“Doing what?”
“Being . . . kind to me.”
Roa swallowed, looking away. Because you’re hurt, and I’m the reason.
But no, that wasn’t it.
“Because I’m grateful,” she said, holding his gaze. “For what you did in the Assembly today.”
But this too was partially a lie.
The truth—the whole truth—lay somewhere far deeper. Somewhere Roa was afraid to look.
Twenty-Six
After running a bath and fetching the physician, Roa went to make sure Celeste was all right. She found her guard in perfect form, along with Lirabel in the dungeon. The soldats who’d lied to Roa, who’d attacked her and the king, were locked in cells, being questioned by Safire. It was Lirabel who informed her that an emergency meeting had been called for the next day.
That night, Roa couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking of Dax stepping in front of the knife. Putting himself in harm’s way to protect her.
It was so at odds with the Dax she thought she knew.
Roa pushed off the covers and slid from the bed. Her thoughts were so tangled, she didn’t notice how cold the tiles were beneath her bare feet.
In the grove earlier, Dax’s grip on that saber had been all wrong. And mere months ago, when he came to the scrublands asking for help, Theo beat him easily in a fight.
She’d gotten used to thinking of him as a clumsy, useless fool.
But Dax was the son of the king. He’d been learning how to wield a blade for as long as Roa had. He might be clumsy. He might be inept. But something like proper grip—after years of lessons—should be second nature.
Dax had spied on his own council. He’d somehow figured out Rebekah was plotting against him and, instead of accusing her without proof, he chose to provoke her. To wait for her to make a mistake.
These were not the acts of a clumsy, useless fool. They were the acts of a careful thinker. A tactician.
Roa stepped out onto her balcony. The stars glittered coldly above her. The night pressed in around her as a thought formed in her mind.
What if Dax wasn’t as useless with a blade as everyone thought?
What if he was just pretending to be?
She needed to know for sure. Because when Rebekah’s forces flooded the palace, there could be no surprises. Not while she held Essie captive. More importantly, when Roa traded Dax’s soul for Essie’s on the Relinquishing, there could be nothing standing in her way.
Roa headed for her husband’s rooms, needing to find out if Dax was as terrible a swordsman as she’d always believed, or if he was concealing yet another truth from her.
A hundred heartbeats later, Dax’s guards opened his bedroom doors for the queen, shooting each other suggestive looks. Roa ignored them, closing the doors behind her.
The light of her lantern flooded the room, coming to stop on a canopied bed where she could see Dax’s dark curls against the cotton pillows.
She set down the lamp and drew Essie’s knife, sheathed at her calf. Taking a deep breath, she moved for the bed, her bare feet padding softly against the marble floor.
Standing over her husband, Roa pressed the flat of the blade to his throat.
Dax’s eyes flew open.
“You’re dead,” she whispered.
He went rigid, squinting in the dim glow of the lantern, then relaxed at the sight of her. “I didn’t expect Death to be quite so beautiful.”
Roa slid the knife away.
“Out,” she said, drawing back the covers. He wore only cotton sleeping trousers.
Dax sat up, his curly hair mussed. “What is this?”
The night I find out the truth.
But she said, “The first of your nightly lessons.”
“Nightly lessons?” He cocked a quizzical brow. A sleepy smile spread across his lips. “Don’t those happen in the bed?”
Heat rushed through Roa. Standing over him, she pressed the sharpened tip of her sister’s blade to the hollow of his throat.
“Out.”
Dax was unmoved. “Have you forgotten that I took a knife in the shoulder? For you, I might add.”
Of course Roa hadn’t forgotten. But she needed to know, for certain, whether he was deceiving her. The success of their plan depended on it. So she shrugged and said, “Once my father traveled to the House of Sky and two bandits attacked him on the road. They broke his arm, and he still fought them off.”
“And that’s why your father will always be a better man than I,” Dax said, turning over and lying back down. As if he intended to fall asleep with an armed girl standing over him.
Roa tried again. “Last year, when Theo was out hunting, a wild boar gored him in the leg. Do you know what we had for dinner that night?”
Dax went very still, listening.
“Wild boar.”
Dax sat up. The look on his face was stormy as he ducked beneath her blade.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said, standing barefoot before her. His chest was bare and his shoulder still bruised, the stitches in his skin ghastly. The sight of them made her feel horribly guilty, but she needed to know. As soon as she was certain he wasn’t deceiving her, they would stop.
Roa sheathed Essie’s knife and looked to the wall above Dax’s canopy, where two decorative swords crossed each other in an X. Both were straight as needles, their gilt pommels inlaid with jewels. Because they were decorative, the edges were unsharpened.
She needed him to believe this was nothing more than her teaching him how to spar. And these were as close as she was going to get to practice weapons. Roa climbed up onto the bed and took them down, tossing one to Dax. His fingers fumbled the hilt. The blade hit the floor, clattering as it did.
Immediately, a knock came on the door. “My king? Is everything all right?”
“Thank you, Cyrus, everything is fine!” Dax called to his guard as he turned his back to Roa, picking up the fallen weapon.
