58

My eyes flutter open. The daystar’s amber light signals that a new day has come.

A fish cooks on a spit. The burning wood crackles and makes soft smoke that smells of juniper wood and not tapestries, furniture, or tar. I see nothing else beyond that fire, that sky, and my companion.

Jadon stares into the flames. His face hard, his shoulders tense, he’s lost, deep in thought.

What would I hear if I listened in? I whisper, “Hey.”

He smiles. “Hey.” The smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

That deeper part of me finds joy just seeing him again—despite his betrayal, despite that strained smile not lighting his eyes. He’s the only person I have in these wastelands now, and as much as I want to hate that, my relief is a true thing.

“Your nose,” I say, circling my own nose with my finger. “It looks better. Not swollen.” And the bruising that had started to spread beneath his eyes has changed its mind.

“Still hurts when I do this.” He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Then don’t do that.”

For a moment, his face brightens, old-Jadon-style.

I push up from the blanket and hug my knees to my chest. I’m feeling well enough to move on my own, which is more relief. I nod at the spit. “That’s a big fish.”

“You should’ve seen the one that got away,” he jokes, but there’s no humor in it.

I rest my head on my knees. My bones, my heart, my core…all brittle. One fall, one ill-timed move, and I’ll shatter completely. Confusion and exhaustion bubble in my head and press down…down…down… I close my eyes and squeeze, even though squeezing may end me, too.

“I found water.” Jadon offers me a canteen. He doesn’t meet my eyes and instead focuses on sliding twigs through another fish.

I sip from the canteen and gag. The water tastes like dirty geld.

“I didn’t say it was good water.” Jadon frowns, rubbing a tense hand over his forehead. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help to you.” He hands me roasted fish with whiskers, which looks just about as unappetizing as the water tastes.

And it is. I gag a little on the fish—tastes like sand.

“Catfish,” he says. “It’s an acquired taste.”

“I wish not to acquire it, then.” I shiver, then spit out the flesh. “Thank you, though.”

He takes my portion and eats it.

“And there we were,” I say, “just a night ago, with raisins and honey, a soft bed—”

“ Three nights ago,” he corrects.

“Three?” I’ve been unconscious for three nights?

We’ve most certainly lost Gileon Wake and his men now. Olivia, gone. My amulet, gone.

“Shit,” I say, my mouth dry.

“Oh.” He reaches for the saddlebag. “Almost forgot that I found…” He pulls out a flask and the smallest jar of honey I’ve ever seen. “What’s better than rum and honey?” He grins, and true joy reaches his eyes as he offers me one of two twigs. We take turns sipping rum and dipping twigs into the jar of honey. The best concoction of warm and sweet that I’ve ever had.

Peering at the cuts on my cheek, Jadon says, “You look better than you did yesterday.”

I don’t remember yesterday, but then I don’t remember lots of days. I rest my chin on my knees. “You made antivenoms and brought me back from the brink of death. You haven’t been totally useless.”

“It won’t be enough.” His scowl returns as he stares into the fire.

“What does that mean?” I ask. “Am I going to succumb to the venom after all?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s— Never mind.” He goes back to staring into the fire.

“More secrets?” I snap. “What else is there?”

With his firmly set mouth and the distant look in his eyes, he’s finally shaken off the husk of old Jadon. This version of Jadon is a prince by birth, not the man who crafted weapons and pretended to be a simple blacksmith.

“You owe me an explanation,” I say. “Who am I traveling with? Jadon Ealdrehrt, the smithy? Or Jadon Wake, Prince of Brithellum? Nice to meet you, Your Highness. Or is it ‘Your Grace’? Is it even ‘Jadon’? Or are you Syrus Wake, Third of His Name, Prince of Brithellum and the First Men, Protector of Vallendor, the Keeper of Flame, the Blacksmith, the Best Fucking Liar on This Side of Wherever the Fuck We Are Right Now? Did I forget one?”

His knee bounces as he breaks twigs into little sticks. “Kai, it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?” I ask. “Because up until now, everything you’ve told me is a lie.”

Our confessions in the dark. It’s not like that.

How he feels next to me, beside me, inside me. It’s not like that.

Him comforting me, one hurt after another. It’s not like that.

Everything that we did or said to each other—every interaction that had been honest even if it was also uncomfortable and scary— wasn’t honest, just uncomfortable. But I’d accepted comfort in those frustrating moments because at least we were still being authentic. I was wrong.

Kai, it’s not like that .

What it’s like? Hurtful and mean and violent. Loveless.

“Was any of what you told me true?” I ask. “Your abusive adoptive father? Old Myrtle in the shack? The hurt you felt when your General Stery died? That your life has been loveless? Or were you just playing on my pity? Gileon seems to love you well enough.”

