“I really am sorry,” he says again, and then pain assaults my skin so completely, I lose consciousness.

When I wake again, it’s still to the scent of burning flesh, but this time it’s a significantly more pleasant odor. The scent of a boar roasting over a fire, I realize, as I open my eyes and take in my surroundings.

Farin and I are still in a cave, though there’s a glaring absence of spiderwebs, for which I’m grateful. He paces beyond the smoking boar, practically drilling a path in the dirt with his repetitive steps.

He glances over at me as he tugs at his sleeves, then stops in his tracks.

“You’re awake,” he says, to which I, probably stupidly, respond, “Your deduction skills amaze me.”

Farin blinks, then actually lets out a huff that’s suspiciously familiar to a laugh as a smile quirks at his lips. Just barely.

“How did we get out?” I groan.

“I carried you, Wanderer.”

I furrow my brow. I might be disoriented, but I’m fairly sure Farin didn’t strap me to his back and free climb up the side of the canyon.

He must read my mind, because he says, “The canyon levels out eventually. If the two of you had figured that out, I wouldn’t have had to rush to trail you.”

Huh. I suppose Nox and I should have followed the canyon in the other direction.

I go to sit up, but the aching in my abdomen prevents it, and I let out a sharp cry. Farin’s at my side in the next instant, propping me up with his hands gliding down my back.

They’re strangely warm, not at all the cold, clammy things I’m expecting.

I suppose he’s not a vampire, though.

“You probably shouldn’t do much moving around,” Farin says. “I can’t say I’m all that confident in my repair attempts.” He nods to my waist. It’s bare, Farin having rolled up my shirt to my ribcage.

“To let the wound breathe,” he explains, actually clearing his throat.

“Why else would you have done it?” I ask, unable to fight the edge in my voice.

He ignores me, but he lowers me back to the floor all the same, wrapping his cloak around itself to make a pillow for my head. His fingers linger in my hair for a moment, before he quickly pulls away and returns to the other side of the cave.

“Why’d you save me?” I ask, peering at him past what I’m sure is a double chin.

Farin pokes at the boar. “I didn’t mean for you to almost die. I didn’t realize your body couldn’t heal itself in a timely fashion.”

“Yes, but why do you care?”

Farin shrugs. “I figure I’m not getting off this island, out of this world, without your help, am I?”

Oh. Right.

Well, he’s not getting off this island with it, either.

“And what if there’s not another way?” I ask.

Farin flashes me a grin, the same one that caught my attention the first day we met. “Well, then. I suppose you and I have this island to ourselves.”

I let out a scoff, which rather upsets my still aching abdomen.

“You don’t seem too worried about that outcome,” I say.

His smile is as sinister as it is beautiful. “I’m not concerned about finding ways to entertain ourselves, if that’s what you mean.”

My cheeks heat, and I glance away, but I can only keep my eyes averted for a moment. Turning my attention from a murderer doesn’t seem like the best self-preservation instinct, after all.

He’s right though; I need to get off this island. And fast. I just have to figure out a way to do it without Farin tagging along.

Somehow, I doubt he’ll let his guard down long enough for me to kill him.

I turn my attention back to him, hoping he doesn’t notice.

That proves to be ineffective, given he’s still watching me. This time, it’s his turn to glance away. Just not before I catch the glimmer of concern in his assessing gaze.

CHAPTER 56

KIRAN

The males who shoved Fin and me in the back of this cart must have taken the entirety of our father’s incense supply, because one of them comes to burn it directly under our noses once every few hours.

I’m trying to keep up with the days, but it proves difficult when I’m unsure how long the incense knocks me out. Judging from the cycles of light and darkness I’ve been able to keep up with in my waking hours, I know we’ve been trapped in the back of the wagon for at least several days by the time the wagon comes to its ultimate stop.

“Welcome home,” says one of the males, climbing atop me and Fin, not bothering to watch where he steps. Then he lights the incense, and I am lost to oblivion.

I wake, not in a dungeon as I expect, but on a marble balcony facing the city of Meranthi, the city I’ve called home my entire life. I recognize it immediately as an alcove specifically made for nobility to watch the royal ceremonies occurring on the main balcony of the palace.

The alcoves are carved directly into the marble of the palace and hewn to block the sun from the onlookers. The placement affords their tenants privacy from the crowd.

And there is a crowd.

I can tell by the murmurs the wind carries up to the balcony, along with the dust, though most of the crowd itself I can’t see through the marble wall. The stage, on the other hand, is in full view below. It’s been decorated with crimson sashes and a litany of rose petals.

It’s a relief when, even through my grogginess, I find I can at least turn my head slightly. Doing so reveals Fin beside me, his gaze fixed on the balcony below, a sort of deadness in his eyes I’ve never witnessed.

“What in Alondria is going on?” he says, his voice dry with dehydration and disuse.

I stare down at the balcony below and heave a sigh. “I believe,” I say, fighting the slur in my words, “that we’re about to witness a coronation.”

By the time the ceremony begins, Fin and I have had our faculties returned to us long enough to infer that Azrael must have figured out our illegitimate heritage. That seems to be the most reasonable explanation for what is going on, given our sleazy father sold us to the highest bidder. It seems just as likely that he also peddled the information of our heritage to Azrael’s hired hands, a fact that would have easily been confirmed by demanding the vizier’s records be made public.

The vizier. The acid in my gut sours at the thought of him.

At the thought of what Azrael might have done to him upon discovering the truth of my heritage.

“Is it possible that we accelerated exactly what we were trying to prevent?” asks Fin.