Vivia walked. Not because she wanted to but because she saw no other choice. Every escape she imagined ended in bloodshed. Every attack she plotted ended with Cam dead upon the bone earth. So she did as she’d been ordered, and she walked. All through the night, with Cam just behind her. Mile after mile, with her blood simmering into rage. No regrets, keep moving, she told herself, but the usual refrain did nothing. She was furious in a way that made her eyes cross and her heart thud against her ribs. Yoris would pay for this. Dalmotti would pay.

They hiked for hours, the world silent save for the sea’s breeze and rhythmic waves, until they were too far inland to hear even that. Yoris was the first to finally speak, his voice rough despite a guzzle of water from a flask at his hip—water he did not share. “You aren’t going to offer me anything, Highness? Try to top your father’s reward or convince me that he’s the traitor?”

“No.” Vivia’s voice was rough too, and hell-waters, she would have killed for a drink. “We both know it would only be a waste of my breath. You’ve made up your mind about me, and well … everything I thought about you has been proven true.”

“He is the traitor, though,” Cam said, softly at first. Then a bit louder. “Serafin is the traitor. The crown belongs to Vivia, not the King Regent.”

“Is that so?” Yoris slowed to a stop, forcing everyone to halt as well. They were beside a low ditch through which water once ran. Now it was only a scar upon the yellow earth. “Forgive me if I don’t believe the boy whose loyalty changes like the tide—oh yes, did you think I wouldn’t remember you? I recognize you from Merik’s crew, even if you had ship’s-boy braids then.”

“It ain’t like that,” Cam began, but Vivia shook her head.

“Don’t bother fighting him, Cam. His mind is made up, and we can’t change it.”

Yoris sneered. First at Vivia, then at Cam. His scars scrunched into wicked lines. “Seems to me an innocent person would want to defend her name.”

“Seems to me you’ve spent too long in this dead world to know much about people.” Vivia matched his sneer. “Or much about what happens in the capital. Where’s my crew?”

His face briefly smoothed with surprise. Then somehow he scowled even more deeply, even more disdainfully. “You’ll see them soon enough, Highness. The ones that’re still alive.”

Oh, she would make him pay. If he’d truly hurt anyone, he would lose more than just his fingers. “How soon?” she ground out.

“When we reach the Gift.”

“The Gift?”

“Noden’s Gift,” Cam said before Yoris could open his mouth. “The place I told you about with the ship—”