Kiva didn’t look at the princess, her focus torn between Jaren and Caldon, one who was vibrating with rage, the other who was eerily calm.
Swallowing, she drew her wet cloak tighter and asked, “What did Tipp tell you?”
“No,” Caldon snapped. “You don’t get to repeat what we already know. We’ve been worried — for hours. We were just about to call the guards to launch a search party. Another search party. So you need to start talking. Right now.”
Through all of this, Jaren remained silent, his face still alarmingly blank. Caldon’s anger she could handle. But Jaren’s remoteness?
That was too much for Kiva to bear.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered — to them both. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just —” She drew on everything she was feeling, repeating the performance she’d given Tipp earlier that day. “I just wanted to see my family. To see if they — if they —” She made her throat bob, allowed tears to pool in her eyes. “To see if they wanted anything to do with me. After Zalindov.”
Caldon’s anger didn’t fade, but Jaren’s eyes flickered with compassion, his expression thawing. He reached for the blanket Tipp had left out and moved forward to wrap it around her shoulders, reminding her of how soaked she was.
“You were gone a long time,” Jaren said quietly.
“I got caught in the storm,” Kiva said, a partial truth. “I decided it was safer to wait it out.” She indicated her drenched clothes and offered a small, self-deprecating smile. “I didn’t realize the rain wasn’t finished.”
“The storm didn’t hit until late this afternoon,” Caldon stated, ignoring her attempt at levity. “You had plenty of time to return before then.”
“We had ten years of catching up to do,” Kiva lied. “I didn’t realize how quickly the day was passing.”
“You still haven’t said where you were,” Caldon said. “All Tipp could tell us was that it was ‘just out of the city’ — we had no idea where to look for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to look for me.” The words left Kiva before she could stop them.
“What part of this aren’t you understanding?” Caldon growled, his ire rising anew. “We care about you, Kiva. Ignoring that you deliberately kept me from coming with you — which I would have done in a heartbeat, as you damned well know — when you didn’t return, we thought something had happened to you. Do you have any idea how that feels, to know someone you care about is missing, possibly in danger, and you don’t know how to find them?”
The tears welling in Kiva’s eyes weren’t fake this time.
Caldon had lost both his parents after a storm had hit. He’d had no way to find them, or to know if they were still alive.
There were too many parallels with what Kiva had put him through that afternoon, unintentionally making him relive the worst moments of his life.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, her voice breaking on the words.
Her emotion didn’t sway Caldon. “Saying sorry doesn’t change what you did. I can’t even stand to look at you right now.” True to his word, he turned his fiery glare to Jaren and demanded, “Come find me later.”
He didn’t wait for his cousin to agree before storming out of the room.
Kiva stared after him, feeling numb.
“He’ll come around. Give him time.”
Turning slowly, Kiva faced Jaren again, the breath leaving her when she found his expression no longer closed, but flooded with everything he’d felt while she’d been gone. Fear, dread, desperation. And relief — so much relief that she was safe.
Her knees wobbled at the knowledge of how much power she held over him.
. . . And at the knowledge of how much, with a single look, he held over her.
Unable to continue holding his gaze, Kiva couldn’t resist — didn’t want to resist — when he drew her into his embrace.
“I won’t tell you not to do it again,” he whispered. “I won’t trap you here. But please, it would mean a lot if you could tell someone where you’re going next time.”
Kiva nodded against his chest, unable to lie to his face, his generous understanding prompting a sharp pain within her.
This was the Jaren that she hated.
Because this was the Jaren that she — that she —
Kiva didn’t finish the thought, refusing to admit how deeply she’d come to care for him.