Page 65 of The Enemy's Daughter

It’s Liam.

I hesitate, and Ryland fires a shot that barely misses. The clansman finally takes off running. “Let’s roll,” I say. “It’s only one.” I jump to my feet and grab Ryland’s arm.

For one seismic second, my face flashes in Tristan’s thoughts before the memory disappears as quickly as it came on. Does that mean he thought about me as he was running? Or am I the reason he hesitated to kill a clansman?

“Sam had me pull the arrow out.” He gestures to his shirt. “That’s his blood. Well, mostly.”

My body feels unsteady. I’ve never seen Liam look so angry and fierce. That also felt real, like I was the one Liam was trying to kill. Memories are anexperience.

“You know him.”

Is he really not aware that Liam is my betrothed? I look away. “Yes, though he’s not from my clan.”

Tristan nods, but I sense his suspicion that I’m holding something back.

I change the subject. “Thank you for showing me.”

His lips tighten. “Regular reconnaissance is an important partof keeping Kingsland safe. Now that you—”

Is he really going to swear me to secrecy when he was the one onourland? “Have you ever considered just leaving the clans alone?” I ask, cutting him off. “Letting us exist? No stealing our weapons or trespassing on our land. No attacks of any kind—”

“We don’t attack you unprovoked.”

“Bloody skies, not this again.”

“No,” he says. “Hear me.Reallylisten. Use the connection to hear the truth.” He grabs my hand and places it over his heart. His earnestness winds like a cord around my ribs. “We’ve never crossed into clan land to attack your guards or your people,” he says slowly. “Iwas going to be the first.”

I wait for that feeling of wrongness. It doesn’t come.

His gaze sears me. “You feel it, don’t you? I’m not lying.”

It takes me long seconds before I can speak. “No. It only means that you believe what you said. Which makes sense when the attacks on us happened under your father, not you.”

He laughs in disbelief. “I was his second-in-command. Fine. You need more proof?”

Images flash in my mind. Tristan races on horseback through a forest as a clansman fires an arrow. I reject the memory immediately.

“You think I can’t show you the same?” I replay a memory of me sprinting to the edge of my yard. A tortured soldier is dropped at my feet. I call for bandages, sick with horror as I wrap his mutilated hand in the bottom of my shirt to stop the bleeding, but there’s nothing I can do for his missing eyes.

Tristan’s breath catches. “We wouldn’t. That wasn’t us. You know as well as I do that the forest is far from safe.”

Truth.

He tries again, sending more memories. I see men repairing a tall metal fence. Women crying at a funeral.

“Stop,” I growl and rub my eyes. “We have funerals too. All of this goesbothways.”

Tristan moves in, urgent, but his words come out slow. “No, Isadora. It doesn’t.”

Truth.

“You’re showing me the aftermath of an attack,” he says. “But you didn’t see who did it. Not with your own eyes. Not like I have.”

I go still as I realize that he’s right. We’ve relied on the survivors to tell us who attacked them, but all of them have come back blind. Is it possible that we’ve been blaming the wrong people?

“Why do you think I’m so angry?” he asks. “For over thirty years, we’ve practically lived as pacifists, thinking we have to be generous and turn the other cheek. Over and over. This can’t go on any longer. It can’t.”

Then he shows me one more memory. I see Farron and a large portion of the town, with many of them yelling.

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