The guards were escorting me down the corridor to Sanctum Hall when we heard footsteps coming our way. Hurried footsteps. Kaden rounded the corner into our hallway and stopped.
“Wait for her at the stairs,” he said, dismissing the guards. “I need to speak to the princess.”
They did as they were ordered, and he pulled me into a narrow dark passage. His eyes grazed over my cheek.
“It was only a clumsy fall, Kaden. Don’t make more of it than it is.”
He reached up, gently running his thumb beneath my cheekbone. His jaw clenched. “How long are we going to go on like this, Lia? When are you going to be honest with me?”
I saw the earnestness in his eyes, and I was surprised that my chest ached with wanting to tell him everything, but Rafe and I were too close to freedom now for the luxury of honesty. I still didn’t know what Kaden might do. His devotion to me was obvious, but his loyalty to Venda and the Komizar was proven.
“I’m not hiding anything from you.”
“What about the emissary? Who is he?”
It was more of an accusation than a question. I lifted my lip in revulsion. “A liar and a manipulator. That’s all I know of him. I promise.”
“You give me your word.”
I nodded.
He was appeased. I saw it in his eyes and by the relieved breath rising in his chest. He believed for now that I wasn’t conspiring with the emissary. But his confidence in me was fleeting. He moved on to other suspicions.
“I know you don’t love the Komizar.”
“I already admitted that to you. Are we going to go through this again?”
“If you think marrying him will bring you power, you’re wrong. He won’t share it with you.”
“We’ll see.”
“Dammit, Lia! You’re spinning a lie. I know you are. You told me you would, and I believe you. What are you up to?”
I remained silent.
He sighed. “Don’t do it. It won’t go well. Trust me. You are going to be staying here.”
I tried to show no response, but the way he said it made my blood stop cold in my chest. There was no anger in his tone or taunting. Just fact.
He stepped away, raking his fingers through his hair, then leaned back against the opposite wall. His eyes burned with need. “I heard your name,” he explained. “It floated on the wind, whispering to me before I ever got to Terravin. And then that day on the tavern porch when you bandaged my shoulder, I saw us, Lia. Together. Here.”
My mouth went dry. He didn’t need to say more. With those few words, it added up—our time across the Cam Lanteux when he seemed to sense things before they happened, my mother’s own words racing back to me when I had asked her about sons having the gift. It’s happened, but not to be expected.
Kaden had the gift. At least some small degree of it.
“Have you always known you had it?”
“It’s part of the reason why my father gave me away. I used it against his wife in anger. I’ve denied the gift ever since, but there are times—” He shook his head. “Like when I was coming for you. I knew it was the gift, even if I didn’t want to admit it. And then I saw us. Here.”
My heart jumped when I thought of my own dreams of Rafe leaving me behind. They seemed to confirm what Kaden thought he saw.
We had to be wrong. It wasn’t what I felt in my heart.
“And we are here,” I said breathlessly. “For now. Seeing us here together isn’t much of a revelation.”
“Not now. I saw us a long time from now. I had a baby in my arms.”
“And I had a dream last night that I could fly. It doesn’t mean I’ll grow wings.”
“Dreams and knowing are two different things.”
“But sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. Especially when you haven’t nurtured the gift. You’re as inexperienced at this as I am, Kaden.”
“True,” he said, and stepped closer. “But I know this with certainty. I love you, Lia. I will always love you. Remember that tomorrow when you bind your life forever to the Komizar’s.… I love you, and I know you care for me.”
He turned and left, and I closed my eyes. My head pounded with my deceits and lies, because the gods help me, I knew I shouldn’t, but I cared about Kaden too—only not in the way that he so desperately wanted me to. Nothing, not even time or a gift, could change that.
I saw us, Lia. Together. Maybe he just wanted to see us and conjured an image in his own mind, the way I had daydreamed about one boy or another countless times back in Civica. I opened my eyes, staring at the opposite wall. I wished that love could be simple, that it was always given and returned in the same measure, equally and at the same time, that all the planets aligned in a perfect way to dispel all doubts, that it was easy to understand and never painful.
I thought of all the boys I had chased in the village, longing for some hint of affection from them, the stolen kisses, the boys I was sure I was in love with, of Charles, who led me on but ultimately had no feelings for me. And then Rafe came along.
He changed everything. He consumed me in a different way—the way his eyes made everything jump inside of me when I looked into them, his laughter, temper, the way he sometimes struggled for words, the way his jaw twitched when he was angry, the thoughtful way he listened to me, his incredible restraint and resolve in the face of overwhelming odds. When I looked at him, I saw the easygoing farmer he could have been, but I also saw the soldier and prince that he was.
We’ve had a terrible start—it doesn’t mean we can’t have a better ending.
The way he filled me with hope.
But I couldn’t ignore the rocky path of love either. I thought of my parents, of Pauline, of Walther and Greta, even Calantha, and I wondered if love ever ended well. I knew only one thing with certainty—it couldn’t end the way Kaden hoped it would.