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I stretched onto my tiptoes, leaning further into the kiss, finally able to focus on nothing more than the assurance of Nik’s presence. But even as my feelings swelled, my mind sprang back to life. I pulled away, panting and staring at Nik.
It took him a moment to register my expression, his breathing ragged and eyes unfocused. But as soon as he absorbed my face, he snapped to attention.
“What?” he asked. “What is it?”
“I think it might all have been lies.” I shook my head, confused. “Or some of it any way.”
He fell back a step, running a hand through his hair and giving a strangled laugh.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
I shook my head. “No, you don’t understand. I wassureit was the truth.” I held his gaze, willing him to understand what I was saying. “I’ve never been so certain of anything in my life. I was uncomfortable about it the whole time, but every time I tried to think about the issue it was within the context of absolute unshakable certainty. I kept trying to think around my discomfort, but my thoughts couldn’t reach a sensible conclusion when I was so sure Grey was the only one who could stop the islanders, and that he would do it without bloodshed—even that, for some reason heneededme there to succeed.” My voice was trembling. “It’s complete nonsense, but I couldn’t see that.”
Nik frowned, his demeanor growing serious as he tried to process my words. “So what changed?”
I flushed, thinking of his kiss, but it hadn’t been the kiss alone. The kiss had only inspired me to…
“My wall!” I cried, realization hitting. “Back in Caltor, when Grey tried to use his healing power to attack me, I used my wall to push his power out of my body before it could harm me. I think I just did something similar. I couldn’t shake that uncomfortable feeling, and I wanted to push it—and him—out of me, so I used my wall again. It’s the first time I’ve used it here. I haven’t even thought of it since I've never felt attacked.”
An entirely different kind of discomfort welled inside me. Was that why Grey had been so unexpectedly pleasant ever since I arrived? The reason he let Miranda go without a murmur? He knew about my wall. Had he worried that it would protect me against—But my thinking stalled at that point. Protect me against what? What exactly had Grey done to me?
As a healer I could sense a lie—that was an innate part of my ability, one every healer possessed. So how had Grey fooled me so thoroughly? He hadn’t just gotten away with a lie, he had utterly convinced me of a false truth. And not a single part of the whole business made sense.
“Did he actually lie to you directly?” Nik asked. “I’ve never heard of someone being able to fool a healer’s ability to truth test unless they were using slippery words and evasive talk.”
“I…I don’t know.” I frowned at the leaves, not really seeing them. “I can’t explain how he did it. I just know how I felt before and how I feel now. Nik,” I looked across at him, horror filling me. “I was just going to get on that ship!”
A muscle jumped in Nik’s jaw. “I’m aware.”
But now that the wheels were turning in my head, they wouldn’t stop, racing forward too fast for me to follow. Everything that had happened in the last couple of days had been false, built on a mirage I still couldn’t fathom. And if that was true for me, why wouldn’t it be true for the others living in this strange oasis?
I thought of Ida, speaking fiercely of what she could endure for her new life, and of the boy who smashed the barrel, flipping immediately from brow-beaten to excited at the mention of our departure. Was everything they’d built their hopes on lies?
I tried to think it through, make sense of it. There had to be an island—that much had to be true. It was the only reason for Grey to be out here, building his ship. And someone other than Grey had unleashed a blight and a killer storm. I had examined every person in this camp, and even combined they didn’t have the power to have done either one. The blight and storm were the work of plants and elements mages. They weren’t here, so they had to be out there on the island. So perhaps what he’d promised his followers wasn’t an illusion at all.
The next logical step took my breath away. I had come here utterly prejudiced against Grey—a man who had once stabbed me with a dagger. I had come here knowing he was clever and slippery and charming, and yet I had still been fooled by him. And not just fooled but utterly and completely taken in. Grey wasn’t just charming. There was something far more insidious at play here, and Grey was about to take that strange ability of his to an island full of powerful and unsuspecting mages—an island he wanted to rule.
Icy cold trickled through me, starting at my crown and working its way down until I could no longer feel any warmth in the pre-dawn air. Grey wasn’t going to the island to defeat the threat against Tartora, he was going to take control of it. If he sailed away, it would be to trap more people under his false sway, seeking power and his own little fiefdom.
We had to stop him. I had to stop him. I was at least partially responsible for this mess. I had walked into his trap like a fool. If I had reported back properly once I had answers, there would have been time for the king’s forces to arrive and arrest Grey before his ship was completed. But there was no hope of them getting here now. There was barely even time for the two of us to…
The distant sound of activity had been growing louder, but it took on a new tone as I tried to think what to do next. Loud shouts were echoing through the crevasse, and I caught several voices calling about tides as well as others that seemed to be calling my name.
Someone, perhaps Grey himself, had realized I was missing. But would they hold the launch for me and risk missing the tide?
If I charged out now and told them not to sail, no one would listen, and Grey would realize his hold on me had broken. I certainly had no way to physically sabotage the boat.
I looked at Nik, whose eyes were swiveling between the direction of the calls and my face, his eyes calculating and his face set. Nik could destroy a wooden boat. I had seen enough of his power to be confident of that. But how long would it take me to explain my thinking and convince him we needed to expose ourselves? Possibly more time than we had.
Because what happened if we succeeded? Our back up forces were a day’s walk away, and we would be surrounded by a settlement of angry, disappointed people. There was every chance Nik would consider the risk too great. He had already said once this morning that he cared more about my safety than the kingdom. He would tell me it was too dangerous.
An even more unsettling thought crossed my mind. Even without the danger, would he want to stop Grey? Would King Marius? The king didn’t know Ida and her past pain. He didn’t know the horrible, slimy feeling of being duped and deluded and not even knowing it. What if he saw a threat—the islander mages—and a solution that required no risk from any of his own people?
Wasn’t that the sort of bargain rulers made all the time? Trading the comfort of others for the comfort of their own people, and placing their kingdom’s current security above the risk that they were creating a threat for the future?
All I saw was danger—the danger of handing Grey power large enough to destroy a kingdom. But it was possible King Marius would see something entirely different. What if he sent him on his way with his blessing?
“Delphine! Delphine! Where are you?” The cries were getting closer. I had to act now. There was no more time for thinking.
