“Of course I knew,” Saika snapped. “We’d have a falling out and she’d go off and find a new lover and then come crawling back, again and again and again. It broke my heart the first few times. . . .” She glanced over her shoulder at Yaest. “But then I stopped waiting for her to grow up and come to her senses. I was going to confront her about it when she came back from the wedding in the High Mountain Court . . . but then everything happened and I couldn’t.”

“Delta would hate that you stayed with her out of pity,” Bri snarled. “She . . . ugh, I don’t want to be involved—” Bri cut herself off, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration.

“I just wanted you to understand,” Saika pleaded.

“I don’t want to understand,” Bri growled. “Have a dozen lovers, I don’t care. But don’t promise to someone that you’ll be loyal only to them and then break that promise. That is something I’ll never understand. Both of you . . . just . . .” She clenched her hands into fists, trying to rein herself in from the lengthy rant desperate to spill from her lips. With a final glowering look, she turned back to the door and grabbed the handle. “Sort your shit out, Saika.”

Bri stormed back into the hall, uncaring as she nearly bowled over a guard on her way back to her room. She needed to find Carys and tell her what had just happened. They would need to double back and reinvestigate Yaest given this new information. A low growl rumbled in her chest.

There’d only been one person she’d ever wanted to be faithful to, and Bri couldn’t have imagined ever breaking that promise to her. Even now that she was long gone, it felt wrong to ever love another. The steady rotation of women in and out of Bri’s bed all knew that it was a casual, one-time thing. She’d always been very clear on what she wanted from them, and they’d always been eager for one night of mischief with her.

She couldn’t understand why Saika and Delta couldn’t have just decided to openly live that way too. Lies rotted relationships from the inside, and she knew if they didn’t talk to each other soon, it would all crumble down around them.

When Bri threw open the door to their room, Carys’s eyebrows raised and she dropped the book in her hand. Perching her elbow onto her knee, she leaned in.

“Oh, this is going to be good,” she said, already intrigued from the way Bri stormed into the room.

Bri swept her hair off her forehead and pinned Carys with a look. “You know a court is messed up when its Princess is the most trustworthy person amongst them.”

*   *   *