Page 149 of A Vow of Embers

Because after the dream and the drug-induced talk we’d had, I once again found myself in the position of thinking that things had changed between us. But I had been lulled into believing that before, and I was tired of repeatedly making the same mistakes.

The image of him finding his mother flashed in my mind and I tried to push it away. Of all the things I had thought myself capable of feeling for Xander, sympathy hadn’t ever been high on that list.

It had also forced me to reevaluate some of the things I had believed about him. His father had forced his mother to marry him and it had destroyed their family. I had been convinced that Xander had been manipulating me from our very first meeting in order to make me go through with the betrothal. The man I’d spoken to the night before would never do such a thing. He would have to have been without a conscience entirely to go through with that kind of deception.

But I had given him the benefit of the doubt before and been burned.

I didn’t even know if what he’d said was the actual truth. The sleeping draught hadn’t worked very well on him. Maybe the truth serum hadn’t either. For all I knew, this might have been another ploy on his part. To what end, though?

There was a knock at my door and one of the guards called out, “Breakfast!”

I sighed. That meant the prince hadn’t taken me seriously when I’d told him I wasn’t going to be locked up any longer. My food was still being delivered to me.

“Enter!”

My mouth dropped open when Quynh came into the room carrying a tray for me. She put a finger to her lips so that I would stay quiet and not react. I sat up and nodded.

Before she closed the door, I said loudly, “My husband and I spilled some wine last night. Would you please help me clean it up?”

She immediately knew what I was doing. “Yes, princess.”

“Thank you. Please close the door so that I may get dressed.”

My sister shut the door and ran over to set the tray on my bed. I threw my arms around her. “I’m so glad that you were chosen today!”

“That’s not quite what happened,” she said into my shoulder.

I released her and patted the bed so that she would sit next to me. “Are you hungry?” I asked her and handed her some flatbread.

“I’m fine,” she said. “One of the benefits of working in the kitchen is access to as much food as you’d like. You would love it. I’m here because I saved you from certain death.”

I paused, with the flatbread nearly to my mouth. “What?”

“This morning I saw someone I didn’t recognize and he was hovering over your breakfast tray. I got a bad feeling and knew something was wrong. I saw him pouring something into your honeyed fruit. I asked myself, ‘What would Lia do?’ and I grabbed a boning knife and stabbed him in the leg!”

“Quynh! You can’t just stab someone!”

“He was trying to hurt you!”

I shook my head. I thought of how easily that man could have overpowered her. How he could have turned the knife on her. “What if you’d been wrong?”

“I wasn’t. I made it so he couldn’t run. When I called out for help, Thrax grabbed him and restrained him. He wrapped his hands around the man’s neck because at first he thought the man was trying to poison me. When I explained what had happened, he stopped trying to choke him and hauled the man off. They’re questioning your attempted poisoner now.”

Her eyes danced with delight, and I could see how proud she was of herself. I hated that she was putting herself in danger for me and wished there were a way to talk her out of it.

She paused for a moment before adding, “My plan is working. I have already stopped one poisoner because I was in the kitchen!”

“I’m really proud of you. Thank you.” I didn’t feel pride; I just felt panic. I was glad that Thrax had been there to help keep her safe, but he couldn’t always be with her. What if the next time she tried to stab someone she was all alone? I wasn’t sure I could live with myself if something happened to Quynh because she was trying to save me.

She grinned at me, clearly pleased with her efforts. I couldn’t take that away from her, so I just smiled back.

“I heard that you had some excitement last night,” she said, and I wondered how much Thrax had told her.

“Your friend pulled his sword on me and threatened me,” I said pointedly.

The smile faded into a thin line. “I’m aware. I was not pleased and he knows it. What else happened?”

What had passed between Xander and me ... I couldn’t tell her any of that. Because it was humiliating and confusing, and in this moment, I didn’t want another person telling me to give him a chance and to find a way to work with him. So I told her about the dart and about finding the entry book that showed how high the Locrian tariff was, and that Xander suspected his stepmother of being behind it.