Anna's Suite.
Oredison Palace, Gazda.
The day before the Welcome Dinner.

Anna kept her attention on her painting as the door to the suite was pulled shut and we were left alone. I stayed where I was next to the lit fireplace. The flames had burned low and I wondered—with the tacet almost gone from my system—if I could touch it without it hurting me. The urge to do so was nearly painful. The power in my gut, the barest bones of it, lurched and roiled and pushed against my skin. Faint, but ever-present.

Goddess, I wanted to reach out. I wanted to bury my hand in the flames.

But if the fire burned me, Anna might react. And if the guards outside heard her and summoned Caine... I turned from the fireplace, digging my nails into my palms in an effort to ground myself. All of this felt like a trap or a test of some sort. Like Kai, Caine rarely did things without purpose. Whatever test this was, I couldn't afford to fail it. I needed Caine on my side.

I needed to prove that I could be trusted.

I am a pawn. I am weak. I am malleable. I am easily used.

You are goddess-touched, that oily voice in the pit of my stomach seemed to hiss.

I walked over to where Anna sat painting. Her brush still moved, each stroke bringing more life to the image—a more complex ocean, scars on the person's reaching hand, a streak of red to the sky beyond it. I tried to remember what I knew about her.

I'd asked Kai about his mother lots of times. He was adopted and raised by his aunt and uncle. While Mirren Caine had never been more than an uncle to him, his Aunt Anna had become the only mother he'd ever known. When I asked questions, he'd always been more willing to tell me about Anna than he was to tell me about his birth mother, Caterine Callahan. In fact, I couldn't remember if Kai had ever told me his birth mother's name before Caine had let it slip shortly after our Linomi mission.

From what information I'd been given, I knew that Anna had been Caterine's best friend. They'd grown up together in Vayelle and, from what little I understood, it seemed that Anna had been put into an arranged marriage with Caterine's older half-brother, Mirren Caine. Caine had turned out to be abusive. He still was abusive.

And Anna had been the target of that abuse.

I couldn't imagine what that had been like—to be trapped with a man who delighted in breaking and hurting... or perhaps I could imagine it. Perhaps I was living it.

I pushed that thought away, unwilling to face it fully. No. I needed to focus on Anna. On Caterine.

On Kai.

He'd once told me that Anna wanted to have children of her own, but she was barren. I wondered if it had been difficult for Anna to take her best friend's child and raise him as her own. I'd read letters from Caterine to Anna explaining some of Kai's past and outlining the danger he was in. At the time, I hadn't realized that Caterine had found herself mixed up with the current king and queen of Erydia. When I'd read those letters, I hadn't known that Kai was the king's bastard son.

I never dreamt that he was the heir to the throne.

But Anna had known. She was perhaps the only person Caterine had ever trusted with the truth of Kai's birth. So, how had Caine found out? Knowing what I did of his violence and her love for her son, I knew Anna couldn't have told him by choice.

I wanted to ask her.

I wanted to ask her a lot of things.

Her brush still moved, each stroke deft and light. Caine had taught Kai war and she'd taught him art. While I saw Mirren Caine in every bad quality Kai had, a small part of me knew that if I looked closely enough, I might see every good piece of him in Anna. Kai credited her for all the positive moments in his childhood.

He'd loved her enough to shield her from Caine's violent attention.

The baby she'd taken in and raised as her own had grown up to take her beatings. Kai had once told me that if Caine had to hit something, he'd rather it be him than his mother. His love for her was that strong, that unshakable. I wished I could know her the way he did.

But the woman sitting before me seemed like a shell—an apparition. Kai may have tried to shield her, but it hadn't been enough. She wasn't well. She wasn't entirely whole. Her eyes, while focused on her task, were heavy-lidded. Her posture was slumped and the dark circles under her eyes spoke of nights without much sleep. Her thin body told tales of days with too little food.

And Caine had tasked me with spending the morning with her.

