My breathing calmed just as my thoughts did. It was only one morning of quiet. One morning of listening. Dihara had told me I couldn’t summon the gift. That is exactly what it was, a gift. But you had to be ready, prepared. Listening and trusting took practice.

The gift didn’t come to me fully known or clear, and I still had a lot of questions, yet today when I sat in the meadow, it felt as if my fingertips had brushed the tail of a star. My skin tingled with the dust of possibility.

As I stood to return to camp, the tingle turned sharply to cold fingers gripping my neck and my footsteps faltered. Something Dihara said reached out and took hold of me. You’ve had much practice in ignoring the gift. I stopped, the full weight of her words finally settling in.

It was true. I had ignored the gift. But I hadn’t done it on my own.

There’s nothing to know, sweet child. It’s only the chill of the night.

I had been trained to ignore it.

By my own mother.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

KADEN

I woke up on the floor of Lia’s wagon and thought she had finally planted an ax in my skull. Then I remembered at least some of last night, and my head hurt even more. When I saw she was gone, I tried to get up quickly, but that was as big a mistake as drinking the vagabond fireshine in the first place.

The world splintered into a thousand blinding lights, and my stomach lurched to my throat. I grabbed the wall for support and yanked down Reena’s curtains in the process. I made it out of the wagon and found Dihara, who told me Lia had just walked back down to the meadow. She sat me down and gave me some of her slimy antidote to drink and a pail of water to wash my face.

Griz and the others laughed at my state. They knew I didn’t usually drink more than a polite sip because of who I was trained to be, a prepared assassin. What made me lose my good sense last night? But I knew the answer to that. Lia. I’d never been on a journey across the Cam Lanteux as agonizing as this one.

I cleaned up and went to face her. She saw me coming across the meadow and stood. Was she glaring at me? I wished I could remember more of last night. She was still dressed in the garb of the vagabonds. It suited her far too well.

I stopped a few steps away. “Good morning.”

She looked at me, her head tilted and one brow raised. “You do know that it’s not morning?”

“Good afternoon,” I corrected.

She stared at me, saying nothing when I’d hoped she’d fill in the blanks. I cleared my throat. “About last night—” I didn’t know quite how to broach the subject.

“Yes?” she prompted.

I stepped closer. “Lia, I hope you know I didn’t get the wagon because I intended to sleep in there with you.”

She still said nothing. This wasn’t the day I wanted her to acquire the skill of holding her tongue. I yielded. “Did I do anything that—”

“If you had, you’d still be on the floor of that wagon, only you wouldn’t be breathing.” She sighed. “You were, for the most part, a gentleman, Kaden—well, as much as a drunken fool who barges in can be.”

I breathed deeply. One concern out of the way. “I may have said some things, though.”

“You did.”

“Things I should know about?”

“I imagine if you said them, you already know them.” She shrugged and turned her gaze to the river. “But you gave away no guarded Vendan secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

I walked over and took her hand in mine. She looked up at me, surprised. I held it gently so she could pull away if she chose to, but she didn’t. “Kaden, please, let’s—”

“I’m not worried about Vendan secrets, Lia. I think you know that.”

Her lips pulled tight, and then her eyes blazed. “You said nothing I could understand. All right? Just drunken nonsense.”

I didn’t know if I could really believe her. I knew what fireshine could do to a tongue, and I also knew the words I said in my head a hundred times a day against my will when I looked at her. And then there were the things about myself that I wanted no one to know.

She met my gaze, her eyes resolute, her chin raised the way she always held it when her mind was racing. I had studied every gesture, every blink, every nuance of her, all the language that was Lia in all the miles we had traveled, and with every bit of strength I had, I returned my hand to my side. A throb pierced my temples, and I squinted.

A wicked smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Good. I’m glad to see you’re paying for your excesses.” She nodded toward the river. “Let’s go get you some chiga weed. It grows along the banks. Dihara said it’s good for pain. This will be my thank-you for getting me the carvachi. It was a kindness.”

I watched her turn, watched the breeze catch her hair and lift it. I watched her walk away. I didn’t hate all royals. I didn’t hate her.

———I followed after her and we walked along the banks, first up one side and then, crossing on slick rocks, back down the other. She showed me the chiga weed and plucked several stalks as we walked, peeling back the outer leaves and breaking off a four-inch piece.

“Chew,” she said handing it to me.

I looked at it suspiciously.

“It’s not poison,” she promised. “If I were trying to kill you, I’d find a much more painful way to do it.”

I smiled. “Yes, I suppose you would.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN