I thought of the first time I’d made him laugh as we picked blackberries in Devil’s Canyon, how fearful I had been, but then how his laugh had transformed his face. How it had transformed me. I wanted to make him laugh now, but here I had nothing to give him that was the least bit amusing or joyful.

I should have revealed myself immediately, but once I knew he was alive and that he had food and water, I was struck with the need for something else—a few seconds to watch him unseen, to view him with the new eyes I had only just gained. What other sides did this very clever prince have?

His fingers tapped a strained beat on the arm of the chair, slow and steady, like he was counting something out—hours, days, or maybe the people who would pay. Maybe he was even thinking about me. Yes! You were a challenge and an embarrassment. I thought about all the times we had kissed back in Terravin. Every single time, he had known I was the one who had broken a contract between two kingdoms. And before we had kissed, there were all the times I had looked at him with moon eyes, hoping he would kiss me. Had he felt smug justice watching me leaning on brooms hanging on his every word? Melons. He told me he grew melons. The stories he fabricated—just like the ones he’d created last night for the Komizar—flowed out far too smoothly.

I know your feelings about me may have changed.

My feelings had changed, without a doubt, but I wasn’t sure how. I wasn’t even sure what to call him anymore. The name Rafe was so tightly woven with the young man I thought was a farmer. What should I call him now? Rafferty? Jaxon? Your Highness?

But then he turned. That was all it took. He was Rafe again, and my heart jumped. I saw his bloody lip, and I squeezed through the narrow opening, careless of sound. He leapt to his feet when he heard me, startled and ready for battle, not expecting someone to enter his room through a window and even more surprised that it was me.

“What did they do?” I asked.

He brushed away my hand and questions, and hurried past me to the window. He peered out to check whether anyone had seen me, then turned back, crushing me in his arms, holding me like he’d never let me go, until suddenly he stepped back as if unsure his embrace was still welcome.

Whether it was prudent or not, I didn’t care—I burned with his touch. “I suppose if we’re going to fall in love all over again, kissing will be part of it.” I gently brought his face to mine again, avoiding his split lip, and my mouth fluttered across his skin, kissing the crest of his cheekbone, down to his jaw, across to the corner of his mouth. Every taste of him suddenly new. His hands tightened around my waist, pulling me closer, and rivers of heat spread through my chest.

“Are you frothing mad?” he asked between heavy breaths. “How did you get here?”

I had known this was coming. This was not part of our plan. I stepped away, pouring myself some water from the flask on a table. “It wasn’t hard,” I lied. “An easy walk.”

“Through a window?” He shook his head, his eyelids briefly squeezing shut. “Lia, you can’t go dancing on ledges like a—”

“I’m hardly dancing. I’m sneaking, and I have plenty of practice at it. Some might call me accomplished.”

His jaw twitched. “I appreciate your skills, but I’d prefer that you sit tight,” he argued. “I don’t want to be peeling you off the cobblestones. My men will come. There are military strategies for this kind of situation when the odds aren’t in your favor—and then we’ll all get out of here together.”

“Strategies? Are your soldiers here, Rafe?” I asked, looking around the room. “It wouldn’t seem so. But we are. You have to accept that they may not come. This is a dangerous land, and they might have—”

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t lead my most trusted friends into something I thought they couldn’t survive. I told you it might be a few days.” But I saw the doubt in his eyes. The reality was setting in. Four men in a foreign land. Four men among thousands of enemies. There was a good possibility they were dead already if they had stumbled into a regiment as Walther and his company had. I didn’t even bring up the dangers of the lower river that Kaden had warned me about, and the deadly creatures that inhabited it. There was a good reason that Venda had always been so isolated.

“The guards again?” I asked, returning to the subject of his lip.

He nodded, but his thoughts were still elsewhere. His gaze traveled over my new attire.

“Someone brought me my cloak. It had been wrapped in my bedroll,” I explained.

He reached out, pulling the tie at my throat loose, and slowly pushed the cloak back from my shoulders. It fell to the floor. “And … these?”

“They’re Kaden’s.”

His chest rose in a deep measured breath, and he walked away, raking his fingers through his hair. “Better his clothes than that dress, I suppose.”

No doubt the guards had wasted little time in spreading their sordid tales.

“Yes, Rafe,” I sighed. “I earned them. In a sword fight, and that is all. Kaden has a blue goose egg on his shin to prove it.”

He turned back to me, relief visible on his face. “And the kiss last night?”

My anger flared. Why wouldn’t he let it go? But I realized so much still bubbled near the surface. All the hurts and the deceptions that we hadn’t had time to address were still there.

“I didn’t come here to be interrogated,” I snapped. “What of all your attentions toward Calantha?”