Mhera looked at Matei as if seeing him for the first time. They now stood a hand span apart, so close she could see the drops of sweat—or was it the dew?—clinging to the stubble on his cheeks.

It was quiet and still. She could hear his breath, which came unsteadily. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them dared.

It was the silence that told her she was right. She was looking into a stranger's face...but he was the stranger her cousin had become.

He looked torn between standing there and running away. She had never seen such fear in the rebel king's eyes. She parted her lips to speak, but she could think of nothing to say, nothing to ask. The shock of it ran too deep.

Slowly, slowly, Matei raised a hand. Mhera, feeling unfocused and confused, turned her face to look at it as if she had never seen a hand before. She watched as it came close, watched as it fell to gently touch her cheek. It was cold.

She closed her eyes, beginning to tremble.

"Mhera," Matei whispered.

Mhera's legs felt weak. She let herself fall, dropping to her knees in the grass, and blinked down at Matei's filthy boots. He knelt before her. The fear had faded from his expression and turned to worry. "Mhera. Are you alright?"

She jerked back from his touch, raised her hand, and slapped him as hard as she could. The sound of it reverberated off the cottages around them, harsh and clear. Matei's head turned with the blow, and he knelt frozen for a second before putting his hand up to cover his own reddened cheek.

Mhera's breaths came in ragged gasps. There were tears somewhere inside her, she knew, tears that she must let free, but she could not seem to find them. She could feel nothing but the ache, and it was an ache that was more akin to anger or grief than any kind of joy.

She had dreamed of this moment. In her dreams, she found Koreti in the Sovereign Square, or the stables, or the kitchens. He would be swinging his wooden sword or pilfering ginger cookies, a cheeky smile upon his familiar face. In her dreams, they would embrace, children still, and all the pain and darkness of the intervening years would never cross her mind.

In her dreams, her reunion with him was not a reunion at all, but a continuation of what had once been.

Now, as the fitful mist around them began to turn to spitting rain, she knelt in the cold grass and shivered, unable to find the joy in this twist of fate.

He waited. She could sense him looking at her, but she stared down at the grass. Heavy droplets of water collected on the blades, bending them before dropping to the earth.

"This cannot be real," she whispered at last. She closed her eyes. "This cannot be real. You have killed me, and I am in some...some hell."

"It is real," he said.

"No." Finally, the tears came. They scalded her eyes, her cheeks. "No. I've Seen you. I Saw you die. They buried you. I prayed at your tomb."

"No."

"I Saw them beat you. I Saw them cut your throat. You are dead."

"No. No, Mher. I cannot explain that. It was not me."

She put her hands over her face. Sobs began to shake her, and she shuddered with the grief and the cold. When he put his arms around her, she could do nothing but lean into the embrace and clutch at his clothing. She felt as if she were drowning, and this man, this stranger, was the only thing she could hold onto. All the same, he was the one who had pushed her into the current.

"I'm so sorry, Mhera. I am so sorry. You'll never know. You can never know how sorry I am."

"It can't be real," she sobbed. "It can't be real."

"It is real, dear heart. Such trouble we got into, stealing sweets and chasing one another through the palace. You ruined every pair of shoes you owned, and I broke my share of windows. Or took the blame for it, at least. It's me."

Matei's reference to the memories Mhera shared with Koreti were like a dagger to the heart. She cried harder. He held her tightly, rubbing her back with one hand and rocking her as if she were a weeping babe. "Shh...Mhera. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

She cried until there were no more tears to cry. Finally, sore-eyed and feeling as if her heart had been replaced with a stone, she pulled back from him. It was dusk; the sun had quietly slipped away from the scene.

Mhera looked at him. Her voice was thick with tears. "How can you have done this to us? How could you leave us?"

Matei's gaze softened. "Mhera, I didn't."

"We spent years mourning you, thinking you dead. Uncle is a shell of the man he was because he lost you and you—you're alive...Koreti, how?"

Pain darkened Matei's features. He turned his face away. "There is a story here I would not have you hear, Mhera."

"No. You do not get to keep your secrets. Not any more. You have had more than your share."

He drew a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "It's cold, Mhera, and dark. We should go inside—"

"I don't care. I'll have the truth from you. You've...betrayed us." With each breath, she felt the pain of it more. "Living here...fighting for them. You ran away from your home, from your family, to become some..."

Mhera's gaze fell upon the marke on Matei's cheek. She grasped through the haze of her grief and her confusion and made a connection that perplexed her further still.

The magic. He had transported them in an instant from the dungeon. He had raised crackling white lightning in his fist to defend her in the Duskwood. He had magic in his blood. But how could he?

She shivered violently.

"Come inside, Mhera."

"Do they know? Do they know who you are?" she asked. "Do they know you grew up sleeping on feather beds, the shining star of the palace?"

The fear crossed over Matei's face again, and Mhera knew the folk of Hanpe had no idea who he truly was.

"You said you would kill me. Kill us both," Matei said. He gave her a sad, bitter smile. "And now you can, if you wish. You have a weapon more easily wielded against me than any dagger or sword: the truth."

