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Liam weaves his calloused fingers with mine as he leads me through the root-filled path to where he left his horse. Chickens cluck and grumble from the coop not far away. I glance down at our entwined hands, and my head fills with a strange mix of fuzziness and shame.

This feels like a betrayal to some deep part of myself. But I can’t pull away from him. Not without derailing my chance to find Tristan.

If only Liam had listened to me when I said I was staying in Kingsland. By now there probably isn’t a person who hasn’t heard Annette accuse me of stabbing her and assaulting Enola. My disappearance only solidifies my guilt. Add to that Tristan and Henshaw being taken captive by clansmen, and the town probably thinks I planned this all along. It’s a treachery of unforgivable proportions, far greater than Annette could have dreamed of.

My stomach twists in worry for Enola, but all I can do is pray she’s okay.

Liam smiles at me, eyes flashing with a combination of excitement and affection. It’s like he’s back to being the old Liam. The one who preferred carpentry to fighting. My source for clan news.

He didn’t tell me Kingsland had a fence.

It makes me wonder what else he’s left out. Maybe I never really knew him at all.

“How’s your neck?”

Liam asks as we approach the hitching post, where four horses stand, grazing.

His words conjure up a sharp ache in that very region. Or maybe it’s always been there, and I’ve been too upset, too focused on Tristan to acknowledge it. There’s also a looming dizziness, likely from blood loss or whatever Henshaw gave me to make me sleep, that occasionally churns my stomach. “I’m fine,”

I say, refusing to give him a reason to back out of taking me to Tristan.

I try to mount my horse, taking care not to rip open my sutures since that would seriously derail my plans, but my leg doesn’t make it all the way over the saddle. Wordlessly, Liam’s large hands find my hips, then he lifts me. I slide gently into my seat. “I—I’m sorry,”

I stammer. “I’m sure I could do it, I’m just—”

“It’s okay,”

he says. “I’m happy to help you.”

One of his hands slides from my hip to my thigh. It stays there.

I grin, like it’s a compliment. Like on the inside I’m not consumed with rage. I shouldn’t let him touch me like that. I’m not his.

But there was a time when I considered it.

Liam’s face looks like it’s been carved with long strokes of a chisel, the opposite of his shoulders, which are as rounded as the moon under his blue T-shirt. Freia has never failed in pointing out his desirability, and I can concede that there was a spark that could have grown into a flame if given the chance. Marriage to Liam would have been adequate—if I had never met Tristan and discovered what it’s like to truly fall in love.

We take off at a slow trot side by side. There’s much to say now that I have Liam as a captive audience, but I also know that the roots of what we’ve been taught run miles deep. Convincing Liam that Kingsland is not responsible for attacking us will not be easy. I sneak glances at him as if that might give me a clue on how to start.

There’s something regal about him in the saddle. It could be his straight posture, or the way he commands his horse as if it were an extension of him. He may be one of the quieter clan leaders, but he has an air of strength and authority about him. He could influence a lot of people for change if he put his mind to it. I can’t mess this up.

“Your father revoked our betrothal,”

Liam says.

It’s a miracle I don’t fall off my horse. “What?”

He watches a few clan soldiers pass us on a parallel trail, patrolling. “You can thank the Maska clan leader for that.”

“Gerald?”

He nods. “I’ve known for a while that he’s been a thorn in the Saraf’s side, but it’s only in the last few days that I’ve learned to what extent. Turns out the reason he’s been your father’s henchman of sorts, doing all the dirty work, was because he was banking a favor—and a few months ago he tried to cash it in. He asked to be the next Saraf, and since no woman will go near him, he also asked if he could have you.”

My tongue has gone missing.

“Like I said, most of it’s new to me, but it explains the uprising, the infighting. Your father said no to both those requests. So Gerald stirred things up. Suddenly the clans aren’t getting along, and the Maska are making threats about going off on their own, meaning the loss of most of our soldiers and hunters. That’s why your father announced the contest to decide his succession. And to ensure Gerald took the bait, he added something else Gerald had been salivating over: you.

“It worked to preserve the peace and gave your father back some control . . . for a little while. The clans calmed down because they now all had an equal chance at becoming Saraf, and your father came out on top. There’d be no transition until he died, and he finally got something he’s always wanted in return—Farron Banks’s head.”

“But you won instead.”

Liam gives me a look to remind me that technically he didn’t win. “Gerald threatened to go rogue almost immediately but changed his tune when you went missing. He argued that with no marriage to seal the succession, it couldn’t be delayed years or decades until after the Saraf died. Your father needed to make me Saraf now—unless he agreed with Gerald that I wasn’t the one who killed Farron. Your father’s choice: retire as Saraf on the spot or call my win invalid and revoke our betrothal. Hours later, a new contest was announced—the clan leader challenge was to bring you back alive. Winner would again be named Saraf after your father’s death and given your hand in marriage.”

