Page 48 of A Tempest of Shadows

“When the occasion calls for it, but I bet you hated being at the coronation.”

I couldn’t deny that. “You didn’t seem too happy to be there.”

“I never said I was.”

“I wouldn’t be helping you if I were always a perfectly well-behaved lady.”

“No, you wouldn’t. I found it odd your parents allowed such behavior.”

“My parents always let me be who I was and never tried to tame me. My father loved it, and my mother accepted me with a smile. I wasn’t the daughter she expected; she probably assumed I’d be more like her, but I took after my father. I think that, because she loved him so much, she loved seeing the adventurous part of him in me.”

“Many parents try to tame their children. Sometimes they succeed in breaking them, and other times, they fail.”

“Did your father try to break you?”

Though he continued to smile, a hard gleam settled into his mercury eyes. He looked away from me to stare into the forest. “Yes.”

From what I’d seen of Ryker, the duke had failed. No broken child would have left his father behind to wander into that labyrinth, something I was sure the duke had not approved of.

I also doubted the duke wanted his only heir going to war against the ghouls. He could have easily paid for his son to avoid such a thing or made it so that, if Ryker went to war, he never saw combat.

Ryker had been in battle and was known as the Scourge of the Ghouls because of it. Unlike his father and many other aristocrats, he hadn’t watched others fight and die from a lofty perch.

“I remember you from the night you spent at the manor too,” I said.

He stared at the trees before shifting his attention back to me; some of the coldness left his eyes. “Do you?”

I finished my meal, and when he moved to cut me another piece, I waved it away. My stomach was finally full.

“I do,” I said. “My parents made me go to bed, but I stayed on the landing to watch. We’d never had a duke in our house before, and I was curious about you.”

He chuckled as he cut more meat for himself. “Of course you didn’t listen to them.”

I smiled back at him. “I don’t like listening to anyone.”

“And it nearly cost you a hand.”

My amusement vanished as we stared at each other. “King Ivan’s new, draconian laws almost cost me my hand. He’s made it so amsirah have to steal to feed themselves and their families.”

“Your words are treasonous.”

I’d known the second the words were out of my mouth that I shouldn’t have said them. Ryker was different than the other aristocrats, but some things were completely unacceptable, and trashing the king was one of them.

I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t stop myself. Sitting in his giant castle and with his powerful name, Ryker had no idea what many in the realm endured under King Ivan’s rule.

Maybe, one day, King Ivan’s new laws would affect him and his father, but I doubted it. The aristocrats never went without, and it wouldn’t astonish me to learn King Ivan’s tax laws didn’t affect them in the same way.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” he said.

I didn’t know how to respond, and I was afraid I might say something more damning that might make him start questioning who I really was even as I tried to hide it. I’d kept my clothing and hair as different from the Hooded Robber as possible.

I didn’t have a hood, and instead of formfitting black clothes, I’d opted for looser clothes that blended in with the forest, which was what I’d normally wear in the Revenant Woods. However, he might put two and two together if I didn’t watch my tongue.

“What was the name of the boy who tried to steal my purse?” he asked.

“Mouse. His real name’s Danny, but he’s so wiry, quiet, and fast, everyone’s always called him Mouse.”

“Where are his parents?”