Mhera remembered her words and shame washed over her. But why? He was still the man who had taken her captive. The man who had dragged her, exhausted, through the dark forest. The man who had threatened her life. She did not know him at all. The more she considered the revelation, the crueler it was. She didn't understand any of it. "You are at war with your father! You're fighting your father, killing his men—"

Matei spat in the grass, cutting her off. "Nelae take that thrice-cursed man. He is no father of mine."

Somehow the words still shocked her, although she knew Matei—Koreti—must not love Korvan. He was, after all, at war with the empire. "Uncle has grieved for you every day, all through these past many years. To have lost his wife, and then to have lost you—it broke him!"

Matei gave a sharp laugh. "That is not what broke him, Mhera. I promise you."

"How can you say that!"

"Because I know it!" His voice was sharp now, quelling, although he spoke in hushed tones. Both of them did. "He would sooner kill me than lay eyes on me again."

"No, Koreti. No. He would welcome you home. Please. We must both go back to him! You left, but—"

"I left nothing, Mhera. I was cast away. You think he would welcome me back, when he was the one who threw me out?"

Mhera searched his face. She could not believe what he said. "No. Perhaps you quarreled, but—"

"It was more than a quarrel, Mhera. If His Grace thinks me dead, let it be so, for if he knew I lived he would never rest until he saw me in the grave. I thank the Goddess he never laid eyes upon me when I was in his dungeon."

"Nothing could be so serious as to keep you away from him all your life, Matei. Nothing could stop him from loving you. You're his son."

"If you think that, you do not know the emperor at all."

"I know him," she said. "He might not have been warm to you, or to Kaori or Koren, but he has always had all of our best interests at heart."

"Is that why he threw you into that salt-crusted convent? Is that why he smothered you in the gray?"

Mhera bridled, rising further still to her uncle's defense. She might have hated what her uncle had done to her, but hearing the same accusations from Matei's lips made her angry. "Yes! He was afraid for me!"

Matei shook his head. "Korvan has never feared in his life for anyone but himself."

"You're angry, Koreti, and hurt, and you have let the years come between you, but he'll forgive you. He'll forgive you anything. He forgave me, although I treated him so cruelly when he sent me to the Haven. He welcomed me back."

Matei laughed again, looking at her with something like amusement, although his voice was bitter. "Mhera. Sweet Mhera. What did you do? Stamp your foot? Shout at him? What could you ever do to make him cross? You were always his little darling. No. It isn't the same. He hates me for what I am. There is one crime I can never undo. I cannot pay for it—not with penance, not with pain. An unforgivable sin."

Something caught Matei's eyes over Mhera's shoulder. She turned and saw one of the Arcborn guards from the front of the infirmary coming round the building. She fell back to sit in the grass, opening a space between herself and Matei.

"You—apprentice. There's a man what needs tending," the rebel said.

Mhera rose unsteadily to her feet. Her body was stiff from the cold.

Matei stood up at her side. "Go," he said.

"No. Not unless you come with me," Mhera said, challenging him with her eyes.

Matei wavered. He clenched his jaw and lowered his head, raising a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose in a gesture Mhera had seen his father make a thousand times. But this time, Matei did not argue. He let his hand fall, and when she turned to trail the Arcborn guard to the infirmary door, Matei followed.

***

Mhera was not relieved of her post until the next morning, but she was glad of it; Aun had needed the rest. It was easy enough to pass the night in the infirmary. Matei gave her no trouble. It was impossible for them to talk with the two Arcborn guards in the place. He had taken a seat by the hearth and stayed there, and she nearly forgot him as she went about her work. By the time she thought to offer him some tea, the rebel king was slumped against the wall, soundly asleep.

There was far too much on Mhera's mind for her to get any rest. She spent her time tidying the infirmary and musing over the facts she knew.

Matei was Koreti, the lost prince. He claimed he had been cast out by the emperor, something Mhera could hardly credit. He fought for the rebel cause, and this was a shock almost as great as the truth of his identity; young Koreti had yearned to crush the rebellion, his mind filled with dreams of a powerful army and a gleaming crown. What could have changed? Now, Koreti wore the marke, and he warred against his own family. And there was the most unsettling fact of all: he had magic in his blood.

How could that be? There was some missing piece, something Mhera could not see.

"Good morning, Mhera," Aun said brightly, stepping into the infirmary with a smile on her face. Behind her came the girl from the city, Atha.

"Aun, good morning. How did you sleep?" Mhera asked.

"As if I never had before," Aun replied. "I do not think I've ever been so tired. Thank you for watching through the night for me."

"It was no trouble."

"I see you watched alone," said the healer with an amused smile. She was looking past Mhera, to where Matei sat, his head cocked back at an uncomfortable-looking angle, his mouth hanging open.

Mhera nodded, but she had no energy for humor today.

"Go to your breakfast, sweet, and take that man with you."

Mhera did not like the prospect of breakfast in the longhouse with Matei. The secrets would hang between them, heavier than they had ever been before.