“I didn’t get hurt?” I laughed darkly. “Thank you for teling me how I feel.”

“No, I meant the King didn’t get you.”

“But what if I had gone with you?” I asked, and I turned to him with tears in my eyes. “When you told me to marry you, if I’d agreed, you would’ve taken me back to him.”

“No,” Loki said. “I wouldn’t have. When I asked you to run away with me in the garden, I meant it. I wanted you to run away with me.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said and wiped at my eyes. “I can never trust anything you say again.”

“This is such bulshit.” He shook his head, and abruptly he puled the car over and put it in park.

“How is this bulshit?” I yeled. “You’re the one that lied to me!

You tricked me!”

“I never tricked you!” Loki shouted. “I never lied! Everything I have ever felt for you has been real!”

“Stop, Loki! You can stop! I know the truth now!”

“No, you don’t!”

“I can’t do this.” I shook my head. “I won’t do this.” I had nowhere else to go, so I got out of the car. We’d traveled far enough so that we were in snow again, and I stepped barefoot into the cold. The stretch of highway was deserted, and empty cornfields went for miles.

“Where are you going?” Loki asked, jumping out of the car after me.

“Nowhere. I need fresh air.” I puled my cloak tighter around me. “I need to be away from you.”

“Don’t do this,” Loki begged and walked after me. “You only heard it from him. You don’t know what realy happened. You have to listen to me.”

“Why?” I asked, turning to face him. “Why should I listen to you?”

“He would’ve kiled me. He executes everyone who doesn’t folow orders. I had to obey. When you came to the palace, he saw the way we interacted, and he thought he could use it against you.

That you would fal in love with me.”

“I wil never love you,” I said bitterly, and he winced.

“I’m only teling you what the King thought,” Loki said carefuly.

“So he told me to get you to wilingly come back with me, and I said I would. Because I didn’t have a choice.”

“I understand that,” I said. “I realy do. And I can even forgive that. But why didn’t you tel me when you broke down my door begging for amnesty?”

“Because it didn’t matter,” he said. “Oren may have told me to pretend to care about you, but I cared about you for real. Why would I tel you that somebody asked me to lie when I’d only been teling the truth?”