I’m a few feet away from my dorm room when I hear raised voices, and the Kyor incident is washed from my mind in favour of listening to Benny’s rage-filled shouts.

‘You are putting us all at risk. Don’t you see that?’ His words are harsh and clipped.

Llinos’s voice is just as sharp as she replies, ‘Oh, you mean like you’ve put Caroline at risk for the four years she’s been placed here?’

‘I didn’t make that decision!’ he snaps. ‘I don’t know how many times I have to say it for you to believe me. I had nothing to do with it.’ There’s a moment of tense silence and then Benny’s sigh is so loud that it reverberates through the door. ‘Please, see my way of thinking. Our plan has gone to shit. We have to rethink our strategy.’

‘No. No, I don’t agree with that. I agreed to the original plan.’

‘But that won’t work anymore! Losing Suan screwed us. You know that. And I promise I’ve been trying to figure out a way we can do this without her. It’s all I’ve been trying to do. But with Jai and Coulter gone too, it’s impossible. You’re just not thinking straight because of Caz.’

‘So you’d rather I didn’t know she was here? Tell me, Benny, if you’d been the one to find her, not Rose, would you have even told me?’

‘Yes! Yes, of course I would have! Llin, I’m not a fucking monster.’

‘You’re sure as hell sounding like one,’ Llin snarls back.

‘I don’t need you to agree,’ Benny says coldly. ‘You seem to have forgotten who you’re talking to.’

My skin prickles while my chest tightens like my ribs are being bound.

‘Well, if you’re pulling rank, then why don’t I just get on my knees to you now?’ Llinos’s voice is full of sarcasm, and the tension radiating from the room is suffocating. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to get caught here, but I don’t want to stand outside all night either.

Before I can decide whether to leave, Loch’s voice cuts through the silence. ‘Our flower is here,’ he says dreamily. ‘Rose is outside.’

My heart thuds. I either need to move now, making it look like I’ve just approached, or risk them finding me outside eavesdropping.

With a casual stride, I continue my walk and push open the door.

The three Rettlings are seated on their own beds, and Llinos and Benny smile at me in such synchronicity that it’s unnerving.

‘Hey, where have you been?’ Llinos asks. ‘Hardly seen you today. We were getting worried.’

Her voice is too high-pitched to be natural, and I wonder if she can hear it too.

‘Oh, just went for a wander,’ I say breezily. ‘How’s everything going here? Did you and Caroline have a good night?’

‘Yes, yes, all good. She just had a lot of work to catch up on, so she headed back early.’

She shoots Benny a look as if daring him to disagree with her, but his smile has dropped and he’s not saying anything at all.

It’s burning in me now, the need to know what the hell is up with my friends, the urge to dig into it. But they’re my friends, and as I owe them my life, the least I can give them in return is their privacy. I don’t want to rock the boat. I just have to pray that one of them doesn’t sink the whole damn thing.

OceanofPDF.com

Chapter 35

I’m more than a little relieved to see Zelle is back for our training the next morning, and he offers me a wide smile in greeting. ‘I hear you had some excitement while I was away.’

‘You could say that.’

‘Cowards. Shameful cowards. I’m not normally one for vengeance, but in this case, I won’t lose any sleep when they get what’s coming to them.’ I can’t help but wonder if he’s talking solely about the Rettlings, or whether Holden is included in the sentiment too. It’s not like it could have happened without his say-so. Still, that’s not something I’m going to ask. ‘You okay now?’ he adds.

‘I’m all good,’ I reassure him. ‘We should get started.’

Today it’s straight into sparring, with no footwork practice first, and thankfully, there’s no sign of the prince. The difference his absence makes to me is more than a little noticeable. The tension in my muscles is entirely different, and I can actually focus one hundred percent on the fighting.

Only when I’m drenched in sweat and my time with Zelle is nearly up does his royal highness finally deign to join us. Though rather than a weapon in his hand, the prince carries a plate of pastries. ‘Did you eat anything yet?’ he asks me gruffly.

‘Um, no,’ I admit.

He holds the plate out, but I don’t take it. Perhaps my plan for Zara is affecting my thinking, but I can’t help but worry that they might be poisoned, laced with something.

His mouth tightens as he grabs one and pointedly eats a mouthful. Then he stalks over and slams the plate onto the weapons cabinet before whirling around to face me.

‘It’s not fucking poisoned.’ His snarled words confirm he read my reluctance flawlessly. ‘It’s food, and you need to eat. If you don’t fuel your body properly then you’re wasting Zelle’s time and yours. Worse, you’re wasting my fucking time because it’s time he’s not training with me. So do us all a favour and eat something.’

Without another word, he turns on his heel and stalks off, not waiting to see if I consume his buttery offerings.

Silence falls between Zelle and me, and I hate the way the pastries continue to call to me. There’s no way around it. I’m fucking starving. As I move to pick one up, Zelle clears his throat.

‘It was hard to say goodbye to her,’ Zelle murmurs. It takes less than a heartbeat for me to realise what he means. My cheeks colour furiously as hollow fear sweeps through me.

Zelle knows I saw Elska.

‘I—’

He shakes his head and holds a hand up to forestall any explanation I might make. ‘The Gods led you to see what you needed to see. Cut him some slack. He’s trying to atone.’

I blink. ‘Atone for what?’

Zelle fixes his eyes on me. ‘For his lies.’

It hits me like I’ve been dragged into icy water. Zelle knows the truth. No wonder he’s been so keen to help me. He knows my mother was innocent. He knows that the only reason I’m even here is because Kyor ruined us.

‘There is no atonement for what he did,’ I spit. ‘There is no forgiveness. My brother is dead, my mother, my father. We have lived destitute, hungry, and in fear. Fuck his atonement.’

Zelle smiles a little. ‘The two of you are such a pair.’ He looks at me with an affection I can’t bear to see. ‘He was a child, Rose. A child who’d just watched his mother die before his eyes. The most precious person in his life, ripped away to join Mortidem. You’ve experienced loss yourself. You know the anger that comes with it. The desire to rage against the Gods’ will. The feeling of injustice that makes you seek someone to blame. He was a child,’ he repeats, his tone now just a little chiding. ‘Would you not forgive a child?’

‘No,’ I say shakily, more shaken than I care to admit. ‘No, because I was a child too.’

‘You were’—he nods—‘but a life lived in hate is no life at all.’ His rebuke is soft, yet it hits me like a blow to the stomach. ‘Session’s up,’ he murmurs.

A glance across the battle yard shows me that the other Rettlings have started to arrive. Rather than immediately heading over to them, Zelle squeezes my arm then moves over to the plate of pastries and plucks one up. He saunters away, no doubt ready to dispense some more unasked-for wisdom.

As the rest of the Rettlings file in, I all but run from the battle yard. The hollowness that fills me is due to far more than a lack of pastries.

‘It takes about twenty-four hours to take effect,’ I tell Llinos a week later. I’m up before sunrise, not to train with Zelle and Kyor but for the sole purpose of putting my own poisoning plan into action. ‘Which means if I slip it into their breakfast this morning, the symptoms will kick in tomorrow. Less suspicious, right? I’ll pour it into their water jugs, then tomorrow morning we watch the Rowells suffer.’