I love you, brother. No matter what happens. Always, always remember that.

Jadon tosses those broken twigs into the fire. “Yes, Gileon does love me. We relied on each other when we had no one else to trust. He took a lot of shit for me—he knew his punishment would be milder. He’s the one who told me to run while I could, just to see how life felt outside those walls.”

“Before you married your choice of princess?” I feel him stiffen even though he’s sitting across from me. Once my mind slows from its frantic swirling, once I can breathe steadily, I rush ahead to mess the rest of it up with, “ Slumming? Is that what you thought you were doing with me? What we were doing? How you saw me?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not like that.”

“Stop saying that!” I yell. “Would you even tell me if you did think that?”

He finally lifts his eyes to meet mine. “No.”

I wait to hear him say more than this, but it feels like I’m looking out an open window and letting in both hot air and cold air, sweet air and foul… And this makes me shiver. “No,” I say, not moving my gaze from his but choosing, instead, to push deeper into my gaze, deeper than I’ve ever gazed before, and there, at the end of my stare, there’s…a closed window, the glass opaque and unbreakable.

Opaque because I can no longer hear his thoughts. Is that now my new weakness?

Or, because of Elyn’s gifts, is that now his newest strength? I press my palms to my temples to silence the buzzing in my head. I’m not fully healed from the venom yet.

“I’ve never faked how I feel about you,” he says, his voice husky.

I push through the malaise and focus on his face, hoping to see something there to prove his words are true. I don’t. A liar is a liar. “What is this ‘plan’ Gileon mentioned?” I ask. “What did he mean by no one expecting the Grand Defender to be so tantalizing?”

Jadon shakes his head, and his eyes roam back to the fire. “‘Plan’ meaning when I was supposed to return to Brithellum. And about how no one thought that you—”

“Me?”

“You—the Grand Defender,” Jadon says, “the one who plans to stop the emperor from conquering all of Vallendor, would look like…you.”

I jerk and sit up straighter. “What does that mean?”

And who said that I was the Grand Defender? Sybel didn’t call me that. Elyn didn’t call me that. What makes Gileon Wake think that I am? Besides, I’m not here to stop the emperor from conquering all of Vallendor. He is not the One… is he ? Sybel didn’t say he was…but it’s hard to think of anyone else who it might be.

“Gileon didn’t expect you to be so strong,” Jadon continues. “That you could possibly have so much influence that I’d lose my way.”

“Have you?” I ask. “Lost your way?”

He says nothing, then: “Yes.”

I turn my head toward the cave walls. But his admission is not enough. I look back at him. “Are you saying that you knew who I was before I did?”

His jaw tightens. Then: “Yes.”

I can’t even say, “What,” because I’ve lost my ability to gasp.

“But not at first,” he corrects. “I thought you’d stolen the amulet from someone, just like Olivia stole it from you. But the more time we spent together at Veril’s and on the road, the stronger you became… I could no longer doubt who you were.” He shakes his head, then looks at me with awe. “My father’s greatest enemy landing in the town I was hiding in… Here I am, trying to hide out in Maford, but I can’t even do that because of…because of fate.”

I drop my head between my knees to keep from fainting, and my breath saws in and out in short pants. My mind races— How could you, why didn’t you say something, you watched me flail, you have no heart, why, why, why ? I want to ask all these things and say so much more, but his confession has punched me so hard that I’ve gone mute.

“Not everything I told you was a lie.” Jadon’s eyes flash, and he stands up and backs away from me. “The emperor…my father…we… he… He’s never loved me. That’s true. To him, I’m good for one thing: killing. But when I’m with you, I’m more than that. And every day I’ve spent with you, I wished that… I wanted… I tried to figure out a way that it could be just the two of us together.

“And sometimes, it was just the two of us, and it was so incredible, so… otherworldly , but eventually this world interfered again. Soldiers, Elyn, aburan, fucking gerammocs. All of it reminded me of my destiny and forced me to remember that I’m nothing more than a killer. And even now, my father doesn’t want me back because he misses me. He wants me back because he’ll become more powerful with me behind him. Not even at his side. That would suggest equality, and there’s no one equal to Supreme manifested as man.”

“So your solution, then,” I say, lifting my head from my knees, “was to lie to me. Lie to someone who actually cared about you and would’ve helped—”

“Helped?” He laughs, and it’s a jagged and terrible sound.

Expressionless, he squares his shoulders and clenches his hands into fists. “I don’t think I can—” He begins again. “This isn’t working, and I’m doing nothing but hurting you.”

“How many times are you going to say that?”

