Page 26 of Sharpest Court

I bristled again. “But you have the right to request passage to Daradon on my behalf?”

“What did you expect me to do?” His tone was low and measured, his eyes steely. “Stand by while Rheya sent you back to the person who did that to you?” He looked at my bruised neck, and his expression darkened. “This was my fault.”

I startled. “How was it your fault?”

Abruptly, his gaze shuttered, losing its heat. He exhaled and said, with a softness that produced a pang in my chest, “Because I let you go.”

And I saw what I’d missed in the throne room: those deep shadows under Keil’s eyes, the whites laced with red.

As though he hadn’t slept well for a long time.

“I’d been replaying it for weeks,” he murmured. “How I should’ve done anything to convince you to come back with me. Instead, I let you go. And I knew, the moment we drew away from the shore, that it was the most foolish thing I’d ever done.”

The memory of that night had long been stamped into my mind—the sorrow that had bled into our kiss, rendering it painful; the way Keil had cradled my face as he’d begged me to come to Ansora. The residual emotion of that moment now soaked the air, making it difficult to inhale.

Keil looked down, opening his fist to reveal the xerylite ring he’d snatched from Arun. He’d been clenching it so tightly that the gemstone had indented his palm.

“I convinced myself that you wouldn’t be marrying him unless you believed you could use the position for good. But when I heard about your kidnapping, I thought Erik had discovered your secret and was lying to cover up whatever he was doing to you. And I realized I hadn’t just left you there alone. I’d left you there to die.”

My specter puddled at my fingertips, wrung out by the pained look on his face.

“Once Rheya realized why I wanted to return to Daradon, she barred me from every dock on the continent. I’d been trying to find a way around the order when Valeria told me she’d met someone matching your description, down to the blueneck fever scar. She believed Arun had taken you for questioning. And when I saw you . . .” He looked me over, slowly shaking his head.

Though he remains defiant, he is not faring well. At last, I understood what Arun had meant. Keil had been defiantly, painfully, trying to return to me against Rheya’s orders. And when he finally saw me, he’d truly believed that Rheya would ship me back to Daradon. Stealing me away all over again.

“I’m sorry for putting you in that position in the throne room,” he said now, sincere. “I only knew that I couldn’t let you go again.”

I held his gaze as morning light shifted behind the closed curtains, our bodies rocking with the motion of the carriage. My fury was slipping away faster than I could contain it, giving way to a vulnerable sensation I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge.

Keil must have sensed it, because as though to put us back on safer ground, he reached into his pocket. “And the reason we don’t need to go to the compound,” he said quietly, “is because I already have what you’re looking for.”

He withdrew his hand, and I exhaled, slumping with the release of tension.

Because shining in his open palm was the compass.

“How?” I breathed.

“Val found it near a water station where it looked as though there’d been a struggle. She said you’d wanted to hide it from Arun during the search.”

I grimaced, not knowing how to feel.

“She’ll keep it to herself,” Keil reassured, reading my expression. I had no choice but to believe him.

I asked, tentative, “Do you know what it is?”

“I’d heard of such an object being used by the king’s Hunters. But there were so many conflicting accounts of its appearance throughout history that I thought it was a myth. Then I opened it, and realized it didn’t point north.” He brushed his thumb over the case, contemplative. “Did you take it from the Capewells?”

I shook my head. “Erik had been using it without their knowledge. He built the prisons your group found under Vereen.”

“The one with the symbol.” Keil nodded in recollection, then quoted, “Gods cannot stand alone.”

“I never thanked you for sending me the translation.”

Keil’s mouth curved with a faint smile. I didn’t want to analyze why my heartbeat skipped at the familiar sight. “I owed you a favor, remember?”

Then his warm fingers grazed mine. He slowly turned my hand palm-up and set the compass inside it. We held eye contact a moment longer, daylight spilling over our feet. Then my fingers twitched—the beginnings of a tremor—and I withdrew so he wouldn’t feel it. But Keil’s knowing gaze followed my hand as I reached for the xerylite ring and stuffed both items into my saddlebag.

“I assume the compass is half of why Erik wants you back so badly,” he said, straightening but not quite leaning away. “Is there a reason you brought it here rather than drop it in the ocean?”