Page 67 of The Enemy's Daughter

I knew it.

“Does that bother you?” His thumb swipes the back of my hand.

Tingles race up my spine. I don’t know. It depends on what he saw. “Show me the first time it happened. I want to see.”

His face contorts like he’s in pain. “Haven’t I shown you enough already? How about you show me some memories?”

He’s being playful, and so am I. But there’s also a part of me that’s serious.

He exhales and lowers his head. “The first time I saw you was an accident.” Then a memory floats to the surface of my mind.

I sit up as I recognize his father, a younger version of Farron. He’s got a finger pressed to his lips as he and Tristan hide behind a large bush. The view shifts to the mossy, wet soil of the ground as Tristan waits, heart pounding.

“When does thekarnickplant bloom?”

With a start, I recognize the woman’s voice—my mother’s.

“Early spring to mid-July. Best picked when the leaves are dark green and have lost their fuzz.”

Who is that? My head pops out, and I see a flash of the girl’s face. Dad grabs me by the shirt and shoves me down.

Her hair is the lightest shade of blond, and she’s so close I could spit on her. There’s a cloth bag hanging from one of her arms and a bandage on the other.

My breath catches. That bandage was from a mishap with a scalding pan on my birthday.

My thirteenth birthday.

“That happened five years ago,” I say, as the image in my mind dissipates like steam.

Tristan’s eyes dance with mischief, but he doesn’t offer anything more.

I poke him in the ribs. “Then what happened?”

“Nothing. I mean, I was curious about who you were. In Kingsland we have 634 people, and I know every single one of them.” He shrugs. “But I didn’t know you.”

The space between us thins as I lean into him. “What did you want to know about me?”

He holds my gaze. “Everything. You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”

There’s a powerful need to respond to his confession. To touch him—with my lips.

“But I was only fifteen,” he continues. “Two years later, after I was trained in combat and reconnaissance, they let me try out for the elite guard. I was good at climbing, and I was fast, so I was one of the guards who got picked to stake out the cliff above yourhouse. I didn’t see a lot of you. Mostly I took note of who came and went and when. Usually, the clan leaders gathered there before anything significant took place—good or bad, so that’s what we were watching out for.”

“But you did see me.”

His words drop to a whisper. “I did.”

One of his memories flashes in my head. It’s me, running out of the house clutching a blanket and a textbook. My hair is let down and flowing in the wind.

The scenes come in rapid succession after that. Me, wiping sweat from my brow while working in the garden.

Blink.

Freia yanking on my hand as I reluctantly follow her out the front door.

Blink.

My mother and me, returning home on our horses with our travel medical bags strapped across our chests.

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