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Idril grabbed Wren’s cheeks in a vise-like grip, completely ignoring the knife she still held firmly against him.

“Just try it,” he urged, mad eyes shining. “See how far killing me gets you. My guards will crash into this room and drag you to the dungeon. You will bear witness to each and every member of the rebellion being tortured in the most despicable, wickedest of ways until they are begging for death. Then they’ll endure some more, purely to make you suffer. Is that want you want? Can you really bear to have that on your head after you’ve lost so much?”

Wren faltered. There was no lie in Idril’s threat. Her brain was running on overdrive, processing her options. If there were indeed guards right outside, then she couldn’t escape after killing Idril. If she held him hostage to allow her safe passage to the castle doors, then the rest of the rebellion and Clara would still be subject to torture and death. And, even if they weren’t, Idril would simply dissolve his deal with the rebellion, and all their hard work for change would have been for naught.

Wren couldn’t even exact her vengeance successfully on one single target.

Her father would be ashamed once again.

Who had she become?

In anger and humiliation, she wrenched the blade up and slashed Idril across his cheek. He yowled in pain and placed a hand over his face, glaring at her.

“So you’ll have a reminder of me every time you look in the mirror,” she spat, knowing she would pay for doing so but was unable to stop herself. She wanted tohurthim the way he’d hurt her mother.

Blood dripped through Idril’s hand to the floor as he clutched his cheek, icy eyes venomous on Wren’s. His thigh also bled, the vase shard still in the muscle.

For a moment, she thought he might strike her again. His grip on her chin had certainly tightened enough to bruise. But then the elf cackled—an ugly, foreboding sound—and he let go of her.

“You think I would be so foolish as to believe you’d behave immediately? You idiotic child. I’d have long-since been murdered if that were the case. It is people likeyouwho are easily manipulated, not me. Just like your mother. But youaregoing to behave now, and we both know it. You’re my pawn, Wren, but if you take my promises—” he meant threats “—to heart and rise to the station you should begratefulI’m giving you, then perhaps you might one day be something far more valuable.” She jerked in shock as he ran a bloody finger down her cheek. “Thank you for the interesting visit.”

Idril left, locking the door behind him as he went. Wren sagged to the floor, shaking from head to toe. She clutched her knife to her chest.

He’d been right; shewaseasily manipulated. At every turn she’d been manipulated—by Arrik, by Soren, by the rebellion. Wren hadn’t been broken, no, but still she’d been made to do what everyone else wanted.

“Just what am Idoing?” she cried, tears welling in her eyes that she did not want to shed. She pounded her fists against the carpeted floor, enraged that they barely made a sound, then scrubbed his blood from her facer. Already it was swollen; when Wren moved her jaw from left to right, she winced in pain.

All she’d managed to do was give Lord Idril further leverage over her. Even escaping seemed impossible now, though all she wanted was to disappear, grab her cousin and sister, and flee to the sand lands in Vadon to live out the rest of their lives.

Her watery gaze strayed back to the jewels on her bed. It would be so easy to run.

That’s not who you are.

When she heard a noise at the door, she braced for Idril’s return. Perhaps he had thought better of leaving Wren in her room and had decided it would be better to throw her in the dungeons. Perhaps he wanted to hit her again.

Or worse.

She tightened her grip on her blade.

But whoever was unlocking the door clearly did not possess the key, if the clicking in the lock was anything to go by. Frowning, Wren got to her feet and readied to defend herself. The door swung open and she was met with a more than welcome sight.

“You look awful,” Leif said, quietly easing the door closed before holding his arms open.

Wren cried out and flung herself into his embrace, shaking with anger, grief, and relief. Leif gently stroked her hair, hugging her back with the pressure she so desperately craved.

“Tell me what happened,” Leif urged.

She pulled back and he frowned, gently touching her chin to turn her face so he could see her cheek better.

“He struck you?” His tone was deadly.

Wren’s bottom lip quivered but she waved him away. “It’s nothing, but…” A sob lodge in her throat but she managed to get out a tumble of words and sobs mumbled almost incoherently into Leif’s shoulder: “He can’t be my father,” she cried, again and again, when she was finished explaining. “He can’t, he—”

“Just because he sired you, that doesn’t make him your father,” Leif reassured softly, pulling Wren to sit in front of the fireplace with him. He grabbed a blanket from the long couch to place over her shoulders. Wren hadn’t realized until that moment how very cold she was. He smiled reassuringly at her. “You must know that.”

She did, but it was easier to believe it when someone else believed it too.

Hands still shaking, Wren rubbed away the rest of her godforsaken tears from her eyes. “Just who am I turning into, Leif?” she wondered aloud. “Having seen who—what—the rebellion is willing to work with, I can’t…I can’t keep following them. But I can’t allow them to be murdered either. And my cousin…” She swallowed hard. “Gods, my mother would be ashamed of me.”