Sara Larson - Defy

For some reason, I thought back to my fight against Eljin earlier that day. I was suddenly afraid it had been the wrong decision not to report my suspicions immediately. I let my hand drop down to rest on the hilt of my sword, making it a casual gesture, even though my whole body hummed with tension. I needed to rectify my mistake as soon as possible and let Deron know. Unless Eljin was the one at the other end of this hallway, preparing to attack. I could beat anyone — any natural man or woman. But I was no match for magic. No one was.

Not even Papa had been, and he was the best fighter I’d ever seen. Swords were useless against the fire that sorcerers wielded.

My blood pulsed hot through my body, and I tensed, waiting for the strike that I sensed was coming.

When the door flung open beside me, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Prince Damian emerged, holding a lit torch. Light spilled into the hallway, scattering the shadows nearest us into oblivion. I spun to face the unknown assailant, my grip tight on the hilt of my sword, but the hallway was empty.

“Let’s go,” Prince Damian said, brushing past me. The door to the room was already shut. In my attempt to see if someone had really been hiding in the corridor, I’d missed the chance to try to look into the room he’d been in for so long.

Frustrated and still on edge, I followed him. There was no sign of anyone else anywhere in the southwest wing. But I trusted my instincts. We hadn’t been alone.

DESPITE HOW EXHAUSTED I was, I couldn’t sleep as I lay on the cot outside Prince Damian’s room. Now that Mateo had officially joined the guard and taken Marcel’s empty bed, I was grateful for my assignment guarding Prince Damian’s door. I lay under the blanket, still wearing the same binding and tunic, having only dared do a quick wash with a wet cloth again.

The skylight above me glowed with the white light of the nearly full moon as I stared up at the ceiling. Though I kept my body still, my mind spun around and around mercilessly. When Damian and I returned, it had been so late, Deron was already in his room for the night. I hadn’t been able to warn him about Eljin.

What was Eljin’s goal — why was he here? Why had he fought me and purposely lost? And what was the prince involved in? Why was he including me now?

I needed Marcel. As he’d said only a couple of nights ago, I was the better fighter, but he’d been smarter. He would have been able to tell me what to do. He would have been able to figure out what was going on. My eyes burned and I shut them, pressing the heels of my hands against them to push the emotion away. I tried to force myself not to think about Marcel’s death, not to long for him, because there was nothing I could do to change what had happened. I couldn’t bring him back. Death was final. I knew it all too well.

And now Tanoori, who had once been a weaver’s innocent daughter, would die as well.

My stomach twisted and I had to jump out of bed and rush over to the corner of the room. I barely made it in time to heave the contents of my stomach into the dark belly of the chamber pot. Over and over, I wretched, until there was nothing left but bile, burning as it came up. Finally, tears running down my cheeks and my stomach aching, I was done. I shakily put the lid on the chamber pot to smother the smell until I could gather enough strength to do something with it.

I heard the door behind me slip open right before the prince asked, “Alex? What in the name of Antion are you doing on the floor?”

I jumped up, stepping in front of the chamber pot, pressing my fist to my chest. “My prince, why are you up? Do you need something?”

We locked gazes across the room, the pale moonlight washing over him, transforming him into a specter come to haunt me.

“I need to speak with you,” Prince Damian said. “And unfortunately, the only time I dared broach this subject with you was the middle of the night, when I knew there would be no listening ears. However, since it would appear that you are not having a very good night, perhaps I should wait for another time.”

“Of course not, Your Highness. I am at your service, always.”

“You’re sick, Alex.”

“No, my lord. I was indisposed by … emotional upset. I’m fine now.” I prayed he couldn’t see the way my hands trembled in the indistinct light of the moon.

“‘Indisposed by emotional upset’?” Prince Damian echoed, one eyebrow lifting. “Are you so ill at ease with me that you feel you have to hide being upset over your brother’s death?”

I didn’t respond, staring at his chin rather than meeting his eyes.

He gestured to the cot. “Alex, come, sit down. You don’t need to stand at attention right now.”

I haltingly stepped forward but couldn’t bring myself to sit down on the bed while my prince stood before me.

“Please sit down. We don’t need to always stand on such ceremony, especially when you aren’t feeling your best and it’s the middle of the night.”

We stood there in silence as I battled with myself. I couldn’t stop thinking about his nightmare, how I’d stared at him and even let myself dream of him holding me in his arms. How I’d imagined kissing him. We were treading on dangerous water. The closer I allowed us to become, the harder it would be to keep the truth from him. And no matter what, I could never let him find out my secret.

Before I decided what to do, he did as he’d asked me to do, and sat down on the cot with a sigh. He propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. “I know I told you that I kept a stiff upper lip when my brother died, but that wasn’t exactly the truth.”

I stared down at his bowed head, my heart picking up speed. Whatever it was I’d been expecting him to talk to me about, a confession about his own brother’s death wasn’t it.

“When did you come to the palace — three, maybe four, years ago?”

I nodded, but he didn’t look up. “A little over three years ago, in the army barracks, my lord.”

“Then you never knew Victor. He was older than me and he was the rightful heir.”

So slowly my knee actually creaked in protest, I gingerly lowered myself down to sit beside him on the cot.

Damian turned to look at me. There was an expression of such undisguised anguish on his face, it took my breath away. “I loved my brother. He was killed by an assassin — a hired sorcerer. I was with him before he died, but when we heard the sounds of fighting, he made me leave. There was a passageway from his room to mine. No one else knew of it. He told me to leave and I never saw him alive again.”

I fought valiantly to maintain my composure, but it was a losing battle. “Why are you telling me this, my lord?”

“Because you, of all people, understand. Because, for a while now, I’ve known that of anyone on my guard, you’re the one I can trust. I wish that you wouldn’t continue to pretend with me, Alex. I’m telling you this so that you may know that you’re not the only one who puts on a show for everyone around him. You’re not the only one playing a part.”

My heart jumped into my throat. I blinked rapidly to clear my eyes, meeting Damian’s pointed gaze with a feeling like a hand had reached beneath my ribs and was squeezing the air out of my lungs. My suspicions of him were true, then — he wasn’t the man he portrayed himself to be. But was he trying to say he knew my secret?

“The fact that you’ve continued on, acting as though nothing can shake you, even though losing your brother was obviously a horrible blow, proves how alike we are.”

I slowly exhaled, the vise on my lungs releasing. He believed the part I played was that of a dedicated guard, unaffected by the loss of his brother. Did Damian suspect that I was hiding far more than that? “Why did you have to pretend your brother’s death didn’t affect you?” I asked to cover up how flustered I was.