He dropped her arm. “I’ve heard enough. That bastard is making you stay with him while he marries another. You need not explain anything else. I see it all. The disguises you used to get out of the palace and away from the situation. Your desire to spend more time in the freedom we have without the watchful eye of the prince. If I didn’t already hate the Rhodipus line, this would push me farther down that road.”

Tears formed in her eyes. “You’re against the royal family? All of them?”

He sighed. “The young prince and queen seem okay. But Len, the king and his family have led us into ruin. The people of Madra starve while he plans balls.”

“Tradition says the princess has to have a ball to choose a husband before her mask is removed.”

“Screw tradition.”

She gasped. “You don’t mean that. Tradition built Madra into what it is.”

“A war-mongering nation? I’m sorry, Len, but Madra is no great kingdom. The king cares nothing for the people and Estevan is no better. The bastard princes are rarely even on Madran soil. We know nothing about the princess. Why is she kept from us? It’s not right. She will be head of the merchant council and the merchants are driving the wedge between the classes even deeper. Our freedoms fall down around us, and she sits in her palace obeying priests and learning how to take more food from children’s mouths to give the merchants.”

No tears clouded Len’s eyes any longer as they hardened. “Says the merchant’s son.”

“You know nothing about me.” He turned and walked down the beach.

“And you know so much about me?” she yelled at his back. “I’ve changed my mind. Take me back to the palace.”

“With pleasure.”

Darkness blanketed the world by the time Dell and Len rode back through the city streets.

“Take me to Edmund’s,” Len said.

They were the first words she’d spoken since they left the beach. The brief moment of peace they’d experienced didn’t exist in either of their lives.

“If you take me to the palace, they’re likely to arrest you.”

He grunted. “I don’t need you to explain it to me.”

“Sorry.”

He scratched the side of his face. “No, it’s okay. I’m just…”

“Yeah, me too. Look Dell, I think today was a mistake. We shouldn’t have run. Both of us have lives here in Madra that we need to get on with. I don’t think I’m going to see you again.”

He wanted to tell her different, but he couldn’t. She was right. They couldn’t seek each other out. But how was he supposed to forget about a girl who made every pain in his life disappear?

A girl whose stubbornness drove him. A girl he…