Alyssinia, for all of his flaws. But she swallowed the words at the last moment. She had seen Tristan’s methods before, had hated them. His approval would not be reassuring.
And he had left. After all of his impassioned words, all the sacrifices he wanted her to make, the risks he had taken . . . he had run away to save himself. He had lost his right to an opinion on her actions long ago. “What are you going to do now?” she said instead. “Are you going to stay in Vanhelm?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
She turned to look at him again. He looked so diminished. He no longer seemed like Tristan. “You should go back,” she said. “You should help.”
“And do what? What could I possibly do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Try.”
Another laugh, a slight shake of his head. “You didn’t like it when I tried. Why would things be any different now?”
And there it was, the truth neither of them had wanted to mention before. They both wanted the king gone, and they had a history, but that was all, in the end. She could not see him as anything other than rash and blind, and he could not stop seeing her as closed-minded, too privileged to possibly understand. They could sit on a bench by the ocean and talk for hours, but that would never change.
“And you?” he said. “What is Vanhelm doing for you?”
“We’re figuring out how I can win,” Aurora said.
“So then you can be queen?”
“So I can help. Whatever that means.” She stood. “I should go,” she said. “I shouldn’t stay here. But it was good to see you. It’s good to know you’re alive.”
“You too,” he said. “Princess.”
She looked at him for a long moment. She doubted she would ever see him again. He would return to Alyssinia, or run farther, find some other life for himself. And she had already learned the dangers of associating with rebels. She’d learned all about the ruthlessness behind their idealism.
But he had still been something to her, once. He had still helped her feel less lost, in those first days after she awoke, when everything felt wrong. This was still a good-bye, whatever had occurred between them.
There were no words to express that. Nothing to bridge that gap. So she stepped back, giving him one last look, memorizing his features. And then she left him behind.
It took her a few minutes to realize that she was being followed. Three men, falling into step behind her as she left the oceanside road, and taking all the same streets afterward, always about twenty feet away. The city was crowded with people heading in every direction, so the fact that they were following her could mean nothing. But one of the men was a pale blond, a rare enough sight in Vanhelm, and there was something off about the way they walked. They weren’t talking to one another, Aurora noticed, as they followed her around another corner, but they stuck together.
She paused outside a tailor, looking at the bright cloth and sample dresses through the window.
A few paces back, the men stopped to look in a different store.
Aurora ducked into the shop and browsed for several minutes, pretending to be fascinated with the different fabrics.
When she emerged, the men were still there.
She walked faster, using her shoulders and her small height to squeeze through gaps in the crowd. The space between her and the men grew slightly, but they were still there, still pursuing her.
Another turning, another busy street. People’s elbows bumped into her sides. The crowd engulfed her, so close that Aurora could barely breathe, but she struggled her way through, dodging onto a smaller side street at the last moment and running as quickly as she could.
Another turn, a leap around a street preacher, and she found herself on a narrow road with shops on either side. Cloth awnings hung over the entrances, embroidered with store names, and people stood outside the doorways, passing out free samples of bread and brandishing trays of earrings and bracelets.
Aurora glanced over her shoulder. The men were still behind her, closer than before.
Were they working with Tristan? She did not think so. If he had wanted to corner her, he would not have waited until their conversation was over. So either Finnegan was having her followed, or they were working for King John.
She needed to know. And a busy shopping street would be