Anna didn't look at me as I inched closer to the easel. I came to a stop on her right side, next to the small collection of paints she had positioned on a folding table. Her eyes darted to me as I eased onto the nearby window seat and leaned forward, so I was still able to see the canvas.

She opened and closed her mouth as if she were chewing on whatever it was she wanted to say. I remained silent and still, waiting. Her attention drifted back to her painting and she continued on, her brush trembling slightly as she added a few more strokes to the skyline.

She had laugh lines around her eyes and a faint scar down one cheek. It was so faded it was nearly unnoticeable. The thin white line of it ran from the inside corner of her right eye and down her cheek.

I knew, without asking, where that had come from. Caine sometimes wore a signet ring with a family crest on it. Once, I'd seen him backhand a servant girl. He'd marred her face with the jewel of that ring, just as I knew he'd marred Anna's.

He hadn't been wearing that ring when he'd hit Kai all those weeks ago. I wondered if that were intentional. Caine wouldn't want to scar the crown prince—the new king. It made me sick just to look at it.

Anna broke through my thoughts. "Monroe?" The name was soft on her lips, more a muse than a real question. I waited, unsure what to do. She didn't take her eyes off her painting as she said, "I didn't realize Monroe was a girl's name. It's not very...feminine. Not...normal."

I nodded. "I'm not very normal," I admitted. "And you're right, it isn't usually a girl's name, at least it isn't here in Erydia. I'm named after my father."

"Strange," her throat bobbed and for a second, her eyes left the canvas and found me. "Was—Was your mother unhappy that you were a girl?"

"No. She was thrilled to have a girl. She just—" I hesitated, unsure if I should tell her who I was. Did she know about the Culling? Would Caine punish me for telling her I was marked? Would it scare her? I didn't know the answer to any of those questions and Anna's curiosity seemed so surface-level, that I wasn't sure my answer even mattered. I forced a smile and explained, "My mother thought I was in danger and that giving me a boy's name might protect me."

Anna nodded slowly, considering. Her lips formed a thin line as she leaned closer to the canvas and dipped her paintbrush into a jar of lavender paint. I watched as she mixed it with a lighter shade of pink and then swept the mixed colors across the oceanic horizon.

"And did it?"

I blinked at her, confused. "I'm sorry?"

"Did having a boy's name protect you?"

I looked to the hand in her painting, the way the fingers reached beyond the waves, desperate for anything to grasp ahold of. "No," I said. "It didn't protect me."

Anna grew quiet again, her faded blue eyes darting to me before she quickly looked back to her art. "It...It must be...it is very difficult to be a mother and have no way to protect your child." The expression on her face told me that she was speaking more of herself than she was of my mother.

I bit my lip, trying to decide what to say to that.

Curiosity had me wanting to ask about her son. I wanted to know how the hell she'd told Caine who Kai really was, especially when her best friend had begged her not to. It had been Caterine's dying wish for Kai to remain anonymous. She hadn't wanted her son to ever be king. Caterine hadn't wanted Viera to know her son existed.

But Anna must have told Caine—or maybe he'd found the same letters I had and put things together for himself. Either way, we were all damned now. We were damned and Anna seemed unaware of it.

I wondered if Kai had ever written to his mother and mentioned me. Did she know that he'd fallen for a goddess-touched girl? Did she believe my ability was fiction the way Kai once had? I doubted this shell of a woman had any knowledge of who I was. Especially not who I had been to her son. And, as I balled my hands into fists in my lap, I knew that I didn't want her to know—not if Kai hadn't told her himself.

Anna's voice was quiet as she asked, "What business do you have with my husband?"

I shifted uncomfortably. "What makes you think—"

She set her paintbrush down on the palate next to her and turned to look at me. Her gaze was a little unfocused, her eyelids heavy, but there was something in her expression that was alert, assessing. "He looks at you the way he looks at a prize." Anna sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping with the action. "And nothing good can come of it."

"He just wants me to have tea with you, that's all." It wasn't exactly a lie.

