I exchange my rifle for my bow as Jaxon walks up. The target in the distance has a cluster of bullet holes in the middle two circles. Decent. Especially considering my minimal practice but the bow should prove better.


    “Not now, Jaxon. I’m not in the mood.”


    Jaxon ignores me and steps closer.


    “You need to speak with your brother. Tell him why you want to leave the city.”


    You would think the existence of a deadly weapon in my hands would be cause for more caution but instead, Jaxon grows bolder.


    “Why would I do that?”


    I ready an arrow and line up my shot. On a steady exhale, I ease my hand until the arrow cuts through the air, landing solidly in the center of the target. Satisfaction floods my chest and tugs the corners of my lips up. I ready another.


    “Because he needs to know you are not his enemy.”


    The tone gives me pause. I lower my arrow and turn to my unwelcome company. The cutting look on his face puffs away the pride I felt moments ago like a cold ocean wind swallowing a candle’s flame. But something else takes its place inside me. Something much hotter.


    “I came all this way—traveled across the country—all so I could find him. Protect him!” I snap at Jaxon, heat flaring. “And now you tell me I must prove I am not his enemy?”


    “Are you? Because these secrets you insist on keeping seem to suggest otherwise.”


    The heat bursts into a flame and I take a step closer, venom pumping through my veins. “If you knew what I have endured getting here—”


    “What? What have you endured?” Jaxon taunts, eyes narrowing. “Will you say? Can you?”


    I feel a pressure build inside me, threatening to explode. Tempting me to give him exactly what he wants: a real piece of my mind. Instead, I bite my tongue hard enough for the taste of copper to fill my mouth.


    “What I will say is that this paranoia is completely idiotic. The only enemies Ivan has are those of his own imagination.”


    “Then why not tell him that? Tell him what happened on your way here. Clear up this misunderstanding.”


    I meet Jaxon’s gaze in silence. Do I dare place Eli’s life in Ivan’s hands? I know Eli poses no threat to my brother, but I doubt the reverse is true. And with Ivan, a threat easily morphs into a death sentence. My anger slows into a simmer as I answer Jaxon’s question with silence.


    Jaxon lets out a forceful, frustrated breath. “You Volkovs are the most stubborn people I’ve ever known. You’ll destroy each other if someone doesn’t bend.”


    I watch him leave with more than a small mouthful of bitterness. There is a wall between my brother and I and all this insistence only serves to strengthen it. All I ask is for an ounce of trust but it seems Ivan refuses even that.


    The next morning, I return to the uncharacteristically empty training grounds to continue my bow and arrow practice. It seems the focus stemming from shooting an arrow is my only escape from tortured thoughts haunting my sleepless nights. Over and over, I see Eli dying in front of me, one gruesome death after another. I spend most of the day in the training grounds, stopping only to eat. The solidarity is like a breath of fresh air and before I know it the entire day has escaped me, the sun growing low on the horizon.


    Arrows hug each other in the center of my target over twenty yards away. I walk over and yank them out one by one when Jaxon shows his face with two guards at his heel.


    “The commander has approved your request to travel outside the city on one condition,” he says.


    I pause. He did?


    After my pathetic, failed escape attempt yesterday all I wanted was to hurt Ivan. My ‘request’ to leave the city was brash and born of frustration and powerlessness. I assumed that if Ivan agreed to let me leave it would be weeks or months away. I never imagined it would be so soon. I know he knows about Eli but I must hold out for two more days. Then Thomas can get me out, for real.


    “And the condition?” I ask.


    “He wants to see you first.”


    I wait for more but Jaxon just stands there like a robot. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    “Great.” I walk back to the shooting line and chuck my pile of arrows onto the table then wave at Jaxon to move. “Let’s get this over with.”


    Jaxon leads the way toward the stables and I frown. “I thought we were seeing Ivan first?”


    “We’re meeting him just outside the city walls.”


    Suspicion narrows my eyes. Something doesn’t sit right in my gut, Jaxon seems exceptionally emotionless this morning.


    Maybe it’s my paranoia but I could swear the city holds fewer guards as we ride our horses through the city. But the thought grows distant as we pass through city gates and the forest once filled with a striking array of colors is now bare. Empty, spindly branches go on for miles. A weight I never knew existed lifts from my chest and I can finally breathe. How is it possible to crave a forest, or a space, so much? Maybe I just miss Eli. After all those months he and the forest feel synonymous. The desperate need to run off and lose myself is unbearable.