“Until I believe it,” he shouts. “Until I accept it—”

“Accept what ?” I shout back. “That you’re not perfect? That people hurt other people, especially those they’re supposed to care about? Or accept that you’ve played a role in me being in this cave, and if I never find my amulet and become nothing more than a wisp of who I was, then it’s your fault? Because yes, you’ve hurt me. A lot. And I haven’t done anything to deserve that.” I lift an arm and swing it through the air. “But now what? How is any of this acceptance helping us right now? Oh yeah. I keep forgetting that there is no ‘us.’ You told me that. But then you took it back in my room at the inn, and now…” I squeeze the bridge of my nose and take a breath. “Now, I know nothing.”

“We’re wasting time,” he says.

“Are we?” I scoff. “Where do you have to be right now? Oh, are you choosing now to return to your brother and your fancy life in the castle? Things get too rough for you out here, Prince Jadon?”

He glares at the fire. The saddlebag slides off his shoulder and lands at his feet. “I should’ve left when you were still asleep,” he says more to himself than to me. “It would’ve been easier for both of us.”

Veril Bairnell the Sapient was right again. Don’t trust anyone to bring you that which makes you whole. They may not want you whole.

Jadon never wanted me whole.

“Just go ahead and say something,” he demands, eyes hot. “Curse at me. Call me a coward or—” He exhales, and his shoulders drop. “But I’m still leaving.”

I search his eyes, but I can’t find him there. But then…who is he? “You’re abandoning me here because you’re, what? Frightened? Confused? Bored? Lazy? Evil? What?”

“I’m doing this to help you,” he says, his teeth clenched. “You going on your own means I can’t be forced to hurt you, no matter what Gileon or my father want—”

“Is that it?” I ask, squinting at him. “You’re scared of Daddy now that he’s got his eyes on you? Are you relieved that you’re about to live your happily ever after, that you can now stop roaming and slumming across all of Vallendor with someone like me—?”

“That’s not it at all!” he shouts. “Have you heard anything I’ve said? I’m leaving to protect you!”

“By leaving me in a cave ?” I shriek.

“I can’t—” Jadon paces, moving even farther away, tugging his hair with one hand. “I should never have let it go this far.”

“But you let it go this far, and here we stand.” I blink away angry tears burning my eyes. “Only cowards run.”

“I promise you,” he says, his words faltering, “I’m leaving for your own good. When I say that I don’t want to hurt you, I mean it.”

I hold out my arms. “Then don’t hurt me. Stop hurting me.”

“All of this, it’s unreasonable, I know. All of this is inevitable. Unavoidable.”

“What’s inevitable? What’s unavoidable?” I ask, not wanting to give up, but I don’t even know if I want to win. I don’t know what it even means to win. My heart slows as I open myself to the inevitable, the unavoidable. No more “us.” My skin grows clammy as a new thought blooms in my mind: all this time, I’ve accused Olivia of betraying me, when all along…

Don’t trust anyone. Depend on you and you alone.

Veril told me not to trust Jadon.

I should have listened.

Olivia stole my clothes, and for the second time, she’s stolen my amulet, and she’s now traded it for her freedom. Jadon, the son of the man who’s been hunting me, is working with Gileon, who is also working with Elyn. Who knows what else he’s done.

All because they think I’m a threat to the One—to Elyn?

Do they really believe that my purpose for being here is to fuck around with mortals who want shinier castles and more land, more riches, more worshippers? Why should I care about that? Why would I risk my life to simply stop the nonsense of time-hoarders on an emperor who will die, and his two sons who will die, and their sons who will die? Does a bear care about the daily life of ants? Do ants think they can bring down a bear? They can make the bear miserable, sure. But actually killing the bear? Oh, the folly of ants.

But now I see that the ants are working for a bear, one who commands otherworldly to kill, who spills protective magic upon the emperor’s soldiers for her benefit.

I’m also a bear, a goddess, the Grand Defender. Before forgetting my life, I didn’t fear men as I moved above the realm. And I don’t fear them now even in my weakest state. Elyn may think she knows who I am, but she doesn’t understand who I am. Because if she wanted to successfully destroy me, she’d need to do more than sic Syrus Wake and his sons on me and keep me away from my amulet. Wake and his sons should’ve been just as eternal as me.

Oh, the absurdity of these men who believed they could possibly end me.

The only person in Vallendor who’s just as eternal as me and has the power and ability to destroy me is Elyn. She should’ve skipped using the Wakes—her humans—as trained falcons who’ve done nothing but warn me that she’s near.

“Is your boss on her way here?” I now ask Jadon.

He doesn’t speak.

“Did you make it so that I’d be too weak to fight against someone so strong?”

He keeps his gaze averted and remains silent.

