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I pressed my fingertips to my temple, feeling the throb of a headache. “So you would rather engage in a skirmish and endanger lives? Possibly lose your very own warriors?”

His head whipped around, assessing the avid stares of those same warriors. “We’re not doing this here.”

He dismounted and moved to my side, holding up a hand for me. I accepted it and was instantly cognizant, even through my gloves, of the carved X in the center of his palm. Of the carved X in the center ofmypalm. All these days later, even though it had healed, I still felt the throbbing mark there where we had been blooded, alive and sparking at the contact with him. Awareness swept up my arm and throughout the rest of my body. He glanced at where our hands were joined, and I had to think he felt it, too.

I dismounted, my legs managing not to give out—just barely. He pulled me after him, his hand still tight around mine, still burning like a brand into me. His long strides carried him off the road, into the trees. I tripped after him, trying to keep up on legs that felt as unsteady as jam.

“Let me explain something to you,” he tossed over his shoulder. “I am the Lord of the Borderlands.” He wove us between the thick trees, the lush grass squelching beneath our steps. There was no sight of anyone else. I supposed they had moved on with the rest of the brigands. “I keep the peace in the Borderlands. I know it mustn’t seem like much to someone who grew up in the comfortable and hallowed walls of the palace, but the Borderlands are my home. My responsibility.” He stopped then, dropped my hand, and turned to face me. “To care for my home, to keep it safe, I require respect, and, when need be... fear.” His face inched closer, his mouth emphasizing that last word as though extra force was necessary for me to comprehend him. “Can’t you see? The moment I am no longer feared, I lose control... and the Borderlands are lost.”

Eyes sparking, jaw tense and clenched, he was mesmerizing, magnetic, even spitting fury like this. Not a proper reaction. I knew that. Men like him should repel. Not compel.

“I know a thing about responsibility,” I attempted to argue. “That’s why I—”

“What happens if I let some lowly brigands take from me? What happens to my reputation then? What does it look like when my own woman takes the necklace off her neck and gives it to some outlaws just so we can use the road every citizen in this country has the right to use?”

I blinked and tried not to consider the way “my own woman” sounded hanging in the air between us.

Just as I tried not to hear his fair point.

He answered his own question: “I would look weak. Like a man who could not protect or defend his lands. I would be inviting invasion. Every brigand in Penterra and every enemy from Veturland would try to take what I have.”

I had not thought of that.

“Oh.” It was a single word. A puff of sound, small and insignificant as a fluff of dandelion floating on the air.

“Oh,” he echoed, nodding firmly.

Some of the fight returned to me then. Should I have let them go at each other over a bit of coin? It seemed so senseless. “I doubt this one occasion has ruined your reputation.”

He shook his head and growled in disgust. “You don’t know this world out here. Every day is a fight. It is imperative that you listen to me and do as I say. Because this won’t be the last situation to arise. I warned you that the crossing is dangerous.”

“I understand.” Everything was dangerous. That’s what he kept saying. I understood that, and yet I couldn’t keep the bite out of my voice.

He dragged a hand through the long locks of his hair. “Even when we reach home... In the Borg, there will be perils, too.”

Home.That didn’t ring right. How could a place unknown to me and full of assorted perils ever be my home?

“I understand,” I repeated, tossing my hair over my shoulder in a move that was pure defiance and at odds with my words.

“You understand, but do you agree?” He stared at me, waiting.

I struggled to get the words out, like they were something foul-tasting on my tongue. “As it is your world out here, I will defer to you.”

“It is my world, but it’s yours now, too, and you would do well to learn how to live in it.”

“I will learn,” I promised.

He leaned back on his heels, appearing mollified. He glanced back in the direction of the road where our party waited. “Let us continue, then.”

Taking my elbow, he led me back to my mare. I kept my expression neutral as he helped me mount, hiding my discomfort as my most tender parts once again made contact with the saddle. What I would do for a soft cushion.

The other warriors watched impatiently, all of them wearing vaguely recriminating glares. Even Mari. My favorite person did not seem such a favorite anymore as she stared at me with disappointment. As though giving my necklace to that bandit had been some kind of failure on my part.

Never had I felt so alone. My throat was bare; the comforting weight of my necklace warm and humming on my skin was gone. Mari’s expression, Fell’s lecture, this unkind world I did not seem able to fit within—all of it pressed on me.

I really was not one of them. It was as though they all knew some fundamental thing that had been handed out at birth, but this trait had skipped me. I’d told Fell I would learn how to live in this world, but what if I couldn’t?

What if I never belonged?