With her, though, through these weeks ... I have talked about hard things. We have done hard things, together. This is just one more.
“Since I was a child,” I tell her, amazed I can get the words out. For centuries, I’ve avoided all conversations about it, shame and guiltnearly eating me alive. Not now though. Not in front of this Wildling who feels so deeply, who is so afraid all the time, yet still shows up every day andfights. It’s that fight in her, that flame, that I had nearly forgotten. “I was told to hide it,” I say, thinking about my mother. Thinking about how she taught me to hide from my father anything I didn’t want used against me. Then, there was that fateful, terrible time that I did it by accident. There was no hiding that.
I tell her something else. Something unprompted, but for some reason, I want her to know about my family. I want her to know part of what made me. “Egan was the eldest. The heir. He was supposed to be the strongest.”
“But he couldn’t gild,” she says, filling in a blank.
I nod.
“So why now? Why show everyone?”
I tell her what I told Enya. “I figure I’m dying. Might as well share all my secrets.”
The words are casual, but inside, dread stirs again. Remlar’s blade shouldn’t have injured me so much. I shouldn’t have passed out flying. I should have been able to have the strength, at least, to bring myself to water.
I’m growing weaker. My near inability to stop the tremors at the ball proved that. The blue mark is almost everywhere now.
Time is running out for all of us. So, I ask something I’ve been wondering a while too.
“What was your secret, Isla?”
Isla. Except for public appearances, I’ve only really called her Wildling. I can see her eyes widen. Is she thinking the same thing?
“What?” she breathes, the word barely making a sound between us.
I don’t drop her gaze. This is what I’ve been following her around for. The question I’ve asked myself over and over and over. Perhaps if I learn this secret, my strange infatuation with all things Isla will dissipate.
“Your secret from my demonstration. What was it?”
I watch her throat work. I watch it far too closely. I can’t breathe, waiting—waiting for her to potentially be honest about this one last thing.
But all she does is shake her head no. She won’t tell me.
I laugh without humor. Of course not. “I didn’t think so.”
At least she didn’t lie.
“How about this—why did you let me win our duel?”
She doesn’t seem too shocked that I figured it out. “I didn’t want to make myself a target.”
“Ah.” It makes sense.
Her eyes narrow. She raises her chin. I know the question is going to be piercing before she even opens her mouth. “What is your flair?”
Her nerve nearly makes me smile. Does she know how secretive that question is? Does she know no ruler would dare ask another about it? Does she care?
It scares me, how much I want to tell her my flair. How I want her toknowso that I can finally call her what she is—
A liar.
“Share your secret, and I’ll tell you.”
The words hang between us, an offering. I sit still, wondering if she’ll take me up on it. She glares at me, and I only smile. It seems to unnerve her even more. The obsession with her secret is the only explanation for what I say next.
I sit up, even though my every muscle is aching. I lean toward her. “How about this? Tell me your secret, andyoucan be the one who wins.”
I mean it. I mean every word. And that should scare me.
