I cleaned up and went to face her. She saw me coming across the meadow and stood. Was she glaring at me? I wished I could remember more of last night. She was still dressed in the garb of the vagabonds. It suited her far too well.
I stopped a few steps away. “Good morning.”
She looked at me, her head tilted and one brow raised. “You do know that it’s not morning?”
“Good afternoon,” I corrected.
She stared at me, saying nothing when I’d hoped she’d fill in the blanks. I cleared my throat. “About last night—” I didn’t know quite how to broach the subject.
“Yes?” she prompted.
I stepped closer. “Lia, I hope you know I didn’t get the wagon because I intended to sleep in there with you.”
She still said nothing. This wasn’t the day I wanted her to acquire the skill of holding her tongue. I yielded. “Did I do anything that—”
“If you had, you’d still be on the floor of that wagon, only you wouldn’t be breathing.” She sighed. “You were, for the most part, a gentleman, Kaden—well, as much as a drunken fool who barges in can be.”
I breathed deeply. One concern out of the way. “I may have said some things, though.”
“You did.”
“Things I should know about?”
“I imagine if you said them, you already know them.” She shrugged and turned her gaze to the river. “But you gave away no guarded Vendan secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
I walked over and took her hand in mine. She looked up at me, surprised. I held it gently so she could pull away if she chose to, but she didn’t. “Kaden, please, let’s—”
“I’m not worried about Vendan secrets, Lia. I think you know that.”
Her lips pulled tight, and then her eyes blazed. “You said nothing I could understand. All right? Just drunken nonsense.”
I didn’t know if I could really believe her. I knew
what fireshine could do to a tongue, and I also knew the words I said in my head a hundred times a day against my will when I looked at her. And then there were the things about myself that I wanted no one to know.
She met my gaze, her eyes resolute, her chin raised the way she always held it when her mind was racing. I had studied every gesture, every blink, every nuance of her, all the language that was Lia in all the miles we had traveled, and with every bit of strength I had, I returned my hand to my side. A throb pierced my temples, and I squinted.
A wicked smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Good. I’m glad to see you’re paying for your excesses.” She nodded toward the river. “Let’s go get you some chiga weed. It grows along the banks. Dihara said it’s good for pain. This will be my thank-you for getting me the carvachi. It was a kindness.”
I watched her turn, watched the breeze catch her hair and lift it. I watched her walk away. I didn’t hate all royals. I didn’t hate her.
I followed after her and we walked along the banks, first up one side, then crossing on slick rocks and walking back down the other. She showed me the chiga weed and plucked several stalks as we walked, peeling back the outer leaves and breaking off a four-inch piece.
“Chew,” she said, handing it to me.
I looked at it suspiciously.
“It’s not poison,” she promised. “If I were trying to kill you, I’d find a much more painful way to do it.”
I smiled. “Yes, I suppose you would.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
RAFE
“Are you going to tell us or not?” Jeb gnawed on a bone, savoring every last bit of flavor from the first fresh meat we’d had in days, and then threw it in the fire. “Does she have the gift?”
“I don’t know.”