chest. Lizzan would always look—to gauge how many people were behind her, to see what threat they might pose. That she didn’t glance back said that she already knew he was there . . . and did not wish to see him.
He had known she would not. He had known. Yet it was still a knife to his heart, puncturing the joy.
Throat tight, he glanced down at Caeb, who lay despondently, watching the boat. Red stained his jowls and chest. A butchered goat haunch lay nearby—a treat from Lizzan, no doubt, yet he hadn’t touched it.
Aerax could not ease his own pain, but he could the cat’s. He crouched to scratch his neck. “Do you sulk because she left you behind or because she stopped you from playing with that bandit?”
The cat only gave a dejected sigh.
Aerax glanced over at the woman, who was baiting a fishing hook. “The woman who fought the bandits—was she hurt?”
The woman lowered her line into the water. “Quite badly.”
His heart stopped, his gaze flying to the boat. Too far to jump. And a current too swift to cross without being carried far downstream.
“But that injury was done long before she arrived here,” the woman continued. “And was not delivered by a bandit, but by a snow-haired prince she called a villain.”
A full breath it took for Aerax to understand what she meant. That Lizzan was not injured now . . . but had been. By him.
Yet he would hear more, if this woman had more to say. So hungry he was for more of Lizzan. He would take what was given secondhand, even if it hurt. It was not a hurt undeserved.
He was a villain. And the time would come when Aerax would have to become a greater villain still.
“The bandits had nine horses,” Kelir said from behind him, his gaze on the ferry. “She does not likely need so many mounts. Will she sell a few to us?”
Aerax knew not whether she would. But his heart still thundered from the moment he’d thought her injured. She might be well. But he had to see it for himself.
Gripping his heavy mail tunic, he dragged it over his head. “I’ll ask her.”
And hope she would not refuse to speak with him. If she did, or if she ran again, he would likely soon discover how many times a man’s heart could be ripped from his chest.
But being with her again would be worth every one.
CHAPTER 9
LIZZAN
She would not look back. She would not look back.
Then she did, when cheers and laughter erupted from the riverside. Her gaze found Caeb . . . but no Aerax. Perhaps she had been mistaken, then, believing she’d heard the low rumble of his voice while concealed between the horses on the ferry’s deck. If she hadn’t heard him, Lizzan would have revealed herself. She had no reason to hide from Parsatheans. Only Aerax.
Yet he wasn’t on the dock. Or in the water, a hasty scan of the river confirmed.
If he was, that wouldn’t concern her much, because he was a strong swimmer. Though he’d also have to be a fool, because even a strong swimmer could not swim straight across a swift-flowing river.
Movement upstream caught her attention—as did the snow-white hair that didn’t belong in the jungle. Rising out of the foliage at its base, Aerax climbed the statue of Nemek, which anchored the rope that crossed the river. So he would make his way along it, swinging arm over arm above the water, until he reached the line that tethered the boat to that rope. Just as she would have done to escape him if the ferry hadn’t arrived.
So Lizzan would not escape him.
Quickly she glanced away, but he was still there in her mind. As he always was.
Even after closing her eyes, she could see him climbing the statue and swinging out onto the rope. He’d once told Lizzan that when he was very young, his mother shaved his hair every morning so that Aerax would not be so easy to identify . . . and so that strangers might treat him more kindly. But when he’d realized why, Aerax had never let her cut it again—because too many times, kindness had become cruelty after learning who he was. And he preferred that people show him who they truly were from the start.
When Lizzan had met him, his hair had been a snow-white tangle to his waist. Not long after, he’d cut it to a more manageable