“Did you — did you —” My voice was unsteady; I couldn’t force the question out.
“Alex,” he said very quietly. I expected him to be shocked, to get angry. Instead, he just looked at me, regret on his handsome face. Somehow, he already knew. He knew.
My heart constricted; I was hardly able to draw breath. Finding out that Rylan knew was one thing — but now Prince Damian, too? Sudden panic threatened to strangle me, and I scrambled to my feet.
In one lithe movement, Damian stood up as well. I’d never felt so small before — so unmasked. I stared up at him with my stomach clenched into knots.
“How long?” I finally breathed, barely able to speak over the pounding of my heart. He stepped toward me but I stiffened and he halted.
“A while,” he said softly. We stared at each other for a long, breathless moment. Suddenly, the last few nights took on new meaning. He’d known I was a girl the whole time. I didn’t know whether I should get mad or cry or both.
Damian glanced down at Lisbet, then his eyes narrowed when he turned to Rylan. “You don’t seem very surprised by this announcement.”
I looked over at Rylan to see him grimace slightly. “No, sir.”
“You knew that Alex was — is — a girl?”
“Yes, Your Highness. But she didn’t know I knew. Well, until this week, after she was attacked by the jaguar.”
“A jaguar?” Damian sounded truly incredulous now as he spun around to face me again. “How could you keep a jaguar attack from me?”
Heat rose in my cheeks. “You didn’t tell me you knew I was a girl!” I forced myself to meet his accusing gaze.
Gone was any pretense of the petulant brat I’d come home to after our disastrous trip to the Heart of the Rivers. Here was the Damian I’d caught a glimpse of that night in his outer chamber, when he’d told me about his brother. Well, a much angrier version of that Damian, but at least the persona he adopted for everyone else to see was gone. He stared at me with disbelief on his handsome face.
“You were attacked by a jaguar, and you didn’t think to tell me? Are you all right?”
“You knew I was a girl and you still came out to talk to me in the middle of the night without a shirt on?” I shot right back.
“You did what?” Rylan cut in, his eyes wide.
“It’s none of your business,” the prince snapped and then stepped closer. “Alex — if that’s even your real name — would you really have wanted me to tell you I knew? It would have put you in danger. It would have changed everything.”
I stared at him, my heart flopping like a wounded animal in my chest. “Alexa,” I whispered.
“What?”
“My name is Alexa.”
“Alexa,” he repeated quietly. Hearing Damian say my real name sent a warm shiver sliding down my spine, straight into my belly. “And now that the truth is out in the open, I’ve been curious for quite some time. How did a girl come to be the best swordsman and shot in my personal guard? And what is this about a jaguar attack?”
“I believe I should go see if there is any food left from supper,” Lisbet said suddenly, standing up. “I suppose I can trust the three of you to stay in here? I don’t have to warn you that Eljin can do as much damage from across a campground as he can from five feet away, do I?”
We all looked at her silently, until Damian nodded once curtly. She curtsied to him, which was odd, considering she was one of our captors, and then left without another word.
Damian immediately turned to me. “I’d like answers to my questions now.” It wasn’t a request.
I cleared my throat nervously. “Could you at least sit down first?”
My heart skipped a beat when he didn’t move, afraid I’d pushed him too far. He was still the prince. But finally he folded his long legs and sat down beside Rylan, both of them facing me. Piercing blue eyes and warm brown ones, both intent, waiting for me.
I haltingly began trying to explain myself. “My parents were afraid of your father’s war. I used to hear them talking about it at night. My mother was worried that they wouldn’t be able to protect me in particular, since I was a girl.”
“Because they thought you might be forced into the breeding house?” Damian’s eyes darkened, and his voice sent another shiver down my spine.
“Yes.”
A muscle in his jaw tightened. “Go on.”
