I remembered dancing with him at the festival, his arms pulling me closer, and the way he struggled with his thoughts, holding them back. He didn’t hold back the night he was drunk. The fireshine had loosened his lips and he laid it all out quite blatantly. Slurred and sloshy but clear. He loved me. This from a barbarian who was sent to kill me.

I lay back, staring into the cloudless sky, a shade bluer and brighter than yesterday.

Did he even know what love was? For that matter, did I? Even my parents didn’t seem to know. I crossed my arms behind my head as a pillow. Maybe there was no one way to define it. Maybe there were as many shades of love as the blues of the sky.

I wondered if his interest had begun when I tended his shoulder. I remembered his odd look of surprise when I touched him, as if no one had ever shown him a kindness before. If Griz, Finch, and Malich were any indication of his past, maybe no one had. They showed a certain steely devotion to one another, but it in no way resembled kindness. And then there were those scars on his chest and back. Only cruel savage could have delivered those. Yet somewhere along the way, Kaden had learned kindness. Tenderness, even. It surfaced in small actions. He seemed like he was two separate people, the intensely loyal Vendan assassin and someone else far different, someone he had locked away, a prisoner just like me.

I stood to return to camp and was brushing off my skirt when I spotted Kaden walking toward me. He carried a basket. I walked out to the meadow to meet him.

“Reena made these this morning,” he said. “She told me to bring you one.”

Reena sending him on a delivery? Not likely. He’d been quite conciliatory since bursting into my carvachi and passing out in a drunken stupor. Maybe even ashamed.

He handed me the basket filled with three crisp dumplings.

“Crabapple,” he said.

I was about to reach in the basket to take one when a horse that had been grazing nearby suddenly charged at another horse. Kaden grabbed me and pulled me out of its path. We stumbled back, unable to regain our footing, and both tumbled to the ground. He rolled over me in a protective motion, hovering in case the horse came closer, but it was already gone.

The world snapped to silence. The tall grass waved above us, hiding us from view. He gazed down at me, his elbows straddling my sides, his chest brushing mine, his face inches away.

I saw the look in his eyes. My heart pounded against my ribs.

“Are you all right?” His voice was low and husky.

“Yes,” I whispered.

His face hovered closer to mine. I was going to push away, look away, do something, but I didn’t, and before I knew what was happening, the space between us disappeared. His lips were warm and gentle against mine, and his breath thrummed in my ears. Heat raced through me. It was just as I had imagined that night with Pauline back in Terravin so long ago. Before—

I pushed him away.

“Lia—”

I got to my feet, my chest heaving, busying myself with a loose button on my shirt. “Let’s forget that happened, Kaden.”

He had jumped to his feet too. He grabbed my hand so I had to look at him. “You wanted to kiss me.”

I shook my head, denying it, but it was true. I had wanted to kiss him. What have I done? I yanked free and walked away, leaving him standing in the meadow, feeling his eyes follow after me all the way back to my carvachi.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

We sat under a full moon around the campfire. It was warm, making the tang of pine and meadow grass floating in the air stronger. They had brought blankets and pillows outside so we could eat our supper around the crackling fire. We finished the last of the sage cakes, and I didn’t hesitate to lick the crumbs from my fingers. These vagabonds ate well.

I looked at Kaden opposite me, his hair a warm honey gold in the firelight. I had made a terrible mistake kissing him. I still wasn’t sure why I’d done it. I yearned for something. Maybe just to be held, to be comforted, to feel less alone. Maybe to pretend for a moment. Pretend what? That all was well? It wasn’t.

Maybe I just wondered. I needed to know.

The glow of the fire accentuated the hard edge of his jaw and the raised vein at his temple. He was frustrated. His gaze met mine, angry, searching. I looked away.

“It’s time for rest, my little angel,” one of the young mothers said to her son, a boy named Tevio. Many of the others had already gone bed. Tevio protested that he wasn’t tired, and Selena, just a dash older, joined in as if anticipating that she’d be the next one dragged away. I smiled. They reminded me of myself at that age. I was never ready to go to my bedchamber, maybe because I was sent there so often.

“If I tell you a story,” I said, “will you be ready for bed then?”

They both nodded enthusiastically, and I noticed Natiya nestled closer to them, waiting for a story too.

“Once upon a time,” I said, “long, long ago, in a land of giants, and gods, and dragons, there were a little prince and a little princess, who looked very much like the two of you.” I altered the story, the way my brothers had done for me, the way my aunts and mother had, and told them the story of Morrighan, a brave young girl specially chosen by the gods to drive her purple carvachi across the wilderness and lead the holy Remnant to a place of safety. I leaned more toward my brother’s version, telling of the dragons she tamed, the giants she tricked, the gods she visited, and the storms she talked down from the sky into her palm and then blew them away with a whisper. As I told the story, I noticed even the adults listened, but especially Eben. He had forgotten to act like the hardened ruffian he was and became a child as wide-eyed as the rest. Had no one ever told him a story before?