“Dead again,” she said, smacking the flat of her own blade against his lower back.
He winced, then turned to face her.
She stared at his grip on the hilt, shaking her head.
Dax barely had time to lift the blade before hers came down, knocking the weapon straight out of his hands. It went clattering back to the floor.
Roa narrowed her eyes. Maybe he wasn’t pretending.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
Picking up the blade, she handed it back to him. “You’re learning how to defend yourself.”
Something shifted in him.
“You think no one’s tried this before?” he asked.
Roa tucked her own blade beneath her arm as she reached for his hand—the one gripping the hilt. “I’m sure they tried,” she said, prying his fingers loose from the pommel, then rearranging them in a more secure hold. “Either they gave up too soon, or they were the wrong teachers.”
He fell silent, letting her push and prod—not just his fingers, but his elbows, arms, hips, knees—into position. She stepped back to observe him.
“How does that feel?”
“Uncomfortable.”
“Memorize it.”
His chest heaved. He lowered his arms and all of Roa’s work came undone.
“Trust me,” he said, setting the sword down. The golden light of the lamps sifted through his curls and caught in his eyelashes. “This is a waste of time.”
Annoyance sparked inside Roa, but she held her stance, not ready to give up yet.
“You’re a weak king, Dax,” she taunted, trying to provoke him. “Everyone knows it. Pick up your sword and defend yourself.”
His eyes flashed at that.
Fight back. She glared at him. Spar with me.
He didn’t even raise his weapon. “What’s my incentive?”
“Incentive?”
“For giving up sleep in order to indulge you. While I’m injured, no less.”
Roa’s grip tightened. Does he suspect me?
“I teach you how to d
efend yourself so you don’t die,” she said. “That’s your incentive.”
Dax shrugged, his fingers sliding back into the arrangement Roa had just corrected. Holding the blade up to the firelight, he examined it.
“I’ve spent twenty-one years not dying.” He caught her eye over the edge of the steel. “Without you.”
“Luck,” she said, knocking the blade aside.
“Carefully deliberated scheming,” he said.
She nodded for him to raise the sword. When he didn’t, she thrust, forcing him backward. Dax raised to block her, leaving his whole left side exposed.
Roa frowned harder. Is it really possible for him to be this terrible?
“When you grow up bullied and beaten,” he said, “forced to watch the ones you love beaten, too . . .”
She pinned him to the wall with her hip, grabbing the wrist that held his sword and pressing the flat of her own to his throat.
Dead again, her eyes gleamed up at him.
He brought up his knee, not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to startle, then shoved her back. “You learn that swords don’t do much good.” His grip tightened on the hilt. “The person doing the abusing will always have a sharper weapon. He’ll always know how to wield it better.” His eyes looked through her, like he no longer saw her. Like he saw something far away instead.
Roa lowered her blade.
What is he remembering?
“You learn it’s better to be weak. Better to be a fool.” Dax looked to the blade in his hand as if coming out of the memory now. He set down the sword.
“And when they see through your deliberate scheming?” Roa challenged. “What happens then?”
He came toward her, unarmed. “Why is this so important to you?”
Roa raised the blade, pressing it just below the key hanging from a cord against his chest. Dax took another step. He stood so close now, she could feel his breath on her cheek.
“You saved my life today, when my guards weren’t there to protect me.” She lowered her gaze, so he couldn’t see the lie in her eyes. “One day, your guards might not be there to protect you.”
His fingers slid over hers. “And why is that?”
She swallowed as his fingers moved between hers, taking the sword from her.
“Where else would my guards be, Roa?”
Her gaze shot to his, her grip tightening, but it was too late. He had the hilt in his hand, had the blade to her throat. Roa tilted her chin, baring the warm skin of her neck to the cold steel.
“How do I know you haven’t come here to find out all my weaknesses, in order to use them against me?”
Roa kept silent, holding his gaze. Because of course that was what she’d come here to do.
“I have an idea,” he said softly. “You like deals. How about every time I give you something you want, you give me something I want. For example, a kiss.”
Roa remembered the way he’d kissed her in the library and sudden heat flared through her.
She tamped down on it. Didn’t he have enough girls to kiss? “You get a kiss every time you do something I teach you—like proper grip? Or stance? Or thrust?”
He gave a single, solemn nod.
She made a face. But if this was what it took to find out the truth, Roa would do it. “That’s not incentive,” she said, playing this game with him now. “That’s coddling. If you’re rewarded for every little thing, it’ll take you years to learn.”
And we have only three days until I offer up your soul in exchange for my sister’s.
Dax opened his mouth to interrupt, but Roa wasn’t finished.
“How about this,” she said. “You get a kiss for every time you beat me.”
With the steel still at her throat, his gaze darted back and forth between her eyes.
“Beat you?” he said, applying pressure. “You mean like this?”
Roa smiled a slow smile. Oh, Dax.
The steel flashed as she brought her knee up—just like he’d done to her, only harder. He grunted, loosing his hold, and Roa ducked out from under the blade. Her elbow met his ribs and the air whooshed out of him. Before he could recover, Roa grabbed his blade from the floor and now held both swords—one in each hand—crisscrossed over his chest. She pushed, and he stumbled back, wincing.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said, his hands on his knees, recovering from her blow. “Maybe I had the wrong teachers.”