I told him how I’d asked to train with my brother, and how I grew to be a better fighter than he was. Better than anyone else in the village, even though I was only a girl of fourteen when our parents were killed. I told them how Marcel and I made the desperate decision to lie about our ages and to cut off my hair and pretend I was his twin brother to save me from being taken to the king’s breeding house. To save me from the fate that awaited girls there — being raped repeatedly until they got pregnant, only to have the babies taken from them and raised to populate the king’s army, as soon as the boys were old enough to hold swords, or to expand his breeding house, as soon as the girls got their monthly courses. I tried not to think about Kalen, or Horace, or the girl lying on the bed, or anything else I’d seen that horrible night as I spoke, but nausea still rose in my belly.
“When I am king, I want you to know that I will set those poor girls free and burn that building to the ground.” The cold fury in his voice made me hope he was serious — and that he became king sooner rather than later. But what hope was there of that? King Hector wasn’t old, certainly not close to dying anytime soon. Not unless something happened to him.
Shaking my head to clear the treasonous thoughts, I told Damian how no one had questioned me when Marcel and I volunteered to join the army, especially once they saw me fight, and then there had been no going back.
“So you’re actually only seventeen?” he asked. “You lied about your age as well?”
I nodded.
“A seventeen-year-old girl.” Prince Damian shook his head. “And how did you find out?” He turned to Rylan.
“The day she and Marcel joined the army, he accidentally called her Alexa in front of me. He realized that I’d overheard and later swore me to secrecy.”
“But you didn’t know that he knew?” Damian asked me.
I shook my head. “No.”
“And you’ve been pretending to be a boy ever since.”
“I’m sorry for deceiving you.” I lifted my chin and met his searching gaze. “When my parents died, we didn’t know what else to do. But I don’t regret it. As you know, I’m very good at what I do.”
“Unless faced with a sorcerer,” he commented and that shut me right up. His expression was almost calculating as he looked at me. I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking.
“I know of no ordinary human fighter who could beat a sorcerer,” Rylan supplied, belatedly adding, “Your Highness.”
“You don’t need to keep addressing me like that. We’re sitting in a tent in the middle of the jungle with a sorcerer ready to knock us flat on our backs if we look at him sideways. I think it would be safe for you to just call me Damian right now.” But as he spoke, his eyes were on mine, making my stomach tighten. “However, I must disagree with you. There are few who could beat a sorcerer, but they do exist.”
“You’re saying that I should have been able to stop Eljin — to beat him?” I asked defensively.
“As you are now? No. As you said, you’re very good, some might even say remarkable. But you wouldn’t be able to stop Eljin — as we saw the other night.”
Rylan glanced between Damian and me uncertainly.
“But you expect me to believe that it is possible to beat him, without magic?” I bit out through clenched teeth. He just had to keep reminding me of my failure. “And what if he’d attacked me with fire? You expect me to believe I could have defended myself against that?” I challenged him, daring him to tell me that my father shouldn’t have died. If he couldn’t stop a sorcerer’s fire, no one could.
Damian lifted one eyebrow, giving me a
scrutinizing look. “Eljin isn’t a black sorcerer. He can’t summon fire.” He paused. “Why did you think he could?”
I glanced at Rylan, who was watching the entire exchange with his eyebrows raised, then back at the prince. “The sorcerer who killed my parents used fire. My father was the best fighter I ever knew, but he never stood a chance. The sorcerer burned him and my mother to death in a matter of seconds.” I glared at Damian. “And you expect me to believe that my father should have been able to stop him?”
“A black sorcerer killed your parents?” Damian’s eyebrows lifted in what looked like surprise. “Was he alone?”
“No,” I responded through gritted teeth. “He was with the Blevonese army. And what do you mean, a black sorcerer?” I hadn’t realized there were different types — or that not all of them could use fire as a weapon.
“A black sorcerer with the Blevonese army,” Damian repeated, ignoring my question, making me even more irritated. He wasn’t looking at me anymore; instead, he stared past me unseeingly. After a long stretch of silence, he shook his head slightly, his expression grim. “Black sorcerers are … rare. And they are the only ones who can wield fire.”
