“I do as I like, boy,” she told him. “I don’t answer to you or anyone.”

“It seems reckless,” he said, not even looking at her because his focus was on some parchments he held in his hands. His shoulder-length gold hair was pulled off his face and tied by a leather thong at the back of his neck. He wore black chain mail that must have been made for him by one of the better blacksmiths, and stood well over six feet. “I can honestly say I’m not sure the family would help should the Zealots manage to take you.”

“You seem highly concerned.”

“Only about how it would look to the other kingdoms.” He glanced down at her. He didn’t have the gold eyes of his father, but the shrewd, mistrusting gray eyes of his mother. “I’m sure you understand.”

“Don’t you worry. No Zealots can touch me, even if they try.” She grinned. “And none of them are brave enough to try.”

“Fine,” he said, focusing again on his papers. “Just be mindful.”

Brigida nodded and walked away from the boy. She was hungry and she’d seen some elk near one of the lakes.

“Did you and my sister have a nice talk?”

Brigida stopped again, looked back at the boy . . . but he wasn’t there.

She swung around and he stood in front of her again.

“Ain’t you wily.”

It had taken Brigida centuries to learn to do what the boy did so easily at eighteen. She’d learned it to terrify others. He did it to irritate. To let others know he was ahead of them.

The little prick.

“My sister,” the boy prompted.

“Don’t worry. She has no interest in what I have to offer. I’m sure she’ll figure out that mistake soon enough.”

“A mistake? Really?” He smirked at her before refocusing on his fancy parchments. “My sister is many things, but she always knows a good offer when she hears one. She could haggle the horns from the head of Rhydderch Hael himself . . . if she so wanted. She walked away from what you had to offer because she knows as well as I do that what you propose is hollow. Empty. You should know that vapid doesn’t mean stupid.”

Brigida decided to cut through it. Her stomach was grumbling. “What do you want, boy?”

“Stay away from my kin. My sisters, specifically.”

“Or what?” She leaned into the boy, lowered her voice to a whisper. “What are you going to do to me?”

The boy lifted those cold gray eyes and Brigida looked deep. Deeper than she’d looked before. And she saw it then. Behind all that coldness, locked deep inside the boy, was the kind of hidden rage Brigida had only seen once, maybe twice in her life. A rage the boy controlled with sheer will and reason. Just like his mum.