She shook her head. "No. No, he wants something much more from you." She stood up and walked to one of the couches. "And you would do well to stay very far away from him." She sank down and leaned into the cushions. She sat like that for a long moment, with her head tilted back and her eyes closed. I thought maybe she'd fallen asleep but then she said, "Does your mother live here, in this place?"

"No."

"Good," Anna turned her head to look at me. "She would be very worried for you."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because..." She swallowed and pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes as she whispered, "Because I have a son here. And—And I am afraid for him."

My heart broke for her.

It broke for her son, who I loved so much and was still so angry at.

I stood up and walked to where she sat. Anna remained just as she was, with her head back and her hands pressed to her eyes. Her face was lined with pain as I crouched down in front of her. When she didn't move to look at me, I reached out and touched her knee. "Anna—"

She flinched away, pulling her legs onto the couch and twisting so that I couldn't see her face. "Don't! Please..."

I stood and retreated a step. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—" I swallowed and wrapped my arms around myself. "I'm sure your son will be alright."

She lowered her hands and looked up at me. "You...You can't know that. You can't."

My throat burned. "I'm sure he will be fine."

"What makes you so certain?" The question was so soft, so innocent, that for a moment it felt like I was speaking to a frightened child and not a woman twice my age.

"Because..." I chewed my bottom lip and ran a hand through my hair. "Because I'm sure you've raised him to be very smart. He'll know how to keep himself safe."

Anna watched me, her brow furrowing for a moment. "Do you know him—my boy?" I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off. "His name—His name is Kaius. Kai. My Kai." She turned to face me on the couch, her fear melting away to be replaced by hope. "He... He..." she trailed off and shook her head as if she couldn't remember what she'd wanted to say next. "He used to sit in the sunroom and organize my paints. He would always fill them for me before they could run out. I barely noticed he did it until...until he was gone. Then the paint was gone too. And then it was too late."

My throat burned. "He sounds very nice."

"But have you met him? He's here. I know he is." Her expression was so earnest, so fearful as she whispered, "Mirren took him away. Audra says he never writes. I ask her to check but she says there's never any letters. But that can't be right. He—My Kai would write to me. I know he would. And I thought when I was moved he wouldn't know where I was and his letters would be more lost than ever, but now he's here too. Audra says he's here. My boy is here in this place. And he's in danger. I know he is."

"I'm sure he will be okay."

"No. No, he won't be. He can't be. Not if he's here. Not if he's with Mirren. Mirren has always looked at him the way he looks at you. Like a prize. Both of you...both of you are prizes. And he's in danger."

"Anna, I—"

There was a knock at the door and I turned to see a maid bustling in with a cart laden with tea and scones. I stepped out of her way as she set the tray down on the small coffee table before the couch. The girl's eyes remained downcast as she bowed her head slightly and retreated from the room, saying nothing to either of us.

How much had she heard? Did it even matter?

My heart was in my throat as Anna leaned back on the couch and pulled her knees to her chest. In that moment, she looked every inch like a frightened little girl. Her eyes were swollen and red, her thin fingers white-knuckled as they fisted in the fabric of her dress.

I knelt down in front of her again and took her hand in mine. Her fingers were like ice. "Anna, I'm sure when your son realizes you're here, he'll come to see you."

She sniffled and shook her head. "But what if Mirren has already hurt him?"

I wanted to tell her that Kai was fine.

I wished I could look her in the eyes and tell her that he wasn't in any danger, but I didn't know if that were true. Over the last few weeks, I'd become Caine's punching bag, but that didn't mean that he wasn't also hurting Kai.

Anna watched me, her gaze unfocused, her palms clammy against my skin. I wasn't sure if she was ill or if Caine had her on something—but she wasn't entirely herself. That much I knew. Her confusion, childlike openness, and intent focus on her art all signaled some sort of trauma or coping mechanism. I could almost hear my mama saying: when the body goes through something very terrible, it can sometimes disconnect from reality.

