3. Dacre

CHAPTER 3

DACRE

D arkness blanketed the forest as we pushed forward. It had been two days since I followed my father out of the city, and in those two days, we had seen little signs of Verena.

Occasionally, we'd catch a glimpse of what looked like faint footprints in the soft soil, but they'd disappear as if the forest itself was trying to conceal her.

But we had seen the king's soldiers.

We had trailed after them, as silent as ghosts through the dense woods. Eiran's sharp ears caught snippets of conversation—whispers about her, about how she had been seen in a nearby village.

The king was after her. They were hunting her down just as we were, and I feared what he would do if he got his hands on her.

When I found her, she had been in the dungeons. His own daughter locked up like a beast.

I had assumed then that she was like any other traitor fleeing the kingdom with a fake rebellion mark on her arm, and I had treated her as such. But I couldn't ignore the possibility of something much darker lurking behind her escape.

I was haunted by memories of her scars, and each one ignited a fire of anger within me.

Each scar was a secret she kept hidden from the world, etched into her skin like a map of her past. They curled and twisted into one another, each one hiding her pain as if they could disguise it.

And I felt possessed with the urge to trace each one and find out her truths.

"We need to stop for the night," my father grunted. With every hour that passed without finding her, he grew more volatile as did my unease.

There were five of us in total. My father, Eiran, and my father's two right-hand men, Adler, and Eiran's father, Reed.

And every one of them followed my father with a blind allegiance.

If he wanted Verena, then they would do everything within their power to get her, and I would do everything within my power to stop them.

We stopped near the edge of a river, and I rolled my neck as my father squatted down and cupped the cool water in his hands. He took a long drink before he turned to me, his gaze critical even in the darkness of the night.

"We're still a few days of travel away from the southern coast."

I nodded, my mind racing with a thousand thoughts of finding her.

"If the king's men get to her before we do, they will take her back to the palace." He ran his wet hands over his face before running them along the back of his neck. "We have to get to her before they do."

I gritted my teeth as I watched him. Of course, they would take her back to the palace, but it was what her father would do with her once they got her there that worried me. She wasn't a lost princess. She was on the run.

I knew in my gut that was the truth, and I hated that I hadn't known that truth from the beginning.

I had no idea what I would have done if I had, but fuck, I had been so damn cruel to her out of my own anger. She had lied and betrayed me, but I didn't know what secrets she kept buried.

She was a traitor, but who was it that she was truly betraying?

"We won't let them get to her," Eiran promised my father as he rummaged through his pack, determination etched into every line of his face. My hands clenched into fists at my sides, the urge to lash out welling up inside me.

"What's the plan for once we get her?" I looked away from Eiran andwatched my father's eyes as I asked the question.

He paused for a moment, his gaze distant as he thought about his response. "First, we find her, then we'll do exactly what needs to be done."

"Which is?" I could hear my heartbeat whooshing in my ears. Whatever plan my father had for her, I wasn't going to like it.

"Which is what you should have already done instead of thinking with your cock." He let out a frustrated growl, and I saw Eiran's irritating smirk from the corner of my eye. "Do you honestly think I would trust you with our plan after what you've done?"

"And do you honestly think that I'm going to help you find her when you plan on using her like she's some sort of bait to draw her father out?" I shouldn't have said it. I knew I shouldn't have, and the way his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched only reassured me of that.

"I think you've become a liability when you're supposed to be our future. Our people are counting on you, and you're willing to sacrifice their future for the king's daughter?" His words hit me like a punch to the gut. In all my life, he had never questioned my loyalty or my ability to be exactly what he needed me to be.

"Because I don't want you to use a girl who's done nothing wrong?" She hadn't. Not to him anyway.

"Because you've forgotten where your loyalty should lie!" He moved so close to me that his chest pressed against mine.

My loyalty should have been with my family, with my father, with the rebellion, but he was right.

My loyalty had been wavering for a long time. It seemed to solidify the day my mother was killed, but my father had been so consumed by his thirst for revenge and his own agenda that he had become blinded to everything the rebellion once stood for.

Verena had become a weapon that effortlessly shredded the last remnants of my loyalty.

And that only made me angrier at her.

I was angry at my father for the way he wanted to use her as a pawn, but had I been nothing but one to her?

Was this what she wanted all along?

Even if I had wanted to believe that to be true, the look in her eyes when I called out her true name told me it wasn't.

She had decided to stay in a rebellion that hated her father, hated everything he stood for, and she chose to train at my side and take all the bullshit I'd thrown at her as if she were willing to fight for the same things that we were.

And I had believed her.

Part of me still did.

Part of me wished that she had been exactly who she said she was instead of the one person I shouldn't have wanted, shouldn't have craved.

And that made us both fools.

"I haven't forgotten." I bit back the words that threatened to spill from my lips, words that would break the fragile trust between us. "I have spent my entire life not forgetting, just as Wren has."

He paused, his eyes searching mine as if trying to look for the lies behind my words. Finally, he let out a deep sigh before looking away.

"You're right." The tension in his voice made it clear that he didn't mean it. "We'll get the princess, and you'll do exactly what needs to be done."

He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me forward until my forehead touched his. "We're all counting on you, Dacre. The rebellion, our people. Don't let your mother's death be for nothing."

For nothing. As if her death in itself hadn't meant everything. Her life nor her death should have been measured in how it helped the damned rebellion, but that was what she had been reduced down to.

They idolized her, dropped to their knees and prayed to the gods to have her protect our rebellion, but none of them prayed for her soul. They prayed for her protection, while Wren and I beseeched the gods for her peace.

"We won't fail you, sir." Eiran stood and handed my father some food from his pack. "We won't fail the rebellion."