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And I suddenly understood the source of his discomfort, as well as her gripe with him.

Those last moments on Banarrat had tangled in my memory: the battle with Holden, his knife in my gut, the way I’d clambered onto Erik’s boat alone. I can handle the king, I’d said, and Goren had listened—had chosen to protect Keil over me when I’d asked him to. There wasn’t a single part of me that blamed him for it.

But Perla had seen me and Goren enter the fray together. And clearly, she did blame him for leaving me alone.

With a soft, reassuring smile—the nicest expression I’d ever given him—I started for the door.

But Goren blocked my path, his throat tensing with a loud swallow. He met my eyes, his voice low and tight. “When the Orrenish were closing in on Paja, I was tasked with reconnaissance and ordered not to interfere. But when they went to attack that Wholeborn town, I couldn’t sit back and watch. So I defended the narrow pass and defeated most of their regiment. But the survivors relayed the story to their superiors.” A shadow crossed his expression. “They captured me while I was still recovering from my wounds. The Orrenish had never seen a Wielder fight the way I had, and they wanted me for themselves.”

I drew back in horror. Perla stared at him with her own look of dread.

“They wanted a Wielder soldier?” I asked.

“Not a soldier,” Goren said darkly. “A weapon. A beast to let loose upon their enemies. They used dullroot on me, hoping it would get me to submit. They told me that my commanders had abandoned me because I’d been foolish enough to shirk my orders, and I knew they were speaking the truth.”

My gaze drifted to the dullroot scar on his throat. I’d seen the terrible extent of those scars for myself, and now I knew: That amount of dullroot was not intended to stifle power. It was intended to suffocate from the inside out. To torment.

This explained Goren’s quiet fury when Rheya had suggested that Erik would torture me into submission, just as that ancient king had tortured Queen Piper.

Erik wants to make you his pet, he’d once said to me. And having almost experienced that fate for himself, Goren had wanted to help me avoid it.

He looked away now, his next words seeming to stick in his throat. “A soldier from another Ansoran legion—a soldier who didn’t know me but had heard of my capture—disobeyed his own commanders to track me down. I was trying to bleed myself when he found me.”

My breath hitched. “Keil,” I whispered.

This was why Goren was so loyal to him, why he’d heeded my plea to save him during the battle. Keil hadn’t just rescued Goren from the Orrenish, but from himself. Because only a low dose of dullroot could be bled from the system.

When Goren had drawn his own blood in captivity, it had been to end his life.

My mind plunged me back to Neyamay, when I’d looked toward the river without knowing if I would survive but had jumped anyway.

With an awful, intimate understanding, I met Goren’s stare again. His gaze was heavy with remorse.

“I turned down Rheya’s invitation to the Gallery because I didn’t want anything from the empire that hadn’t fought for me. Soldiers do not abandon each other.” He took a deep breath and said gruffly, “Yet I abandoned you.” Slowly, he set his broad palm upon his chest and dipped his head. “It will not happen again.”

I was speechless, struck by the deep power of his gesture. Even Perla looked on in silent amazement.

Goren didn’t seem to want a response anyhow. Because he then turned away, leaving us wide-eyed in his wake.

44

The Ansoran landscape streaked past my window, the golden city lights glittering in the darkness.

There had been two carriages on the drive when I’d emerged from the house, Keil in the first and Dashiel in the second, both awaiting me and Valeria. And though my squirming specter had urged me toward that first carriage, I’d smothered the deep ache and strode to the second instead.

If Dashiel was surprised to have me join him, he didn’t let on. He just offered me a portion of the walnuts he’d brought for the ride and ate with me in quiet understanding.

“We’ll be reaching the settlement soon,” he said as we rode over a lantern-spangled bridge. And though we wouldn’t be stopping inside the settlement, there was comfort in knowing that my fellow Daradonian Wielders were close by—a piece of home across the ocean.

Only when our carriage paused on an empty road did Dashiel frown slightly.

“I don’t know why we’ve stop—” He broke off as Keil briskly opened the carriage door, letting in a gust of evening air.

I startled. “What are you—?”

“If you could, Dash,” Keil said without looking at me.

I gaped as Dashiel cast me an apologetic glance, then sidled out of the carriage for Keil to take his place.