“Is that what it was all about? Stopping me?” She all but spit the words, and cursed herself for the outburst. It revealed that more fed her fury and confusion than the death of the dream. She did not want to acknowledge the other pain scorching her.

He grabbed her to him. “Do not let hurt pride make you a fool.”

She squirmed to get away as tears filmed her eyes. She gritted her teeth to hold them in. “You played with me like a puppet. You even let me escape so that I would go to them, and be present when you held this parlay.”

“I prayed you would flee, but I counted on your disobeying me. It is well you are here. I do not trust Carwyn’s judgment. I do trust yours. When you explain to him what I have told you here, he will accept my terms. You will see that he does.”

The events of the past weeks played out in her mind. An insidious, new suspicion about one of them made her freeze and look up at him. “Genith. Did you let her escape? Permit it somehow?”

“I saw her with Dylan. I suspected he would not take her to Carwyn. Aye, I allowed them to escape.”

The revelation astonished her. “You knew about the alliance that early?”

“I did that for myself alone. She was not the daughter of Llygad whom I wanted.”

She twisted violently, to break his hold. “I do not believe you. Everything that you did, everything, was aimed at our defeat and destruction.”

“That is not true, damn it.” He held her tighter yet, and took her face in his hand so she would have to look at him. “If I wanted your defeat, a battle would be raging down there right now. If I wanted you destroyed, no man fighting under your father’s banner would leave the field alive.”

She pushed away from him, confused and furious. She strode to where he could not reach her, and turned her back on him.

“Damn you. You let me touch the dream but not grasp it fully.”

“It was not your dream, but another’s. You did not choose this duty. It was given to you.”

“As yours was given to you. Better if you had locked me away at once, as soon as you suspected, so their undoing would not be my fault.”

“It is not their undoing, but their salvation, that we give them today. And if I had put you away, or exposed what you were doing, you would have been lost to me.”

Her breath caught in surprise. She swung around to face him.

He stood there, ten paces away, in all his youthful, strong perfection. His face showed a warrior’s resolve and a lordly severity, but the deepest lights of his eyes revealed gentler emotions.