* * *
I sat between Rafe’s legs and leaned back against his chest. His arms circled around me, and a blanket covered us both. We huddled near the mouth of the cave looking out at a mountain range, watching the sun dip between its peaks. It wasn’t a beautiful sunset. The sky was hazy and gray, and a dismal shroud of clouds hung over the mountains, but it was the direction of home.
I was weaker than I thought, and my few solitary steps down another arm of the cave to my requested private moment had me collapsing against a wall for support. I took care of my business, but then had to call Rafe to help me walk back. He had scooped me into his arms as if I weighed nothing and carried me here when I asked to see where we were. All I saw for miles was a white canvas, a landscape transformed by a single night of snow.
My throat swelled when the last glimpse of sun disappeared. Now I had nothing else to focus on, and other images crept in behind my eyes. I saw my own face. How could I possibly see my own terrified expression? But I did, as though I watched from some high vantage point, maybe from the vantage point of a god who could have intervened. Every footstep replayed in my head, trying to see what I could have done—or should have done differently.
“It’s not your fault, Lia,” Rafe said, as if he were able to see Aster’s image in my thoughts. “Sven was standing on an upper walk and saw what happened. There’s nothing you could have done.”
My chest jumped, and I stifled a sob in my throat. I hadn’t had a chance to mourn her death. There’d been only a few cries of disbelief before I had stabbed the Komizar and everything tumbled out of control.
Rafe’s hand laced with mine beneath the blanket. “Do you want to talk about it?” he whispered against my cheek.
I didn’t know how. Too many feelings crowded my mind. Guilt, rage, and even relief; complete, utter relief to be alive; for Rafe and his men to be alive; thankful to be here in Rafe’s arms. A second chance. The better ending that Rafe had promised. But in just the next breath, a drowning wave of guilt overwhelmed me for those very same feelings. How could I feel relief when Aster was dead?
Then rage at the Komizar would bubble up again. He’s dead. I killed him. And I wished with every beat of my heart that I could kill him all over again.
“My mind flies in circles, Rafe,” I said. “Like a bird trapped in the rafters. There seems to be no way to turn, no window to fly through. No way to make this right in my head. What if I had—”
“What were you to do? Stay in Venda? Marry the Komizar? Be his mouthpiece? Tell Aster his lies until she was as corrupted as the rest of them? If you lived that long. Aster worked in the Sanctum. She was always a step from danger long before you ever got there.”
I remembered Aster telling me nothing’s safe around here. That was why she knew all the secret tunnels so well. There was always a quick exit at hand. Except this time, because she was watching out for me instead of herself.
Dammit, I should have known!
I should have known she wouldn’t listen. I told her to go home, but telling her wasn’t enough. Aster yearned to be a part of everything. She wanted to please so very badly. Whether it was proudly presenting me with my polished boots, ducking low to retrieve a discarded book in the caverns, guiding me through tunnels, or hiding my knife in a chamber pot, she always wanted to help. I can whistle loud. It was her plea to stay. Aster was eager for any kind of—
Chance. She had only wanted a chance. A way out, a greater story than the one that had been written for her, just like I had wanted. Tell my bapa I tried, Miz. A chance to control her own destiny. But for her, escape was impossible.
“She brought me the key, Rafe. She went into the Komizar’s room and took it. If I hadn’t asked her—”
“Lia, you’re not the only one questioning your decisions. For miles I walked with you half dead in my arms. And with every step, I wondered what I could have done differently. I asked myself a hundred times why I ignored your note. Everything might have been different if I’d just taken two minutes to answer you. I finally had to push it out of my head. If we spend too much time reliving the past, it gets us nowhere.”
I laid my head back against his chest. “That’s where I am, Rafe. Nowhere.”
He reached up, his knuckle gently tracing the line of my jaw. “Lia, when we lose a battle, we have to regroup and move forward again. Choose an alternate path if necessary. But if we dwell on every action we’ve taken, it will cripple us, and soon we’ll take no action at all.”
“Those sound like a soldier’s words,” I said.
“They are. That’s what I am, Lia. A soldier.”
And a prince. One who was surely wanted by the Council now as much as the princess who stabbed the Komizar.
I could only hope the bloodbath had eliminated the worst of the lot. It had certainly taken the best.
CHAPTER THREE
RAFE
I kissed her and laid her down carefully on the bed of blankets. She’d fallen asleep in my arms, mid-sentence, still insisting she could walk back in on her own. I covered her and went outside to where Orrin was roasting tonight’s dinner.
Nurse the rage, Lia, I had told her. Use it. Because I knew the guilt would destroy her, and I couldn’t bear for her to suffer any more than she already had.
Orrin had built the fire under a rocky overhang to diffuse the smoke. Just in case. But the skies were thick with gray and mist. Even if there was someone searching the horizon, smoke would be impossible to see. The others warmed themselves by the coals while Orrin turned the spit.
“How is she?” Sven asked.
“Weak. Hurting.”
“But she put on a good show of it,” Tavish said.
None of them had been fooled by her smile, me least of all. Every part of my own body was beaten and bruised by the river, knuckles cracked, muscles strained—and I hadn’t been pierced by two arrows on top of it all. She’d lost a lot of blood. Little wonder her head swam when she stood.
Orrin nodded approvingly at the roasted badger that was turning a dark golden brown. “This’ll fix her up. A good meal and—”
“It’s not just her body that’s hurting,” I said. “Aster’s death weighs on her. She’s second-guessing every step she made.”
Sven rubbed his hands over the fire. “That’s what a good soldier does. Analyzes past moves and then—”
“I know, Sven. I know!” I snapped. “Regroups and moves forward. You’ve told me a thousand times. But she’s not a soldier.”
Sven returned his hands to his pockets. The others eyed me cautiously.
“Not a soldier like us, maybe,” Jeb said, “but a soldier just the same.”
I shot him an icy stare. I didn’t want to hear about her being a soldier. I was tired of her being in danger and didn’t want to invite more. “I’m going to go check on the horses,” I said and left.
“Good idea,” Sven called after me.
They knew the horses didn’t need checking. We’d found a stand of bitter pea for them to graze on and they were securely tethered.
A soldier just the same.
There was far more that I looked back on during my twelve-mile walk than just my failure to answer her note. I also saw Griz, over and over again, lifting her hand and declaring her queen and Komizar. I saw the alarm in her face and remembered my own rage surging. The barbarians of Venda were trying to sink their claws in deeper, and they’d already done enough damage.