That was what she’d told herself for the past month. That was the story she’d made herself believe. But where did this new truth fit into it? How could a father sell his child to the enemy? How, how, how could he love her at all yet so willingly give her away?

“I am sorry.” Vaness shot to her feet, abrupt. Graceless. “I did not intend to cause pain.”

“Then why did you say anything?” Vivia snapped. It was getting harder by the moment to form words and sneak them past the heat in her chest.

“I simply…” Vaness wet her lips. “I wish I could make it better.”

“There’s nothing to make better.”

“I need not be a Truthwitch to spot that lie.”

No. Vivia would not have this conversation. She would not give in to the tightening around her chest. She needed to move. They needed to move—there were hunters behind them, after all, and sitting still was a quick path to madness. She stepped into the stream to cross it. It kicked and kissed at her, so gentle.

She only made it two steps before Vaness said, “Wait, Vivia … Your Majesty. Please wait.”

And against her better judgment, Vivia paused, right in the middle of the stream. Behind her, Vaness took her own first step into the running waters.

“My parents died when I was young,” she said. “I have been Empress for as long as I can remember.” A second step. Then a third. “Like you, I have had to hide everything I feel lest the world use it against me.” Three more steps and she was at Vivia’s side.

But Vivia did not look toward her. She simply stared at the water and willed the storm clouds inside her to pass. No regrets, no regrets.

“I have never had anyone to whom I could show myself,” Vaness went on. “But I … but you … We’re alike, you see?”

Vivia did not see. The Empress had grown up in a world with wealth beyond imagining. Vivia had been born to a nation poisoned and dead. Before Vivia could stop her, though, Vaness reached out and grabbed Vivia’s wrist. “You do not have to hide in front of me, Your Majesty.” Her fingers tightened. “Vivia, you do not have to hide.”

Vivia frowned at Vaness’s fine-boned fingers, curled against her skin. The Empress’s Witchmark was sharp and black, even in this dappled light. As if she had it regularly dyed anew. The hairs on her arms glistened with sweat. Her iron bracelet rested gently against a delicate wrist.

She was beautiful. She was regal. And she and Vivia were nothing alike, no matter how much Vivia might wish that they could be. She’d grown up hating this woman. Like her fear of the waters once poisoned around her, she could not change her hatred overnight.