Page 57 of Return of the Vengeful Quee

He hesitated, and a faint pink flushed his cheeks. Then he said, “I didn’t feel happy. I felt like you’d just reached into my chest and cut out my heart.”

The silence that followed his words was punctuated by the mast creaking and the dull slap of water against the boat.

“You should have either told me the truth or walked away,” she said quietly.

“I know.” He looked into her eyes, and she couldn’t find any deception. “I was selfish. I wanted to stay at your side, and I kept convincing myself I had more time before I told you the truth. If I’d just trusted you with it instead—”

“You’d probably be dead.”

“It’s a good possibility.”

“If Mother had learned of it, it’s the only possibility.”

“I never intended to hurt you. I might have hidden my true identity from you, but I never hid myself.” He let his hands fall to his sides. “You know me better than anyone else, and so someday I hope you look beyond my name and my job and see my heart, because in there, I’m exactly who I’ve always been—just a boy in love with a girl he knew he could never have.”

His words settled between them, and she waited for him to ask her for more. For forgiveness, for understanding, or at the very least for an explanation of her own feelings, but he didn’t. Instead he gave her a sad, crooked smile and sat across from her.

“You called me over here for a reason. What do you need?”

For the next hour they strategized, and it was infuriating how easy it was to fall back into old patterns. She could still finish his thoughts. He could still anticipate hers. They could fill in the gaps between words with a single look.

By the time she was ready to rest, she was certain that if she was unable to get a message to Nalani herself, Tal knew exactly what to say. The armada would know how to use the poison, and Tal’s time spent helping in the sick bay had given him insight into exactly the kind of desperate situation the Rakuuna queen was facing, which Nalani could use to pressure the queen into taking whatever deal Alaric offered once Nalani agreed to marry Vahn.

Maybe Charis couldn’t trust Tal with her heart again, but she could trust him with this. He’d traded his own life for the safety of her people. This asked far less of him.

Three days later, the boat slowed noticeably. A flurry of hushed conversation erupted throughout the brig.

“We must be entering Arborlay’s harbor,” Tal said as he and Holland approached Charis.

Her knees threatened to give out.

All this time, she’d been running toward vengeance because saving her kingdom was all she had left. Now, faced with the real possibility that she’d done everything she could to keep her promises yet wouldn’t be alive to see it through, pain spread through her, tender and raw.

She’d never see the streets of her city lit for the Sister Moons Festival again.

She wouldn’t have children she could nurture like Father had nurtured her.

She’d never dance again, kiss again, sink her teeth into a ripe summer peach and let its juices run down her chin.

But maybe, if her last act was to make sure her people and their allies could drive the invaders from her land, she would be remembered as the young queen who gave everything she had to Calera.

She rolled her shoulders and craned her neck, trying to loosen knots of tension.

“What’s the plan for meeting the Rakuuna queen?” Tal was watching her carefully, and she stopped trying to release the knots in her shoulders.

“I’ll do what I can to appeal to her desire to have power in Calera and to save the Rakuuna who are sick.” She couldn’t resist stretching her stiff neck once more. “If I can manage it, she’ll honor you for being Alaric’s son, and you can do what we discussed.”

“Would you like me to help with that?” Tal gestured toward her neck.

She lifted her chin, ignoring the angry pull of her muscles. “Absolutely not.”

“I mean no disrespect. I just thought perhaps you’d want to look more . . . royal when you arrive.” He glanced once more at her. Heat flushed her skin as she realized he’d been talking about her wild mess of tangled hair.

“He’s right.” Holland gave her a long look. “You’ve been without a handmaiden for quite some time, and it shows. Let him help you at least look like the queen you are. I’m going to go make sure the others know that if they reveal the truth about the poison, I’ll gut them where they stand.”

Charis met Tal’s gaze, and the heat beneath her skin spiraled into her belly.

Somehow the thought of him doing her hair was even more daunting than the idea of him rubbing her neck, but he and Holland had a point. She didn’t want to meet the invader queen looking like a vagabond who’d never seen a hairbrush.

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