    But instead, I follow behind Jaxon. He leads down a well-worn path to a lookout tower at the top of a hill, his two guards taking up the rear. It’s a secondary post in which to defend New Haven. Ivan wants to meet here?


    We pass another pair of smaller gates, unguarded. The lonely place looks to be unused. I raise a brow as unsettling red flags wave before my nose but continue to follow as we approach a building tucked behind the watchtower.


    “Why did we come here?” I ask.


    “I already told you. Com—”


    “—Commander wants to see me first, I know. What’s wrong with you, Jaxon? Why are you acting this way?”


    Jaxon’s usual mask of indifference lifts long enough to cut me a chilling look before he gets off the horse.


    He’s angry.


    At me? My mind races to try to connect the dots as I follow him toward the building. The simple stone structure rises two stories with no windows. Is he mad about our disagreement yesterday? No. The man has thicker skin than that.


    He waits for me at the entrance, letting me enter first, but as I pass I hear, “You should have listened to me.”


    I pause, alarmed and startled at once. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness in the room. Nothing but a single lamp in the back illuminates the space. In the center, my brother stands with his back to me. I approach slowly.


    “Last chance, sister.”


    My gut twists at his tone. Foreboding. A warning. Danger lurks here, I just don’t see it yet.


    “Tell me the name of the man you traveled with to get here.”


    A glance around reveals at least a dozen men lining the second story above us, shrouded in darkness, armed with rifles. I step back, right into Jaxon’s chest, and jump at the unexpected contact. He places a gentle hand on my shoulder. I want to brush it away but I feel frozen—my mind stuck on something just out of sight. Something in Ivan’s hands.


    “What do you have there?” I ask.


    It’s a mistake. My voice comes out soft and weak as if it died before leaving my lips.


    “I asked you a question.” His voice is hard. Unyielding. Calm.


    Terrifying.


    I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My heart climbs up my throat, snatching the breath from my lungs. Something is wrong. Very wrong. What is happening here? And what is he hiding?


    He finally turns to face me. The horn Eli gave me rests in his hands. The bastard. He went through my things. Of course, he did. What are boundaries to a king? Unless…My mind goes back to the moment Jaxon saw the horn that very first day. Fury builds like a damn and I clamp my lips shut to keep from cursing the man and his entire ancestry.


    Ivan’s grip on the horn tightens and he holds it up. “I’ve seen a horn like this before, many years ago. Back in the days when these city streets ran red with blood.”


    Ivan’s piercing gaze pins me to the floor like a spear through the chest. As if I were a traitor he caught red-handed.


    “Whatever you think this is, it isn’t,” I say.


    “Oh? So I do not hold evidence of you conspiring with my enemy?”


    I swipe Jaxon’s hand away and take a step toward Ivan. “You don’t have any enemies. No one is conspiring anything.”


    The flat, emotionless look in his eyes sends the hairs on the back of my neck on end. Pure rage. Yes, this is what I imagine pure rage looks like.


    “Let’s test that theory.”


    To my horror, he raises the horn to his lips.


    “Wait!”


    I leap forward, but hands catch me from behind, holding me in place. And then it’s too late. A long, loud trumpet call reverberates in the small room. Then another. And another.


    A wave of clicking sounds off as my brother’s men ready their guns, aiming at the door.


    “No.” It comes out in a whisper, then a shout. “No!”


    “Keep her quiet.”


    I struggle against Jaxon’s grip, stomping down on his boot with my heel. A satisfying grunt of pain follows before more men come over. A rope ties my hands behind. Rough fabric invades my mouth. I swing my head backward, hoping to hit a nose but get nothing except a calloused hand gripping the back of my neck, shoving me to my knees.


    I let out a frustrated, muffled scream as Jaxon hands me off to a few goons. But I catch his gaze and hold it, pouring all the desperation coursing through me into that one look. Help me. If ever you had just a speck of fondness for me, help me!


    He sees me. Perhaps I imagine it, but something flickers there. Pity. Sadness. Maybe bitterness. I don’t know. He turns his back and pain squeezes my chest. I expected as much but it is the last thread of hope at this moment, snapped free. Tears sting my eyes.


    They smother the single lamp illuminating the space, leaving me kneeling in darkness at the center of the room. Ivan’s soldiers hide above us. When Eli comes through that door and the light from outside reaches me, I will be the first thing he sees.


    And the last.