My mother's work as a midwife had put her in line to see many terrible things. She'd once told me about a woman who had lost all three of her children in a housefire. Mama knew the family and had delivered all three of the woman's children. When the fire had happened, the youngest had been only a week old.

My mother had said that the woman didn't accept that her children were all dead. She was in such denial about it that she believed for months afterward that she was still pregnant with her youngest. Even when she saw the bodies, she refused to believe that those burnt children were hers.

The glazed look in Anna's eyes as her attention moved towards her easel, reminded me of my mother's description of that broken woman. It was possible that Anna knew who Kai was—realized he was a king and she now lived in his palace—but the reality of it was too much for her. It would upset Kai if he knew she was this worked up over him.

And I cared. Despite myself, I cared that this was his mother and she was hurting. I wanted to help her. I wanted to protect her and, in doing so, protect Kai. The ache in my chest grew nearly unbearable and I knew I had to act. I had to do something.

I stood to my feet, still holding her hands in mine. "Why don't you go back to your painting? Maybe that will make you feel better?" I nodded to the abandoned canvas. "Maybe...Maybe you can tell me about your son while you work?"

My stomach churned at my own deception. Why couldn't I just tell her that I knew Kai? It should be easy. But the idea of having to explain how I knew him and how I'd come to be here because of him—I couldn't do it. I couldn't face it myself, much less explain it to a stranger.

Anna stood slowly, her cold fingers still wrapped around mine as she eased past the couch and walked back to her corner. I stayed by her side, a steadying presence. Still, she was trembling slightly as she let go of me and reached for one of her discarded paintbrushes.

I'd just settled back onto the window seat when I noticed how her silk robe had slipped down one of her shoulders. The skin of her upper arm was pale as milk but splotched with angry bruises. I recognized them for what they were right away. The faded yellow of the old and the stark black of the new. Injections. They'd been giving her some sort of drug.

I knew it because I'd had marks like that too.

When I'd initially started rejecting Caine's efforts to give me tacet, he'd only found new ways to supply it. He'd have it powdered and mixed into the soap I bathed with. Or he'd have it blended into everything I ingested, even water. But when I started to lose weight and it was evident that I was starving myself, Caine grew angry. When I didn't eat at dinner and even holding my hand over a fire didn't persuade me to stop resisting, he showed me that he didn't need my consent.

I'd fought him as he'd held me down, but he was stronger than I was. He'd leered over me as one of the palace healers stabbed a needle into my arm and injected me with the drug. I'd been afraid, but I hadn't even realized then how bad it would be.

Digesting tacet is one thing—having it injected into your body is another. It hurt like hell. It burned and left me trembling and unable to do anything but curl into a ball and wait for it to subside. And that took hours.

It was like I was drowning in it, unable to even access the basis of who I was as a person. I was just there—an object, not a human being. I wasn't sure if the drug was administered in a higher dose or if I just had an adverse reaction to it being given that way, but I never wanted to experience it again. Even on the days when Caine would give me too much tacet and I'd spend hours vomiting and feverish, it was nothing compared to the debilitating effects of that injection.

After that, I'd eaten breakfast without complaint.

Looking at Anna's bare arm, I could tell that these bruises weren't from tacet. My bruising had been red and splotchy—the injection spot had been raised for days. And maybe my reaction to it had been extreme because I'm goddess-touched, but something about how she was acting told me that the drug she'd been given was different.

This wasn't normal.

Or at least, I didn't think this was her normal.

But I knew so little about her, and what Kai had told me could easily have been a lie. Because he had lied about his past. For instance, Kai had once told me that Anna had searched for his birth father after Caterine had died—and from what I understood, that couldn't be true.

If Viera had known Kai existed, she'd have tracked him down and killed him. The king had to have believed that Kai died with Caterine. Or, he had to know Kai was safely away in Vayelle. Knowing the truth of what had happened to her friend at the hands of the queen, Anna wouldn't have sought the king out. Not and risk provoking Viera.

It had been a lie.

So many damn lies.

