My stomach tightened.

Hadn’t I seen Cion pull out a crumpled parchment and head off into the desert the night Dimic and I had played Skips? Hadn’t he gone off on his own several times since then?

Maybe Latia hadn’t been writing notes to her lover. Maybe she’d been giving Cion detailed maps of the palace.

But did she really fake those small smiles and blushing cheeks whenever I asked her about her soldier?

No, even then I’d known she was in love. No wonder I’d never been able to get the name of the man from her. Because it wasn’t a soldier.

It was Cion.

I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I took deep breaths of the frigid desert air in the hopes it would breathe life back into the parts of me that suddenly felt as if they were dissolving and numb the strangled feeling wrapping around me.

Even the small part of me that wanted to hope I was wrong knew I wasn’t. If she was out here helping him, there’s no way she’d let herself develop feelings for a soldier in the palace, for the enemy.

As if to prove my point, she glared at me and said, “Are you sure she can be trusted?”

I scoffed, as much in reply to her question as to hide that I needed a few more moments to be sure my voice wouldn’t betray any emotions. Besides, she was one to talk about trusting people.

She studied me from beneath long eyelashes. The kind of eyelashes any girl would be jealous of.

I’d never taken the time before to really look at her. She’d always seemed to dislike attention. But out here in the desert, she seemed to have bloomed like a cactus flower. Her large eyes stood out in the moonlight. In any setting, she’d be considered a beauty with her soft features, and standing next to Cion’s muscled body made her only look softer, more feminine.

I looked down at my own arms. Honed muscles stood out.

I couldn’t believe I thought Cion was going to kiss me. He must think I was a fool, sitting there staring at him with eyes as wide as moonstones. I wanted to grind my foot into the sand until all my anger drilled away. I wouldn’t let him, or her, know they’d had any effect on me. I had to be as cool as the desert. I straightened my shoulders and forced myself to look at her, face as stoic as my father’s as he waited for the accused to pick a door in the arena.

“We can trust her,” Cion replied. “She’s helped us with a raid and hasn’t run back to Rodric yet.”

“Only because she wouldn’t be able to find her way back,” Latia said.

I stiffened but stopped myself from going for my sword.

Cion must have sensed that. He sighed. “I was hoping you would get along for once. For all our sakes.”