Page 111 of The Nightmare Bride
Why would Ky invoke the patron goddess of Windfell?
“Fucking hell, lioness,” he crooned.
My thoughts slowed, his words digging into me like barbs. There was something different about the way he was talking. Something wrong.
Then it hit me. His accent. This wasn’t the rarefied lilt of Hightower, but something unfamiliar. No doubt one of the myriad dialects he had in his lexicon, but why would he dream in a different accent than the one he’d been born to?
Unless... Unless...
My blood slowed to an ice-water trickle. Oh. Oh, no. Oh, goddess. Oh, seven fucking hells.
The puzzle pieces finally came together like a hand had reached down from the sky and arranged them for me. I thought of Vick and Lunk—not royal attendants, but criminals. Brigands who, according to that Wanted poster, staged highway robberies along the Oceansgate road.
And the way Vick treated Ky as a resented superior, rather than a prince. Because who was Ky, really?
An actor. An impersonator. He’d said as much himself. He’d taunted me with the truth, only I hadn’t reached out and taken hold of the very thing he’d dangled in my face.
Not until this moment.
“Ky,” I shouted, shaking him.
He jerked, his lashes whipping apart. “What? What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Everything,” I hissed, hating the accent still coming out of his mouth. The Windfell one. Therealone.
Because each one of those harsh-sided words told me Kyven Windermere had never made it to our doorstep at all. No, thetrueprince had been waylaid by brigands, like everyone else who chanced that perilous road. He’d been ambushed by Vick, Lunk, and the bandit chieftain lying beneath me. Who’d then dared to take his place.
Thatwas why Kyven’s crimes had been so unfamiliar to him.
“Was I dreaming?” He blinked, clearing the haze of sleep. “I think I was. About you.”
Those barren syllables caved my chest in. Something must have shown on my face, because alarm brightened his eyes.
“Oh, no,” he said, transitioning smoothly back to Hightower. “This isn’t... Listen to me, lioness?—”
I made a sound of disgust and scrambled off him, retreating as far as the bathroom doorway. “Don’t you dare call me that. Don’t pretend to know me when I have no idea who the fuck you actually are. Other than someone who isn’t actually Kyven Windermere.”
He grimaced and struggled to his feet, one hand raised in entreaty. “That’s?—”
“True. Don’t even try to deny it.”
He swallowed. “All right. But I wasn’t keeping it from you. Itriedto tell you yesterday.”
I glanced around for something to throw, but nothing lay within reach. This asshole. Every vowel, every swallowedr, was a lie.
His brows crooked. “And you know I would’ve told you this morning, if Merron hadn’t needed me. I even would’ve done it now, if you hadn’t been asleep when I came in.”
I flashed my teeth, hoping naked aggression would soothe the fury scouring my insides. What should I do? Scream? Run? Go tell the stewards we had an impostor in our midst?
Except... Shit. I fisted my hands in my hair. If anyone found out this man wasn’t Kyven, Amryssa’s wedding would be canceled. Then she’d be stuck here. Forever.
Thatwas what Vick had in his arsenal, then—the power to destroy Amryssa’s future simply by telling the truth.
“Who are you, really?” I spat. “And don’t you dare lie. Because I swear to Zephyrine, if you spout one more line of bullshit, I’ll stab you like I wanted to that first night. Obviously it was a mistake not to.”
Ky—oh goddess, that wasn’t even his name, but what was?—padded toward me. “Bullshit? None of this has been bullshit.”
“It has. All of it. From the beginning. Youliar.”
