I step closer to the booth full of fresh baked bread and try to calm my thoughts. If Hector is at the palace, I must catch a glimpse.
“Then, it’s true?” the man asks in a shushed voice. “Roland is dead?”
I raise a trembling hand to my throat. Now that everyone knows Roland is dead, Hector will have no choice but to lead his people.
When I set eyes on him wearing that livery collar, I’ll know it’s him.
He will not bring magic back.
I’ll kill him first!
ChapterForty-Eight
Ilie awake for a while, listening to the bullfrogs and the crickets. Gabriel joins me only after the fire dampens.
“Gabriel,” I say into the stillness, hoping he’ll answer. “The soldiers earlier… Are you preparing for war?”
“Yes.”
My chest aches at the implication behind his words. War will take him away from me. Not that I have any intentions of staying after I carry out my mission.
He’s the one I hate to leave.
“Has Hector returned?” The question bursts free before I take time to think it through. I’m glad I asked it, though. I must know.
“Yes.”
I trail my hand down Gabriel’s arm and to his hand. I squeeze my fingers around his, marveling at the warmth. My body doesn’t care he’s Bloodstone.
He rolls over and pulls me until I’m tucked close to him. “Tomorrow, we will move all the women and children further into the mountains. I want you to go with them.”
“Why are you moving everyone?”
He brushes his fingertips along my cheek, tracing over my scar. “This is the way of my people. We scatter. Hide. Conceal. Otherwise, the other five tribes would annihilate us.”
“Is that why you protect Hector?”
“Yes, and why we concealed Roland’s death,” Gabriel says, finally admitting to what I already knew.
It took Malachi to tell me.
Gabriel continues, dragging my attention back to him. “The moment the other tribes learned of Roland’s demise, they would have hunted Hector. We couldn’t afford to lose another leader.”
They would hunt Hector like I am hunting him.
The reality sinks into my bones. The very man my husband protects and conceals, I aim to kill.
“How can Hector lead if he isn’t here?”
“By having a solid foundation of men around him he trusts.”
“Like Alden and Luc?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like Hector? Is he a good leader?” I’m not sure what spawned the questions. Maybe I need to know what kind of foundation my husband has. What does he believe in?Whodoes he believe in?
“Why do you ask me that?” he asks after several moments of silence.
