone attempted to kill him? We didn’t know each other. He wasn’t a regular in the Court of Love, and wastraitor’s sonenough to cut his throat?
Strange that whoever had attacked him hadn’t tried again. Strange too, that there were no guards at his doors to prevent that.
“Listen, I don’t have long.” I handed the pad back and pointed at the paper. “Who attacked you?”
He shook his head and wrote four letters in deep, jagged lines:
ARIN
His memory was probably muddled. “Arin was there after. But who hurt you?”
He shook his head again, dislodging scruffy locks around wide, panicked eyes. He jabbed a finger at the page, and at Arin’s name.
“The prince hurt you?”
He nodded and coughed, the sound raspy. He gestured for the notepad back. I shifted to sit on the bed, alongside him, and watched him write.
ARIN CUT NECK
SILENCE ME
But that didn’t make any sense. Arin had told me he was fighting to protect his court. How would silencing the truth about me do that? Wouldn’t he want everyone knowing who I was? “Did he tell you why?”
CAN’T KILL ME WAR WILL COME
ONLY SILENCE
“Yes, but why silence you, Draven? You wanted to meet, to discuss me, yes? What did you tell him that had him almost kill you?”
He made an effort to speak but the sound left his lips as a muffled croak. Shaking his head again, he flipped the page in the notebook and scribbled:
ARIN DID NOT KNOW YOU
“Wait… He didnotknow about me?”
Draven blinked, shook his head.FURIOUS, he wrote.