So our enemy had multiple types of sorcerers fighting against us. That was unwelcome news. “And yet, you think I should be able to beat a sorcerer in a fight?” I asked Damian, my voice tight. “Even a black sorcerer?”
“Well, obviously, it would be even more difficult against a black sorcerer. But it’s been done before.” Damian stared directly at me, his eyes piercing. “That level of skill is extremely rare to find, but it is possible. It also requires extensive and brutal training — something that isn’t offered in Antion, since my father despises sorcery so much.” A strangely derisive tone colored his words. I felt there was more to what he was saying than I understood.
“Well, I’m very sorry that I was unable to reach that level of skill on my own. It’s unfortunate that your father doesn’t believe in that type of training. It might have saved us from getting into this mess.” My already bad mood was rapidly deteriorating into something even darker.
“Yes, unfortunate indeed.” Damian’s gaze was unwavering on mine.
Rylan broke in suddenly. “As long as we’re all alone in here, don’t you think we should be making a plan to escape and return to the palace? Have you had any clues about which direction we’re headed while Alex and I were unconscious?”
“We will not be attempting to escape,” Damian responded.
“But, my lord — I mean, Damian,” Rylan corrected himself. “I don’t understand….”
“They’ve kept me ignorant of the route we’ve taken, but I’m fairly certain we’re heading toward Blevon. My decision is to wait and see what happens. We will continue to do as they tell us until we find out who is behind all of this, and then we can make a plan.”
I stared at him. “You don’t seem very upset for a prince who has just been abducted from the palace and dragged halfway across his country, possibly to his death.”
“That’s my decision, and it’s final.” Gone was the pretense of being friendly with us. He was our prince suddenly, giving us an order, and we recognized it.
“Of course, Your Highness,” I said. “We will do as you wish.”
He lifted an eyebrow at the use of his title again but didn’t tell me to call him Damian this time. Instead, he stood up and strode out of the tent without another word.
“Didn’t that woman tell us to all stay here if we didn’t want to be knocked out again?” Rylan asked.
“Apparently, he didn’t think that threat applied to him.”
There was no sound of fighting, no impact from his body hitting the ground unconscious, so he’d obviously assumed correctly.
“Do you get the feeling that something strange is going on here?” I asked Rylan.
“Yes. I just have no clue what it could be.”
I sighed. “Neither do I.”
THAT NIGHT, I lay on my back, staring up at the canvas above me, willing myself to fall asleep in the muggy humidity, which lingered even though the sun had gone down hours ago, when the entrance to our tent rustled. Alarmed and instantly alert, I sat straight up on the hard ground, straining to see in the dark. Beside me, Rylan’s breathing was steady and deep.
It wasn’t Eljin, or even Lisbet. Instead, I stared up at the tall, shadowed form of Prince Damian in the darkness. A wave of heat cascaded over my body when he met my startled gaze and silently motioned for me to follow him out of the tent. Before, when he’d come to speak to me at night, I’d believed that he thought I was a boy. He was right — having the truth out in the open changed everything. My blood pulsed through my body as I rose and crept out after him.
The camp appeared to be asleep, except for two men who stood watch by a campfire across from us. The flames undulating in the black shadows of the jungle reminded me of the jaguar attack and I shuddered. Damian passed one finger across his lips and silently walked between a few tents and then out toward the line of trees beyond the small clearing in which our captors had made camp.
Had he changed his mind? We couldn’t leave Rylan. I refused to. And there was no way I was heading into the dark jungle completely unarmed.
Finally, Damian stopped and glanced back at the camp. No one was coming after us; we’d managed to slip away unnoticed. Above us in the trees, a bird screeched, making me jump.
The scent of plants and earth and even a hint of something floral surrounded us. My skin was sticky from the humidity and I reached up to push my damp hair off my forehead.