Anna caught me looking and pulled at her robe, tugging it onto her shoulder once more. I opened my mouth, prepared to ask a question—about Kai or the bruising, I wasn't sure—but she cut me off.

"He—my Kai—was always getting into mischief. I used to take him to my gallery in the capital and he would spend hours playing with the little boys in the square outside." She began working on her painting again, each movement deliberate and steady, her words coming slow as she focused on keeping her hands from shaking. "He had friends then—other little boys his age. But one day...one day a group of older boys started to pick on Kai. They teased him for weeks and finally ...finally he fought back." Anna blinked rapidly, as if she could banish that memory. After a second she swallowed and leaned forward to wash her paintbrush in a small bucket at her feet.

"How old was he?" I asked.

Her brow furrowed in thought. "Six, maybe seven. Too young to be picking fights." She sighed and picked up a new brush. "I remember—I remember the people yelling from outside the gallery. I ran out and found Kai and another of the boys fighting in the street. The constable was called and the children would have been in trouble...but the man was a close friend of Mirren's and I—I begged him not to arrest them. I cried. He...He let them off with just a warning. I was upset with Kai for fighting, but he was so hurt that I couldn't scold him. I...I just wanted us to forget it. I didn't tell Mirren. He was gone with his troops and I didn't write to him about it. I told Kai we would forget. I didn't want him to suffer any more than he already had. But the constable must have told Mirren because when he returned home, he was mad." She glanced up at me, her expression turning grave as she said, "He saw how badly Kai was hurt and he—he punished him."

"For getting in a fight?"

Anna shook her head and for a moment she said nothing. Her throat bobbed as she glanced back to the painting, to the hand reaching from the waves. "No," she said, her eyes still locked on the canvas. "No, he was punished because he lost the fight." She sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping with the action. "And after that, Mirren started training Kai. He followed a soldier's regime. He woke at the crack of dawn and trained. He'd never been an angry boy before, but he was then." Her face grew lined with concern. "He became angry. And Mirren was so proud of him. And Kai—My boy just wanted to impress his father. So, the next time I took Kai to the gallery to play in the square...the next time I took him, he cornered the boys who had tormented him and he...well, he won that fight."

I leaned back into the window seat.

"Mirren was so proud," Anna whispered, her accented Erydi tinged with a heartache I was just beginning to understand. She said something else, something in Vaylish, and then shook her head. I wanted to ask her to repeat it, to say it so I could understand, but I was too afraid to push her. This, what she was saying, was already more than I'd ever known.

It was more truth than I'd ever received from him.

And yet it wasn't surprising.

I hadn't known, but...but I had known. I'd known that Kai's childhood hadn't been a happy one. He'd never led me to believe that it was.

Still, it was difficult to imagine Kai as a child, harder even to see him as a hurting six-year-old. My mother had always been against violence. She hadn't even liked for my brothers and me to play war or anything like that. I think seeing me fight, even play fighting, reminded her too much of what my future actually held. So, it was strange to think of a childhood where violence was praised.

Kai had been punished for losing a fight—not for instigating one. Not for defending himself. Had Caine even cared about why Kai had done that? Had he asked why Kai had retaliated? Had anyone tried to get to the heart of what the problem was? I doubted it.

Knowing Caine, he probably would have been beaming with pride to find out that his son had returned to his bullies and beaten them once and for all. And Kai would have basked in that, especially when he was used to being hit and hurt at home. Having even an ounce of his father's affection would have meant something to him.

And judging by the haunted look in Anna's eyes, it obviously meant something to her too. This moment, this memory, was pivotal in her mind. Kai becoming a soldier had meant her losing her baby.

I'd grown up quickly because of the Culling and poverty. But Kai had grown up frighteningly fast, and all because of abuse. A lack of love—or the existence of it in a place where it wasn't welcome.

I swallowed down a million other questions as I said, "Did your son continue to train after he beat those boys?"

