Page 41 of Sands of Atonement

It was a trap.

But he’d have to haul me back there, and I didn’t think he’d rush that kind of fight in this company.

“My lord.” Seda bowed her head, and the sight made me want to shake her fragile body apart and force some sense into her. But I decided against it when I noticed how she was already trembling slightly.

“How is your family?” Ezra asked, placing his hands in his linen pockets—ignoring me.

He was displaying a relaxed version of himself, and it made him look painfully handsome. Maybe. I turned my head back to Seda.

How did these two know each other anyway?

“They’re fine,” Seda said. I could tell she was uncomfortable. I didn’t remember the last time I felt uncomfortable, so I didn’t know what to do.

Ezra stepped toward me with a determined look on his face⁠—

Without wasting my precious freedom, I wove my arm through Seda’s and pulled her away. “Seda, you have no idea how happy I am to see a familiar face. Would you like to take a tour of the palace⁠—”

“Mara!” Ezra gritted out. I nearly froze, but I forced myself to continue walking. “I need a moment with⁠—”

Like an answered prayer, a guard hurriedly walked up to him with a piece of paper. He muttered some words, but Ezra hadn’t stopped staring at me with thin lips.

Holy fuck, he was going to kill me.

With as much calm as I could will into my body, I continued walking with a bewildered Seda. If Ezra gives sweet Seda any trouble for this, I’d gladly take a punch in the face if it meant giving him one in return.

I never considered myself a masochist. Or a sadist.

I didn’t hear Ezra follow.

Peering over my shoulder, our eyes locked. A shiver ran down my spine.

Ooh, that felt different. I shook the feeling out of my body.

As soon as we were away from Ezra’s unyielding stare and into the hallway of the main palace—really, anywhere far away from him.” I asked Seda, “What is it between you two?”

She didn’t realize it, but Seda saved me. If she weren’t here, I wonder what he would have done when he caught me outside the prison chamber.

“Between Ezra and me?”

I nodded.

“It’s difficult to explain. I… His—his father was the one who ordered the execution of my father.”

The fact was dropped so casually that it took me a second to register it. Then my heart raced, and I didn’t realize I had tensed my arm around hers until she said, “It’s not what you think, Mara. My father was a bad person.”

“He was a criminal?” Seda seemed like the type of girl who wouldn’t even associate herself with anyone who did anything illegal.

“In a way, he was. He didn’t listen very well, no matter how many times we told him to stop.”

“Stop what?” I asked quietly.

“It doesn’t matter now. My father put this on himself. We couldn’t afford anything after my father was gone, and the prince—Ezra—had one of his men check in on us when we were barely surviving. If he hadn’t sent someone…” Her eyes went distant.

We took a turn at the end of a dark hallway toward the back of the palace, and she continued, “If someone hadn’t arrived when they did, my little baby sister wouldn’t have made it.”

My heart tightened. I gave her shoulder a quick squeeze.

“What happened after?”