sick. And when I was running to get to Dez. I thought it was Margo both times.”
He rakes his hair with his fingers. “It was foolish on my part. I needed to follow you, so I created an illusion of me standing in a corner alone. I’ve done that more times than I should be proud of.”
I lean forward, practically crawling to him for an answer. “Did you kill Dez?”
“I admit,” Castian says as he stands, though I take note of how he cradles his side as he limps to the blue pool of water, “that one was the most challenging illusion I have ever done. Dez was—is—the leader of the Whispers, and the king and the justice needed to feel like they were winning. I had to use a gold-hilt sword as well. It helps if some of it is true. It makes the illusion stronger. I even had to cut off Dez’s ear to fool the thousands who were witnessing.”
The guard’s memory hits me like a brutal, cold wave. Dez standing on the bow of that ship, missing his left ear. Tears spring to my eyes. A hurt I didn’t think I was capable of feeling gnaws at my heart, leaving me breathless.
“Dez is alive?”
“Yes.”
This single word echoes in the cave. I hear it over and over, and it still doesn’t feel true.
Dez is alive.
My elation at this discovery is like the start of a flame—a light stretching across a match. If Dez were alive, why didn’t he try to find me? If he is alive, why didn’t I feel him? The more questions I ask myself, the more I stomp on that happiness, extinguishing that spark of fire.
I push to my knees. Every step I take to Castian is like walking across jagged glass. He takes off his tunic, hissing as the cloth sticks to his broken, bloody skin. How can he tell me this and then do something so normal as clean his wounds? How can he watch me stagger to him as if he hadn’t shattered my world more than once in a single turn of the sun?
My name vanishes from his lips as I punch him. He doesn’t expect it but grabs me around the wrist and pulls me into the pool of salt water with him. I wrench myself free. I make the mistake of panicking, attempting to breathe, and getting a mouthful of salt water instead. My feet find purchase on soft white sand, and then I’m breaking the surface and coughing so hard it burns.
The water reaches my waist when I stand and face him. “You’ve been pretending while your kingdom suffers? You broke my— You broke me.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, wincing as he touches the cuts on his ribs and shoulder. “I am. You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand.”
Water drips down both our faces. In this light, his eyes take on the blue incandescence of the pool. He lowers himself in front of me, his breath warm and sweet like apples gone bad.
“I will explain—if you’ll stop trying to attack me.”
Salt burns the inner corners of my eyes. I raise my chin. “I should’ve let Margo kill you.”
He winces, from my words or the pain or both, I’m not sure. “You don’t mean that.”
I’ve begun to shiver as the water turns cold around us. He’s right. I don’t mean that. But I wish I did.
“Get out of those clothes or you’ll freeze to death,” he says, and wades out of the pool and back to his makeshift room.
I hate that he’s right. He grabs a deep blue tunic stitched with bright-green embroidery in the shape of ivy and throws it at me. Then he builds a fire while I strip down and put it on. I wrap my arms around my body because the tunic only falls to my thighs. I sit at the edge of the cot and hold my hands out to the fire.
Castian looks up and this time puts more distance between us. “I will continue to answer your questions, Nati. But do not put your hands on me again.”
“I will refrain from hitting you if you stop calling me that.” I wait for his begrudging nod and continue. “How does your father not know of your power?”
Castian holds his hand up to the crackling fire. He turns it over and over, then makes a fist. “After my mother accused me of drowning my brother, I was relegated to nursemaids. Davida was the only one who knew and