Anna nodded. "The next time Mirren took his troops out to train; he took Kai with him. After that things were different." She glanced over at me. "But he was always my boy. He always loved me. And...And he loved art too, even as a little boy he loved to color and play with my paints. When he would visit after being gone for weeks and weeks training with Mirren, he would spend as much time as he could with me in the gallery."

"And that's where you taught him to draw," I said, speaking before I could stop myself.

Anna didn't seem to notice my slip; she was focused on her painting again. I waited for her to say something else, but when she didn't, I stood and walked to the tea service on the coffee table. I sat down on the couch and stared at one of the empty teacups, trying to work up the courage to pour myself a cup of tea.

I didn't doubt that Caine would make good on his threat to have me injected with tacet if I didn't have at least two cups. But I was starting to really feel like myself again—that jittery, cold feeling was just beginning to fade away. The idea of taking tacet, even hidden within a cup of soothing tea, was nauseating.

My hands shook slightly as I poured myself a cup and added a liberal helping of honey. Behind me, Anna still painted. The sound of her brush against canvas jarred with the clink of my spoon against glass.

I could burn the palace down starting with this room. With the tacet nearly out of my system and only Anna here to witness it, I could do it. She wasn't under the influence; the weight of the drug didn't press on me the way it would if she were. I could use the fire in the hearth.

I could burn and burn and burn.

But then what?

Anna would die.

Even if I escaped, Caine would find me. Or he'd go after my mother. He'd hurt my brothers, both of whom were locked in the prisons below the palace. He'd kill the people in Third Corps. The Culling would still happen. Kinsley would be queen. Kai would have a son. The cycle would be unbroken and more girls would die.

None of that was good enough. I had to do more. When I burned down Oredison Palace, the people I loved wouldn't be inside it. When this place turned to ash, nothing would rise from it. There would be no more Cullings. No more senseless death.

I had to wait.

So, I lifted the cup to my lips and drank.

When I'd finished one cup, I downed a second—letting the heat from the tea run the length of me. I let it scald my throat and warm every inch. It would take a few minutes for the drug to start having any effect. Right then, it was only a slight pressure. I could feel my ability stirring, pressing against the cage of my skin. What was worse, I could feel it begin to recoil from the drug. I felt that aching cold begin to settle.

It would come first, then the emptiness. The silence.

I made Anna a cup next and brought it over to her. She didn't take it from my hands, instead, she just nodded to the tray of paints. At her silent instruction, I moved things around to make room for the cup.

I wanted to ask her to tell me more about Kai. So much of what he'd said could be a lie and now I craved the truth. I wanted to know whether or not the person I'd fallen in love with had ever been real. I knew he cared about me, even now...but a lot of what I knew about Kai had been fiction—or an artful lack of truth. He'd skirted around having to give me information.

And now all I wanted was to know him. The real him. Whoever that was.

Again, I settled onto the window seat next to Anna. I didn't exactly know why Caine had brought me here. But I was certain there was something he intended for me to see, something he wanted me to notice. This was some sort of game. I just wasn't sure how to play it yet.

The clock on the mantle told me that an hour and a half had passed. I probably had around two more hours with Anna before Caine returned to fetch me. While holding a conversation with Anna was difficult, it was nice to be unwatched. For weeks I'd been observed and whispered about. My every move was reported to Caine. But within the walls of Uri's old suite, there was no one to watch me.

No one to hear me as I asked, "What does your son do here?"

Anna stilled, her brush growing silent as she lowered it to the palette next to her. Her brow furrowed in thought. "He's a soldier, I think. He's always been a good soldier."

I chewed my lip as I thought of something else to ask. I didn't want it to seem like I was prying, but I also wanted to understand how much Anna knew—or at least get a grasp of what she thought was happening.

If she knew she was in the palace and she believed Kai was here because he was a soldier, then she was an unreliable source. But it was possible she didn't know where she was. More than that, it was possible that she wasn't well enough to understand what had happened with Kai and why she was now here.

Finally, I settled on, "Who is Audra?"

