My brow rises. “How?”
A smirk tugs at Hector’s upper lip. “Do you honestly think my cousin could hide something that significant from me?”
I smooth my surcoat over my legs. “Will they be happy together?”
“Of course.” Hector slices two pieces of bread and hands one of them to me. “But Everly needs to accept their marriage first. Otherwise, she’ll never stop living in the past.”
My heart thrums against my chest as I glance at the window, watching a flock of birds flying by. “She’s not over Kassandra’s death. Neither am I.”
“I know.” Hector reaches across the table and caresses the curve of my cheek. “But rest assured that Everly and Cenric can be happy together.”
“Thank you, Hector.” I stare into his handsome face. “For being different.”
“Different?”
“You’re not like your father.”
Silence imbues Hector as he leans back against his chair and clenches his jaw.
“He was cold and heartless, as if ice had frozen his heart.” A shudder ripples through me as I look down at the deep gouges on the table.
“Perhaps it did.” Hector yanks up a jar of wine and drinks.
“Was he different when you were younger?”
Shadows darken Hector’s eyes as he shakes his head. “No.”
“You hated him.” I press my hand to the ache in the center of my chest. It cuts deep like my hatred for Roland. “That’s why you don’t want to talk about your father.”
Hector doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t have to. I feel his anger, his hatred, his bitterness.
But there’s something more. Something so fierce it steals my breath.
A sudden thought hits me. “Why were you, Luc, and your army outside of Astarobane when I met you? What was your mission?”
“No.” Hector sets the jar down with a thump.
As more of his truth slips into my thoughts, my heart pounds harder and harder. “That’s why Alden asked you if it is done, isn’t it?”
“You’re reaching,” Hector says, his voice flat, emotionless.
“Your father wasn’t murdered by another tribe. He was assassinated by his own people.” The truth burns my ears. Roland was dead before I arrived in Astarobane.
Hector was already their chieftain.
Oh, the irony. I was married to the Bloodstone’s chieftain all along.
“That’s treason.” Hector rises to his feet, his body stiff, impenetrable—a stone wall, trying to keep me from breaching his defenses.
I lurch to mine and grab his hand before he can walk away from me. “Is it if it’s ending tyranny?”
A muscle tics in Hector’s jaw, but he doesn’t answer. Maybe he’s incapable of answering. Maybe the pain of what he was sent to do has overwhelmed him for so long, he cannot speak about it.
My arms ache to embrace him, to give to him as ardently as he has given to me.
So, I do.
I throw my arms around his waist and speak from my heart. “I see you, Hector.” Maybe for the first time, I truly see him.
