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It’s only right that he learns how his father died. He deserves to know the truth.

But it means revealing the role I played. My hands turn damp as I wish for a minute to think this through. “Can we go somewhere?”

“Where do you want to go?” he asks.

I glance around. We’re right outside my bedroom door. Across the hall is where he’s been sleeping.

“Come on. I have an idea.”

Tristan stands and pulls me up, then leads me downstairs. He grabs a dark burgundy blanket as we pass through the living room, then continues through the kitchen, into the pantry, and out a back door.

Two yellow couches and three padded chairs are arranged in a circle around a firepit. Intricate patterns of brick lie beneath our feet. The area is somewhat secluded, surrounded by rosebushes and oak trees, and farther back, a simple wooden fence. A horse whinnies from near the barn.

“It’s beautiful here.”

“This was my mum’s favorite place for reading. Enola likes to keep it nice. Maybe I should come out here more.”

He sniffs, looking around. Then he wraps my shoulders with the blanket, his hands lingering.

So much between us has changed in the last hour. My whole world has shifted, and now touching each other feels like the most natural thing. But everything could shift again with what I need to show him. I spin in his arms, unable to meet his eyes.

“Don’t be nervous.”

His lips brush my forehead in a kiss.

“Quit reading my emotions.”

He laughs. “As if I have a choice.”

“I don’t know where to start.”

His handsome face loses his teasing grin. “It doesn’t matter.”

I’m not so sure of that. I only hope he’ll forgive me. “This is about your father, and I’m sorry, but it isn’t going to be pleasant.”

His brows furrow as I concentrate on reliving the memory.

A horse trots out of the darkness. There’s something—someone—strapped to the horse’s back behind the rider.

An ax of grief lands square in Tristan’s rib cage, and he tenses. I wick his pain away, taking it on as my own.

“Do you want to stop?”

I ask. “Or sit?”

I gently tug him toward the couch, but Tristan doesn’t move.

“No, keep going.”

His face turns desperate. “Please,”

he adds, much softer.

I swallow hard and pick up the memory with Liam’s face coming into view.

Anger, deep and black, radiates from Tristan. “Is that the guy who found us in the forest?”

His eyes blaze, then he releases a string of curses. “I had him. I could have—”

I clench his arm tighter. “Tristan. Keep watching.”

A mix of uncertainty and rage flows from him and into me.

“Trust me,” I say.

He reluctantly obeys.

“Crank the siren,”

Father says to Denver gruffly, then he raises his voice to the dozen or so neighbors who have gathered, awaiting news. “Our tormentors have been defeated. The contest has a champion.”

Tristan lets out a huff. “Tormentors! I knew it was organized, but a contest? A fucking game?”

I flinch, wishing I didn’t have to say it. “Yes, and I was the prize.”

“What?”

Tristan’s anger is suffocating.

“It’s why I was betrothed.”

“My horse is injured. Took an arrow,”

Liam calls to Father. “I need to attend to him in the barn first.”

I skip ahead, to the heart of what Tristan needs to know.

“Farron’s not dead,”

Liam says.

“What?”

I spin to look at the body—the man—strapped belly-down on the horse.

Liam hurries over and works the rope holding Farron in place. Red-black blood slicks down Hemlock’s rump.

Liam shoves a hand through his hair. “I—I couldn’t do it. Your brother knocked Farron off his horse and handed me the knife, but I froze. So Percy stabbed him, then left me with the body. But Farron’s still alive. Or at least he was the last time I checked.”

“Untie him.”

I throw down my medical bag and push up my sleeves. “Help me get him off the horse.”

Hope lights inside Tristan, and I realize I’ve led him to believe this might not end badly. But his optimism doesn’t last long. He makes a choking sound as he hears my thoughts, my frustration, at having no real way to help Farron. He watches in pain as I slip the poppy extract under his father’s tongue to ease his suffering, in a final act of mercy.

He feels his father’s hand in mine as Farron passes away.

Tears stream down my face as I experience this again, but now through the lens of knowing Farron was an innocent man. Oh, how I wish I could have done more.

Abruptly, Tristan steps back, releasing me. “I—I have to go.”

He can’t look at me.

Weakness enters my body. A helplessness. It’s more than grief I feel from him. He’s confused. Angry. I even sense disgust—at me, no doubt. And I don’t blame him. Not only did my father order the killing, but I allowed myself to be the reward. I’m more than complicit, even if I tried to ease Farron’s pain in the end.

Tristan disappears around the corner of the house, and a chill immediately enters the air. Wrapping myself tighter in the blanket, I take a seat on the couch.

For long minutes, I practice another apology, then give up. I don’t know what to say or how to make this better. What if it’s not possible to mend a relationship with someone who’s helped cause the most painful moment of your life?