Anna lifted her cup from the tray and sniffed it, her eyes moving slowly to me before she decided the drink was safe enough to sip. After she'd decided it wasn't poisoned, she drank about half the cup before she set it down on the tray so forcefully that it was a wonder it didn't crack the saucer underneath.

"Audra," she said, her voice quivering slightly over the name, "is my friend."

"Really?" I said, thinking of the healer and her attitude towards Caine. "And where did you meet her?"

Anna's nose wrinkled in distaste as she said, "You ask a lot of questions."

I laughed. "I'm sorry. Why don't you ask me one?"

She considered. "Where did you get that?" She reached across her tray of paints and pressed a boney finger to the pendant I wore.

I'd been wearing the rabbit head necklace for weeks. I typically hid it under the collar of my clothes so Caine wouldn't see. I knew if it suited him, he'd take it from me. The Erydian crest was known to be a hawk with a dead hare in its talons. The hunters, never the prey. In defiance of our country, the hare had become the symbol of the rebellion. And while I wasn't sure how I felt about the Culled anymore, I was still in favor of the cause I'd once believed they were fighting for.

I didn't know how to take the necklace off. I was afraid to be without it.

Didn't know who I was without it.

A girl. A girl who should have died months ago in the arena. A girl who had made a path for herself. A girl who had survived. A girl who had trusted the wrong people. A girl who had fallen in love with the wrong man.

Or maybe the right man.

I wasn't sure anymore.

Anna waited; her unfocused gaze locked on the angular piece of jewelry. I cleared my throat, fighting past the cold, sinking feeling of the tacet as I said, "My brother gave it to me. It was a gift."

She lowered her hand and looked back to the canvas. She frowned at her work as she said, "You fiddle with it when you're nervous."

I ducked my head, trying to hide a smile.

So, maybe she was more observant than I thought.

Anna finished her cup of tea and we sat in silence for a long time. It wasn't uncomfortable, just a way of being. I didn't mind it. I liked her, this person. This woman who had raised Kai.

After a while of just sitting, I took her cup and put it back on the tray next to mine. I grabbed a scone and sat on the couch, content to watch her finish her painting until Caine arrived. I didn't have any more questions and I wasn't sure Anna was the most trustworthy person. If I were going to get answers, I'd need a better source.

I was starting on my third blueberry scone when a knock sounded at the door. I glanced at the clock, noting that only another half hour had passed—putting it at least an hour before Caine was due to come back for me. When Anna didn't even glance at the door, I got up and went to answer it myself.

Dread coiled in my gut like a snake ready to strike. Anyone the palace guards would have let past was probably not someone I wanted to see. I crossed my fingers that it wasn't Caine come to fetch me early, and pulled the door open.

For a moment, the world seemed to freeze. I stood there, my fingers clutching the doorknob, my mouth full of pastry. My eyes burned as I looked at the man standing in front of me.

His hand was still lifted, prepared to knock again. Dark hair fell across his forehead, nearly into his eyes. Golden eyes. Eyes that were hot like burning embers. Eyes I would recognize anywhere.

He seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see him, but his shock turned wary. Afraid.
He glanced down the empty hall outside, then looked back to me.

Those eyes shone bright, filled with a million different emotions. His lips parted and then fell shut again. Too many words. Too many things to say.

We just stood there, staring for what felt like an eternity. And then he finally spoke. "May—May I come in?" I didn't miss the way his voice shook. I didn't miss the way he eyes roamed my body, finding every bruise, every mark, every place Caine had touched me.

I hated it. Hated what I knew he must see.

A broken girl. I was a broken girl.

But who better to break things than the broken?

"Please?" The word was a whisper, a plea. He thought I would refuse. He wasn't here for me. I knew he wasn't—but he'd leave if I refused. If I told him to go, he'd turn away and not push me.

My choice.

After only a heartbeat more, I nodded.

My chest had become an avalanche of emotion—a burning forge of trepidation. But I didn't let it control me, didn't let the fear and longing envelope me. I didn't let the anger blur my vision. Not as I stepped backward and let the king of Erydia inside.

***

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