Page 86 of Sharpest Court

“We didn’t come here to interrogate her,” I said. “We came to talk.”

“Fine.” Goren captured Perla’s wrist and raised it like a trophy; she tried pulling away, but he didn’t let go. “Let’s talk about this.”

I didn’t understand why he was brandishing her slender arm in grim triumph. Then I saw the gleam of metal encircling her wrist, fastened as tight as a shackle. And my stomach dropped. It had been hidden under her flouncy sleeves in the treasure hall, but this was what Goren had wanted me to see when we’d entered this room.

An oath band.

“Tell me again that she’s not working for the king,” he said.

Perla finally ripped her arm away, skewering him with a potent look he didn’t hesitate to return. “That’s why you’re here?” she asked. “You think I’m Erik’s spy?”

I hesitated, less sure now. Because I knew, with bleak certainty, that Erik had been the one to lock that band around her wrist.

My heart twinged as I thought of Garret. He had worn one of those oath bands for seven years as part of a deal he’d made with my father. A deal to join the Hunters’ service, to keep me safe from Briar, and to stay out of my life. If he had broken that oath, or the band, without my father’s permission, the law dictated that Garret would have had to forfeit his hand from the wrist down. It was a law so brutal—so binding—that Garret had orchestrated my kidnapping to get Father to finally unlock the band.

So what oath had Perla been forced to swear? And more importantly, what would she do to keep it?

“Alissa.” She was looking at me now, her features pinched with hurt. She repeated in disbelief, “Do you think I’m his spy?”

I gulped, suddenly feeling too exposed, as though she really was a conduit to Erik, and my words would somehow cross the ocean to trickle like smoke into his ears.

“Can you tell me why you’re wearing that?” I asked, my voice holding steady.

“To seal whatever deal she made with the king,” Goren answered gruffly.

Perla looked him over, sneering. “You said this was an interrogation. So perhaps I should answer the questions.”

He crossed his arms, seeming to take up even more space in the room. But Perla cooly turned her head away, as though he didn’t deserve the luxury of her disdain.

When her gaze landed on me again, she paused, seeming to weigh her next words.

“When I heard about the attack that night in the palace, I knew something had gone wrong, and I journeyed home to Avanford.” She winced, as though home had not been a welcome place. Because her mother had tried selling her off as Erik’s bride, I remembered. And the lady of Avanford must not have been pleased with her daughter’s failure. “Three days later, the royal guards turned up. It was already circulating that Wielders had been responsible for Erik’s attack. And I was arrested for aiding them.”

Goren’s brows slashed low with suspicion. “What proof did they have?”

I held my breath, awaiting the answer.

But rather than offering it up, Perla discarded her knife on the mattress and swung her legs off the bed. She stood, but Goren didn’t step aside to let her pass. When facing each other, the difference between them was more pronounced; Goren appeared even taller, broader, his collarbone sitting a fair inch above the top of her head.

Yet Perla looked infinitely more imperious as she raised her chin to match his glare and said, with cool authority, “You’re in my way.”

Goren looked her up and down, still mistrustful. Still assessing her like a soldier faced with an enemy target.

Finally, he took one slow step backward, offering just enough space for her to squeeze between his body and the bed. To her credit, she knocked him with her shoulder as she passed, her white nightgown fluttering around her. And though the motion landed without impact against the bulk of his arm, he blinked, his wide eyes trailing her around the bed.

I doubted that many people had deliberately shoulder-knocked Goren in all his life. He seemed genuinely surprised to add Perla to the list of those who had.

She strode for the vanity, retrieved a pearl-studded ring, and held it to the light.

I startled, because this ring was undeniably hers, a sister of those she’d gifted me after freeing me from Erik’s cell. But she’d given me all her rings that night, had slipped them into my pocket herself. She couldn’t have retained this piece unless—

My breath snagged, the realization blasting out like shrapnel inside me.

The chase through the palace tunnels; the bump on the ground, making me trip. This ring must have fallen from my pocket during the tumble. And when Erik had discovered it . . . he’d solved the mystery of who had freed me.

I met Perla’s eyes, tears glassing my vision. She was here because of me.

“They didn’t hurt me,” she murmured, lowering the ring. “When they escorted me to the prison wagon, one guard told the other not to squeeze my arm. His Majesty didn’t want me bruised.”