Chapter 12: Mission Target Error

Elora pulled her hands out of his.

"No," she said. "Not until you tell me what that means."

"I cannot."

"You can't, or you won't?"

"Both." His voice was harsh.

"If I say it, it ends. If I do not, I have until the Blood Moon to make it end differently."

"Differently from what?"

He did not answer.

She stood up on the bed in her thin white nightgown, nearly as tall as he was.

"You let everyone tell me you killed three women," she said, "and you never said a word."

"Yes."

"Why not?"

"Because I could not make you trust me."

"That's not an answer."

"I know." His eyes were wild now, nothing like ice.

"Elora, I have said every sentence I know, in every way I can find. It does not change what you believe."

"What do I believe?"

"That I will hurt you."

"Will you?"

"I would burn this palace down first."

The words sat between them.

She looked at his hands.

They were shaking, and he held them stiff at his sides.

She looked at the scar on her wrist, where his thumb had rested.

She had never told the prince how she got it, or why closed doors scared her.

He had locked her door from the outside every single night.

Tonight he had barred it from the inside, with himself standing between her and it.

"You locked it from the outside," she said slowly, "so nobody could get in."

"Yes."

"Not so I couldn't get out."

"You had a pin in your hair," Aurek said, a little roughly. "I counted on it."

A laugh broke out of her, shaky and wet.

She stepped off the bed and put her hands on his chest, on the black embroidery of his coat.