He moved to stand beside her. “Is something wrong, Yaya?”

For several minutes, she didn’t speak. Then, she touched his shoulder where his mother had sliced him open. “Tell me, Dancer. When your mother chastised you, what did you do to deserve it?”

He started to move away without answering, but she caught his arm.

“I am old, tana, I won’t think ill of you for it. But no one has ever told me what it is you did that was so wrong she publicly scarred you over it.”

Hauk flinched as he went back in his mind to that day that was forever carved not just into his flesh, but his memories.

At eighteen, he’d been as headstrong as Darice. Dariana’s mourning period was coming to a close and his mother had scheduled their pledging.

“I won’t do it, Matarra.”

She’d growled in his face. “You will do this.”

Hauk had been adamant. “I can’t take her as my wife.”

She’d backhanded him for his denial. “No one else wants you. Do you understand? You’re revolting. Deformed. There are no other noble families willing to pledge to you. Not for any reason. And she is your brother’s widow.”

“She’s my brother’s murderer.”

This time, she’d struck him so hard, she’d loosened his teeth. “Never say that out loud!”

He’d wiped away the blood on his lips as he glared at her. “I was there, Matarra. I saw him using the drugs she gave him. It’s why she destroyed his body that I carried home, in honor.”

“You’re lying!”

“Why would I lie?”

“To protect yourself.”

“From what? Disgrace? Humiliation? Contrary to what you and Dariana think, I didn’t kill him, Matarra.” All he’d wanted was for his mother to understand the truth. To stop looking at him like he was a piece of shit who should have died. “Too high to understand what he was doing, Keris took his own life. He cut the line and —”

Shrieking, she’d attacked him so viciously that he’d stumbled and fallen. She’d seized him by his throat and before he realized her intent, she clawed open his flesh from shoulder to pec. “You ever breathe a word of your lies to anyone and you can join that piece of human-loving filth in exile. I cannot believe the gods took my one, true son and left me with you. I wish to all that’s holy that you’d never returned.”

“Dancer?”

It took him a minute to realize his grandmother was calling him. Blinking, he looked down at her. “Yes, Yaya?”

“Why did she chastise you?”

He forced his emotions down and answered with the simplest, least painful explanation. “Because I let my brother die.”

She sighed heavily. “I know there’s more to it than that. One day, Dancer, I hope you’ll trust me with the truth.”