“And you didn’t object?”

“I couldn’t. Gerald has something like seventy-five trained men; that’s double, in some cases triple, the size of the smaller clans. There was nothing the two dozen carpenters and loggers of Cohdor could do. There’s also the fact that Gerald was right—it wasn’t me who stabbed Farron Banks.”

He exhales. “Finding you was already all I could think about, so I just threw myself into that.”

“You won again,”

I say in amazement.

“Yes. More fairly than last time.”

He frowns before continuing. “But a few nights before we found you, two of your father’s men were murdered. A witness said it was Maska, then recanted. Things are heating up, and now that I’ve won the position of Saraf again, Gerald is going to be a problem.”

So it wasn’t my marriage that would unite the five clans in a peaceful succession. It was my marriage to Gerald and him becoming the next Saraf that would quiet the revolt—which had to be done through a contest, so no clan leader could object. Liam was never supposed to win. That’s why Father picked a weak proxy, and not Percy, to represent Hanook. Anger that I was such a willing puppet for Father crawls through my veins.

I see now that Liam had to “rescue”

me from Kingsland or another clan leader would have. But bringing me back while married to Tristan was ensuring my death. Liam was protecting me. It doesn’t make what he did okay, but it does offer an explanation beyond his jealousy.

Maybe he hasn’t completely changed.

“Liam, I need to tell you something. The people in Kingsland are nothing like we’ve been led to believe. They’re not barbarians, and they have luxuries we don’t have—you saw.”

Some part of this resonates with him. I see it in his eyes. “But that was from the old world, and they’ve tried to share with us, except we rejected them. They’re also civilized.”

Annette flashes in my mind. Okay, maybe not all of them. “Did you know they’ve never attacked first and deny killing on our land. They’ve never even heard of the first slaughter. What does that tell you?”

“That you’ve been lied to.”

His face is a mask of disappointment that I’d be so gullible.

Skies, I need more proof. “Liam, they think we’re the aggressor and that my father just wants what they have.”

“Aggressor.”

Liam scoffs. “We’ve attacked them, but only in small, calculated ways. Like how we got you out. The worst I’ve heard about was when some Maska damaged that old-world structure they have on the river. But it’s only a fraction of what they do to us. You know that. And until yesterday, we’ve never even gone through their fence. Your father forbade it.”

“So you did know about the fence. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why would I?”

He sighs at my hurt expression. “I can’t tell you everything, Isadora. You’re a woman; we need to protect you. You know that’s the Saraf’s way.”

But I don’t feel protected. I feel excluded from something I really should have known.

Liam continues. “And as far as looting, we’ve learned the hard way that their stuff is poisoned and booby-trapped. No one’s allowed to take anything home.”

What? Was Tristan wrong in thinking that the purpose of the clans’ attack is to steal?

“What about the attacks on us on our land—how do you know it was Kingsland? Have you seen any of them attack us with your own eyes? It could be vagabonds.”

“The other day I caught them ready to attack outside Hanook.”

I sigh. He’s talking about Tristan’s surveillance. “No. Before that?”

His jaw clenches at me dismissing him. “Isadora . . .”

But then my heart drops to my toes with an idea I haven’t considered before. “Or maybe it was Kingsland, just not them as a whole. What if it’s only one soldier working on his own?”

Someone trying to avenge an eye for an eye.

Like Samuel? Blazing sun, a solitary attacker would explain why our soldiers have only ever been picked off one at a time. I think of Samuel’s temper. His unrepentance after shooting me with a poisoned arrow. He’s even threatened to kill me twice since then. No doubt he’s violent, but is he deranged enough to attack the clans on his own?

Liam looks skeptical and maybe a little concerned at my rebellious speculations. But what I want to know is where he stands. “Liam, what do you hope happens to the clans? Kingsland?”

His eyes go distant. “I don’t want war. With the Maska clan or the Kingsland. I want the life we dreamed of.”

It’s hard to believe, since he certainly didn’t defuse anything by what he did in Kingsland. But again, I remind myself that Father commanded the clan leaders to come for me. “Then we need to let Tristan and Henshaw go.”

“No,”

Liam says, leaving no room for debate. “Your father would never allow it.”

And Liam isn’t going to disobey the Saraf.

Looking into the trees, I weigh my options. Maybe Liam isn’t the person I need to be talking to—it should be my father. Everything seems to begin and end with him.