Roa flipped the sword, catching the steel, and handed it back to him hilt first.
Dax studied it for a long moment, as if studying a piece on the gods and monsters board, contemplating the consequences of taking it.
Finally, he reached out, wrapped his fingers around the hilt, and raised it against her.
“All right,” he said. “I agree to your terms.”
Roa smiled.
And then attacked.
She beat him three times. Each time she grew a little surer her suspicion was misplaced: he wasn’t hiding something, he was just a terrible swordsman. And each time she played her role, showing him what he did wrong, and how he might have blocked her.
When she noticed him tiring, Roa lowered her sword to stop.
The moment she did, he parried the way she taught him, forcing her toward the bed. The rush of energy took Roa by surprise and the clang of their blades echoed through the room. But before he could trap her against the bed frame, Roa darted left and swung around to his back.
Dax turned. Roa thrust, catching him off guard, but he parried just in time. She kicked him in the shin and the force of it sent him backward. His legs hit the wooden frame and he lost his balance, falling into the bedsheets and wincing hard.
Roa pounced, pinning the hand that held his sword immobilized above his head while she pressed the steel of her blade to his throat.
Trapped on his back, Dax relaxed beneath her.
It was a good effort, but the effort of a beginner.
So Roa relaxed, too.
Nice try, she was about to say, except the words never came. Because the sight of him now, completely at her mercy, made Roa’s stomach flutter.
“Let’s do this every night,” he whispered, staring up at her.
Roa stared back. She had a startling urge to trace his unshaven jaw, run her fingers through his wild curls, feel the scrape of his teeth on her lip . . .
“My king?” A knock came at the door. “Are you quite sure everything’s all right?”
Roa straightened.
“Everything’s fine, Cyrus,” Dax called from beneath her. “I’m just in the middle of”—his gaze was soft on Roa’s face; his voice went even softer—“being obliterated.”
Her heart skipped. She immediately withdrew, climbing off him and getting down from the bed.
Dax led her back through a hidden passageway out of his room. He kept the flame of his lamp turned down so low, if he hadn’t stopped, Roa would have missed the door entirely.
Passing her the lamp, Dax reached for the latch in the wall. Roa heard that same soft snick and then the wall swung out. Dax held it open as Roa stepped through and into her own room.
The dim glow of the lantern flooded the floor, coming to stop on her canopied bed.
“You step here to open it from inside the room,” he said, shutting the hidden door and pulling Roa out of the way so when he knelt down and pressed the leaf of a mosaic on the floor, it didn’t hit her when it swung out again.
Roa’s heart beat wildly.
She shut the door and tried it herself, memorizing the flower—seven down from the corner; yellow with white leaves. Again, the door swung out of the wall.
Dax shut her into the passageway, to ensure she could open it using the latch on the other side. It took a few tries, and for a heartbeat she thought she might be trapped, but Dax shouted detailed instructions through the door, and this time when it swung out, it hit him straight in the face.
Roa winced when she realized it, pulling his palms away from his forehead to assess the d
amage.
“Sorry . . .”
“You say that, but you’re smiling like a child who’s just been given a kitten.”
Roa smiled harder. Because a passage that led straight to and from her rooms? It would make eluding her guards so much easier. It would make everything easier.
Without thinking, she pushed herself up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
Dax’s hands moved to her waist, holding her lightly. Almost nervously. As if a single, sudden kiss from Roa could unravel all his charm and confidence.
At that thought, she withdrew. Dax’s hands fell away from her.
“If you ever need me in the night”—he rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at the blue and green floor tiles—“take a right.”
The silence crept in as both of them thought of the things she might need him for.
“Right. Well. See you tomorrow, then.”
Dax picked up his lamp and stepped back into the passage. It was only after the wall closed and the darkness descended that Roa wondered . . . What would happen if she took a left?
Twenty-Seven
That night, Roa had a nightmare.
She dreamed she was locked in a dark and hollow place. There were no walls, and yet no matter where she turned, she couldn’t escape. The loneliness crushed her. The smell of blood and rot made her gag.
But she wasn’t entirely alone. Somewhere in the shadows, something was searching for her.
Where are you? it called.
Roa knew that voice. Hope bloomed within her. Essie!
Where are you? Where are you?
I . . . I don’t know!
Roa felt her sister pause. Felt her turn. Hunting for her.
I’m trapped, said Roa. In the dark.
I’m coming. Her sister’s voice seemed to sharpen. I’ll find you. I always find you.
But Essie’s voice never came any closer. And as Roa tried desperately to close the distance between them, Essie only ever seemed to get farther and farther away.
Soon, Roa could no longer hear her. Just as she was about to give up, the dying echo of Essie’s voice reached her ears: This time when I find you, sister, nothing will ever break us again.
Roa woke with a start, shivering and covered in a sheen of cold sweat. She tried to shake off the nightmare, but it clung like a shadow.
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