Auburn paused in her pacing.

“Is he all right?” She wrung her hands as she walked toward Sligo. “I thought I heard fighting.”

“I’m fine.” Eli pushed past his bodyguard. He noticed she’d pulled the drapes across the windows. Potentially because of the sun, or possibly because she knew about the assassins.

Sligo closed the door behind them and took up a position beside it.

Eli sheathed his weapons and took several long slow breaths to steady himself as he fought back his anger at being betrayed. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t. Not for certain.”

His voice chilled as he stalked toward her. “And your meeting with Ajeem? What were you going to tell him?”

“Meeting?” Auburn trembled but met his gaze. “What are you talking about?”

“Everything happened as you said it would. Including the arrows coming from the meeting room. Then I find Ajeem in the hallway outside my rooms. What should I think?”

“I would never betray you.” Auburn swallowed and clasped her hands to her chest. Tears reflected in her eyes. She tried to blink them away, but they spilled over her cheeks.

“Then how did you know?” Eli turned away from her, unable to bear seeing her pain and equally unable to endure her duplicity.

“I didn’t know it would be arrows, or I’d have told you. I only saw snakes.”

“You only saw snakes?” Eli turned back towards her. “What in the seven hells do you mean by that?”

She closed her eyes as her tears dampened her silk top.

“By the Gods, Auburn, tell me why you betrayed me. I can’t bring a traitor or assassin with me to Tamryn.”

Her head shot up, and her eyes fixed on him as she fell to her knees, anger and fear flickering across her face. “Please master, I didn’t betray you. I warned you. You’d be dead in the gardens if I hadn’t told you to stay away from them.”

Eli grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her to her feet. “How do you know I didn’t go into the gardens? Who are you working for?”

“If you’d gone with the sultan, the snakes would’ve been there.” She went limp in his arms as she hung her head. “The dreams are never wrong.”

“Dreams? The one that woke you last night?”

She nodded.

“I don’t understand.”

“In the dream, I saw waves of heat in the room. I saw you go to the gardens, but there were snakes waiting for you. I also saw snakes in the meeting room, and I knew what it meant. Snakes always mean the same thing.”

“You expect me to believe you saw the assassination attempt in a dream?”

“If it were a lie, I’d have come up with a better one.”

Eli started to argue and stopped himself. She was right. Lies were often easier to believe than the truth. “You said snakes always mean the same thing. This isn’t the first time you’ve had a dream warn you?”

“First time I wasn’t more than five. I dreamt a snake lurked among my favorite red flowers. Scared me so much I stayed away from the flowers. Another girl didn’t, and a snake bit her. She died that afternoon.”

“You’d said you’d always felt threatened. This snake was part of that?”

Auburn nodded. “Poisoned food, drugged wine, venomous spiders. My dreams have kept me alive many times.”

“These dreams happen often?”

“They come when they will. Sometimes more than others.”

“Only when you’re sleeping?” Eli asked, skepticism hardening his words.

“Usually, but not always.”

“You ever tell anyone about these visions?”

She shook her head.

“Why not? Could’ve saved that girl. Could’ve made a better life for yourself. Lots of people like to believe that nonsense.”

“Servants must be controlled, and those of us assigned to the harem are under the First Wife’s command.” Auburn stared down at her slipped feet. “I can’t control the visions, so even if the First Wife ordered me to, I couldn’t have one. Much less one about a certain person or thing.”

“Any more visions?”

“None about you.”

“But you’ve had others?” Eli said.

“Many. They showed me I had to dance for you.”

“Are they the reason you want to go to Tamryn?”

She nodded.

“What have you seen in Tamryn?”

Auburn swallowed as she kept her eyes on her feet.

Eli’s jaw set in a hard line. “Tell me.”

“My son.” Her voice quavered, and she blinked back a fresh batch of tears.

“You don’t have a son.”

“Not yet, but I will in Tamryn.”

Eli’s eyes narrowed.

“He’s just a boy in the visions.” Tears escaped and dampened her cheeks. “But he’s strong and brave. He wears a tabard with a gold dragon on it. The same dragon as on the dagger you gave to the sultan.”

“What color is the tabard?”

“Red.”

“A Knight of Valor initiate wears a tabard like that.”

Auburn lifted her shoulders. “Perhaps I misunderstood the vision. A child born to a slave could never be a Knight of Valor.”

“The Knights have no such prerequisite.”

A wistful smile touched her lips and disappeared. “Maybe he wears it as his father did.”

“You’ve had a vision of that, too?” The punch of jealousy made his words harder than he’d intended.

“That was a daydream. Not the same thing.”

Jealousy hit him again, and he turned away from her. “What else have you had visions of?”

“You believe me?” Hope tinged her words.

“You believe what you’re telling me. I don’t know what to think about these visions.”

“They may be manifestations of her actions,” Sligo said. “Perhaps she planted that snake among the flowers. She may be in league with the assassins.”

Auburn kept her eyes on the floor. “If I wanted to kill Prince Eli, I wouldn’t use arrows. Besides, I need him to take me to Tamryn.”

Eli glanced from Auburn to Sligo. “Find any poison or concealed weapons in my room?”

“No,” Sligo said.

“Any other visions?” Eli asked as he focused back on Auburn.

“Most I don’t understand. Or I don’t recognize the people in them.”

“Like what?” Eli asked.

“I keep having visions of a pirate ship sinking, but I know no pirates and have never been to the docks.”

“You’ve never tried to warn anyone?”

“Who would I tell? The First Wife would beat me, label me insane, and try to have me executed.”

“You and she didn’t get along well.”

Auburn lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know why. I never tried to be disobedient or difficult.”

“Then you don’t realize how beautiful you are, how intelligent, or how much you threatened her position with the sultan.” Eli glanced over at Sligo. “What do you think?”

His bodyguard shrugged. “I think we’re lucky she warned you.”

Eli couldn’t explain her visions, but then, he couldn’t explain how mages summoned fireballs. Fear and vulnerability of telling a secret, her secret, pinched her face. While he wasn’t sure how she knew about the assassins or the red tabard of a Knight of Valor initiate, she hadn’t betrayed him.

He was her ticket to Tamryn and to the son she hadn’t yet conceived.