“What is it — what do you want?” I asked, at last, when Damian didn’t speak. I never would have dared be so bold before, but I was exhausted, embarrassed, and frustrated. With him in particular. He hadn’t returned the rest of the night, leaving me to vacillate between being worried about him and angry with him for not getting sent back to our tent with his tail between his legs. So much for Lisbet’s threat.
“I needed to talk to you,” he said, his voice low. “To apologize, first of all. I am sorry if I made you upset. But how was I supposed to tell you that I knew my best guard — the undefeated Alex — was a girl?” He looked down at me with those piercing eyes of his, and an unfamiliar heat blossomed deep in my belly.
“How long have you known?” My body thrummed with tension.
He lifted one hand slowly and I froze. He took a lock of my short hair and rubbed it gently between his fingers. “I’ve always known.”
“Always?” I repeated dumbly. His gaze was so intense, I was having a hard time concentrating.
“I know you believed me to be spoiled. Arrogant. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t observant — more so than most. I watched all of you. I had to. As I told you before, I’ve been trained not to trust anyone.” He paused, searching my face. My mind flew back to the night when he told me how he’d been raised, when he said he wanted to trust me. When he asked me if I had any friends to confide in. “From the moment you joined my guard, I knew something was different about you. Just because I seemed oblivious didn’t mean that I actually was that callous and uncaring. That I didn’t see you.”
I stared at Damian, my mouth suddenly dry. “I … I don’t …”
“Tell me about the jaguar attack,” he said abruptly, dropping his hand and taking a step back. “What happened — why were you gone for almost two days?”
Relieved to be on safer footing, I quickly told him everything that had happened, including Borracio’s cryptic message for him. He listened intently, his expression pensive. When I was done, he sighed.
“If they hadn’t found you in time …” A shadow crossed his face, and he continued, his voice lower, “I’m so relieved they were able to heal you. I … I need you, Alex — Alexa.”
Hearing him speak my true name sent another jolt through me. My heart thudded in my chest at his words. The prince — Damian — needed me? I felt my mouth part, but no words would come. Finally, I managed to force out just one. “
Why?”
He hesitantly stepped closer to me. His fingers brushed mine in the darkness, sending a bolt of heat up my arm. I couldn’t have moved if I wanted to. “Because you understand. More than anyone. Because you know what it’s like never to trust anyone — to be completely alone, lost in a disguise of your own making. Because … because for quite some time I’ve —”
“Don’t move!” a woman shouted suddenly.
We jumped apart and I spun around to see someone aiming an arrow directly at my chest. At first, I couldn’t quite believe it, but as the figure walked closer, there was no denying who it was. What was she doing? My heart raced, and I wished there were some way to go back in time, to stop her from interrupting us. Damian had been so close to admitting something —
“I found them,” Tanoori shouted over her shoulder, then she met my disbelieving gaze directly. “Hello again, Alex.”
“Tanoori?”
“You know her?” Damian looked at me in shock.
“We grew up in the same village,” I admitted.
“Funny how quickly the tables can turn, isn’t it? One minute, you’re threatening me and waiting for me to hang. The next, I’m the one who might shoot you.” Tanoori glared at me in the darkness. Gone was the trembling girl tied to a chair. This Tanoori seemed very capable of murder.
“I never wanted you to die,” I said softly.
Tanoori pulled her bowstring back even farther and I tensed, waiting for the hit.
“You will not shoot her,” Damian commanded.
Tanoori lifted an eyebrow at him. “Should I finish the job I started last week instead?” She turned her aim on him, making my heart leap into my throat. “I’m still not convinced that keeping you alive is the right thing to do.”
“You won’t be shooting anyone tonight.” Another voice came from behind me, and for the first time since I’d met him, hearing Eljin was actually a relief. “You may go.”
Tanoori stared at us for a moment longer, hatred clearly visible on her face.
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