So that’s how it’s supposed to end. I’m supposed to die by Elyn’s hand. Did he bring me to this cave for that purpose? Will this be my tomb?

I hold back the first sob that rattles my chest, but the second escapes. “How could you be so heartless ? How can you be so cruel ?”

Pain and sorrow streak across Jadon’s face. He takes a step toward me, reaching out like he might comfort me.

“You and Olivia,” I say, swiping away my tears, backing away from him. “You both stole something from me. The thing that keeps me whole is gone. You plundered with her—and you did far more damage to me than anyone on this journey. You had the privilege to touch me, to sleep beside me, to sit and talk to me, and even now, you’re standing here and I haven’t thrown you across this cave. A privilege you trampled.”

I turn away, willing my legs to keep me upright. “You don’t have to pretend to care about me anymore,” I snarl. “You don’t have to take care of me and keep me alive for her. Your job is done. You may now stop slumming and return to Brithellum to collect your reward. Go on and pick up your princess and polish your crown and make your little babies and tell epic stories of that time in your life that you fucked the Lady of the Verdant Realm.”

“You think all this is about getting you in bed ?” he asks, eyes hard. “Is that what you’re saying?”

I meet his glare with one of my own. “If I say what I want to say, you’d have no ears to hear another word spoken ever again.”

“You don’t know me at all,” he whispers.

“Poor, misunderstood Jadon. You know what? I can’t listen to this anymore.” I shake my head, but the rest of me shakes even more. With a trembling hand, I point to the world beyond the cave, where the daystar slinks behind the horizon. “Go. Do your own thing. You don’t want to hurt me? Guess what? You failed. You hurt me. Fuck you.”

Silence fills the cave—if it wasn’t for the crackle of fire and the drip of water somewhere in this rock, one could mistake this place for a tomb.

“Jadon?”

He looks at me over his shoulder.

“Are you happy?” I ask, echoing his brother’s question.

“No.” Without hesitation.

“Were you ever happy?”

He rolls that question around in his head like a pebble before skipping it across a pond. Air catches in his throat, and he looks at me again before breaking our gaze to stare out beyond our shelter. “No.”

Yes, this place is a tomb.

Because something has died here and will never find its way out.

Jadon Wake, Prince of Vallendor, eldest son of Emperor Syrus Wake, Supreme Manifest, has abandoned me. He even took both horses with him, stranding me here as the daystar sets. He couldn’t have even left me a horse ? Does he really want me to die in this cave? Is this part of the deal he made with Elyn? Or is this a bonus?

He’s forsaken me as though we had no history together, as though nothing we did together mattered.

He comforted me when I didn’t know who I was and when I’d lost the most important person in my life. We’d lain side by side, as friends, as lovers.

How could I have believed that we were either?

I rest my head against my knees.

Why couldn’t Jadon have kept his lies tucked in at least until I reclaimed my pendant? But I was never going to reclaim my pendant—that wasn’t part of the “plan.” Maybe if we’d returned to the road after Separi brought me my armor and not spent the night at the inn.

But Gileon was already nearby with Olivia. Leaving the inn wasn’t part of the “plan.”

I don’t want to hurt you.

Whatever, Jadon Whoever-the-Fuck-You-Are.

I touch the cheek injured by that poisonous blade. My skin feels soft there. No scar. How many plants would I need to heal my heart? Honestly? I feel better with Jadon gone. I no longer have to hold my breath. I no longer have to wonder what he thinks or how he feels. I no longer have to slow down. Desire will no longer cloud my judgment. As natural as it is, and as good as it feels, touching and being touched won’t be considerations in what I should or should not do.

What was I even thinking, falling for a mortal? I’m a goddess. I’m sure I’ve had better men. Stronger men. Men who’d last eternally, in every way. Jadon Wake is the dirt beneath my feet, and frankly, I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed that I’ve been fooled. Embarrassed that everyone was in on the joke except me. Embarrassed that I wanted to be caressed by someone actively scheming against me. Embarrassed that I fell for a phantom, a farce, a great pretender.

All of it reminded me of my destiny and forced me to remember that I’m nothing more than a killer . That’s what Jadon said. As the eldest son of the emperor, his destiny includes conquering all of Vallendor in the name of his father.

Yet Elyn was the one who claimed that I would be the destruction of the realm? How can that be when the Wakes have had a hand in every destruction on her behalf—Maford and Caburh and wherever they’re headed now. Wake, his son Gileon, and his son who’d posed as a simple blacksmith but swung his sword like a…

God.

Hmm.

What if I’ve been wrong all this time? What if Elyn isn’t the One?

What if the One has been closer to me than I thought?

What if the One has been right here beside me all this time?