He didn't know it yet, but those words were about to become his biggest problem. Because I wasn't giving up either. Not even close.
Kestra rode sidesaddle in front of me, with Trina on the mount behind us. I held my arms away from her as I managed the reins, a necessary inconvenience. Foolishly, I'd lowered my guard with her last night, which could've gotten us killed. I wasn't about to let that happen again.
We rode in silence, with thick woods on one side and a vast stretch of farmland on the other, probably owned by loyalists who were granted use of the land in exchange for the donation of soldiers to the Dominion. Lower-class Antorans could farm, but before they pulled their first crop from the ground, half of the land's yield would go to the Dominion. Some of it would end up on Kestra's supper table without her asking once where it had come from.
She turned back to me with a mischievous smile. "You're afraid of me, I can tell."
No, I wasn't going to play. "I'm not afraid of you, Princess."
"Yes, you are."
I grimaced. "Why do you think that?"
"It's obvious by the way your arms hover around me, as if touching me is dangerous."
"It is. I learned that last night."
Her smile darkened. "That was nothing. End this now, while you still can."
If only I could.
The horses were keeping up a brisk, constant pace, and every step closer to Highwyn quickened the pounding of my heart. Despite what Trina had said last night, I couldn't shake the worry that Kestra might be right about the Olden Blade. Tenger's entire plan was built on the premise that we would find it. What if it couldn't be found? What would happen then? The fact that the Halderians also knew Kestra was returning to Highwyn only complicated an already precarious mission.
The Halderian clan and the Coracks had similar goals--to remove Lord Endrick from power. But the Halderians mistrusted us, thinking that all we wanted was a back door to the throne, and maybe Tenger did. He had resisted any effort for the two groups to unite, saying he would not sacrifice his men to put a Halderian on the throne.
"If we find the Blade, then we can choose the Infidante," Tenger had said in his final speech to us before we launched this mission. "And the Infidante will choose the next king. Why shouldn't Antora kneel before a Corack?" I'd cheered along with everyone else at the time, with no idea then how I'd be drawn deeper into Tenger's plan.
And now I had to complete this mission. It required me to separate Kestra entirely from my feelings. Maybe in time, I could forget my anger or forgive her naive view of the world, but how could I ignore the emotions she had stirred in me last night, feelings that only intensified the more I tried to shake them off?
With the same mischievous smile as before, Kestra turned to me and asked, "Why do you always stare at me?"
I shifted my eyes to the road ahead. "I don't."
"You were just now. Tell me why."
"You remind me of a girl I once hated, that's all."
Her smile fell. "Did you really hate me back then?"
If anything, I'd liked her more than someone of my station ever should have dared. I recalled one summer's day when she was nine, and I'd seen her dancing alone in the gardens. Her dress had twisted in a perfect circle as she swirled around, the beads on her scarf reflecting pops of light. The head servant caught me looking and I lost a full day's meals. Kestra probably never knew I'd been there.
"I never hated you," I mumbled. "Until--"
"Until that day." Now Kestra became serious, and lowered her voice to a near whisper. "How do the Banished know Trina?"
"Can you use their names, please? The Halderians."
"How do they know her, Simon? Thorne told Trina he knew her."
"Trina denied it."
"No, she laughed at him. That's different."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. What had started as a headache back at the inn was quickly becoming a thunderstorm inside my head. "What's your point?"
"My point is that she's working with them!"
"If she was, then why would he have to say that he knew her? He'd know her and she'd know him--he wouldn't have to say it."