I had used it the way Lia had. I had told the lady of the manor she was going to die a slow and horrible death, though I had seen no such thing. I was eight years old and angry that it was my own mother who was dying and not the petty one of my half brothers, a woman who had never shown me any kindness. That was when my first beating came. It was at the hands of my father, not the beggars. They only left scars atop the ones he had already laid deep.

Which one was it, Kaden?

His name was one I would never give up, not even to Lia—but it would be my name on his lips as he lay dying. My name would be the one he uttered as he gasped his last breath, knowing he had been betrayed by his own son. It was a thought that had warmed me for years. Our plans. That moment had always been implicit in them.

We rounded the pass and had started to make our descent into the valley when we saw them coming toward us. I stopped our procession until I was certain who they were. I sighed and signaled us forward again to meet them. We must never grow lazy. But the governor of Arleston had. There would be no neck to wring. He was dead. The squad of men heading our way bore the flags of Arleston, and the man leading them had to be the new governor. A sturdy man, but not young as challengers usually were. I didn’t care. He was headed in the right direction, knowing his duty, and that was all that mattered. I could return to the Sanctum now. I could return home to Lia. The last stray governor had been found.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

RAFE

“That door,” Ulrix grumbled, pointing ahead. “I’ll be back in two hours.”

“It won’t take me that long to bathe.”

“But my duties will take me that long. Sit tight until I come back for you.”

He stomped off, still angry that I had won a hot bath in a game of cards last night. He claimed he’d let me win because I stank, which may have been true.

As much as I wanted an actual bath, my real purpose was to see more of the layout of the Sanctum, and I knew that the bath chamber was closer to the tower where Lia stayed with Kaden. While I had been given some liberties in my movement, traveling alone to a different part of the Sanctum wasn’t among them. I memorized the path we took, asking Ulrix innocuous questions, trying to determine which hallways were the most frequently traveled and where they led. Ulrix, even with his short temper, proved useful.

I opened the door to the bath chamber, and there, as promised, was a tub filled with water. I dipped my hand in. Lukewarm at best, but more than inviting after only being able to wash up with a basin of cold water. There was soap and a towel too. Ulrix must have been feeling generous.

I threw my clothes off and shoved my head in first, scrubbing my face and scalp, then got in and soaked, but the water was rapidly cooling, so I washed and got out before it turned cold. I dried off and was only half dressed when I felt hands on my bare back.

I spun, and there was Lia, pushing me up against the wall. “What are you doing here?” I said. “You can’t—”

She drew my face to hers and kissed me, warm and long, her fingers raking through my wet hair. I pulled away. “You have to leave. Someone might—” But then my mouth came down on hers again, hard and hungry, sending a far different message than the one I was trying to convey. My hands slid around her waist, traveled up her back, soaking in all the lost time and days that I had wanted to hold her.

“No one saw me,” she said between kisses.

“Yet.”

“I heard Ulrix tell you he’d be gone for two hours, and no one will check on me for at least that.”

My body molded to hers. I could taste the desperation in her kisses, and she whispered about the distant hills of Venda she had seen, endless hills we could get lost in.

“For a few days if we’re lucky,” I said. “That’s not enough. I want a lifetime with you.”

She faltered for a moment, brought back to our reality, then rested her cheek on my chest. “What are we going to do, Rafe?” she asked. “It’s been twelve days. And only a matter of a dozen more before riders return with news of the king’s good health.”

“Stop counting the days, Lia,” I said. “You’ll drive yourself mad.”

“I know,” she whispered, and stepped back. Her eyes grazed my bare chest. “You should get dressed before you catch cold,” she said.

With her so close, I was anything but cold, but I grabbed my shirt and put it on. She helped me button it, and every brush of her fingers seared my skin.

“How did you get out of your room?” I asked.

“There’s an abandoned passageway. It doesn’t lead to much, mostly busy hallways, which makes it useless most of the time, but sometimes opportunity presents itself.” She didn’t seem worried about how she’d get back to her room undetected, though I was. She put her finger to my lips and told me to stop, saying we had precious little time together, and she wasn’t going to use it worrying about that too. “I already told you I’m good at sneaking,” she said. “I have years of experience at it.”

I barred the door and moved empty buckets from a cot to the floor so we could sit. We updated each other on what little we knew. She nestled in my arms, telling me about traveling through the countryside of Venda and how the people there were just like any others, people trying to survive. She said they were kind and curious and nothing like the Council. I told her what I had learned about the pathways from Ulrix, but I held back on some things I had been doing, particularly the weapons I had managed to hide. I had seen the fire in her eyes when she talked about sneaking one from the barrows in the Sanctum. She had witnessed her brother’s brutal death, and I couldn’t blame her for wanting revenge, but I didn’t want her retrieving a knife or sword before the timing was right.