Page 116 of Blood of the Stars

Especially when she started laughing.

“She’s not as innocent as you think.” She dropped his hand and shook her head in disbelief. “Your mind is like a child’s, categorizing people as good and evil, right and wrong. It doesn’t work that way.”

He glanced around at the others, but most had cleared out, leaving Daisy, Orra, and the freckled man to their privacy. Even Riveran had gone to let their horses join the others at grazing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kendalyhn raised her eyebrows. “There’s a purity around her in your mind. Like she can do no wrong. You know she does blood magic, right?”

Her words took the breath out of him. Blood magic? He thought back on Orra’s comment about the dark spirits being drawn to Daisy’s blood.

She’d done blood magic.

“Yeah, we’ve all been disappointed. Sylmar made it sound like she’d change everything.” She glanced at the man with thick scars. “If Mayvus wants her, we should too, right? Only it seems Mayvus just likes collecting her family members and keeping them close. I wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them join up and rule the world together.” She turned to go, but Gaeren grabbed her arm. Something about her smile made him hesitate. There was a predatory hint, like when Lenda tried manipulating him to get what she wanted. Kendalyhn was goading him, but he didn’t know why.

“They’re family?”

“I thought you lived with the priestess for a year.” She gave him an incredulous look. “Surely in that time you heard Emeris talk about her dear sister, Mayvus?”

He frowned, trying to remember if there’d been any talk of an aunt. He’d known Daisy’s parents were hiding her, but he didn’t know what, or whom, they were hiding her from. He hadn’t even known who Mayvus was back then, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t already been climbing her way into power. He’d been eight, and he’d cared even less about politics then than he did now.

Kendalyhn narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. “You don’t know who she is, do you? You don’t know who any of them are.” Her eyes softened, then lost focus, like when Enla saw a vision.

“What are you talking about?”

Kendalyhn’s focus snapped back to the present. “She’s a Wyndren. They’re all Wyndrens.”

Gaeren took a step back. His face stung like her words had slapped him. He sought out Daisy, but he couldn’t reconcile the woman talking to Orra and patting the freckled man’s back with the family line he’d been raised to hate.

Enla had been so sure that none of them existed anymore, but she’d also been insistent that Mayvus wasn’t after more power. She needed to know Mayvus was part of the line contesting their throne. That their line hadn’t died out but had been hiding, biding their time until they could get themselves in a position of power. This was the proof he needed. It could change everything.

But how would that change things for Daisy? And should it? A throne warden would take out every threat to the crown. And anyone who could produce more Wyndren heirs was considered a threat. His mind tried to wrap around the idea that the woman he’d been hunting to protect was now suddenly someone he was supposed to hunt as a threat.

“I thought Recreants don’t want a ruler. But you all want her on the throne instead of my family?”

Kendalyhn snorted. “Aeliana? No. She would be a terrible ruler. Sylmar hasn’t even told her that her family has claim to the throne. She’s too weak to handle that kind of information. The southern and western Recreants push for democracy because they’ve been under your family’s thumb for too long. For those of us in the east, we’re still open to a ruler, and Aeliana’s mother is our first choice. We’d like the other Recreants to see this option as superior to your tyranny, but for now, we all simply agree that Mayvus needs to be removed. We can figure out the rest later.” She raised her eyebrows. “If you want Sylmar to keep you around, you should make that your focus as well.” Then she walked off, leaving Gaeren to digest everything she’d said.

He closed his eyes, picturing Daisy’s dimpled smile and curly locks. He wanted that simple, sweet toddler back.

“Kendalyhn says you wish Aeliana no harm.” Sylmar’s scratchy voice brought Gaeren’s eyes open.

He stared at the older man, knowing he should agree but too confused to say the words and mean them. “I came to protect her.”

“But now?”

Gaeren shook his head. “Now… I don’t know. She doesn’t need my protection. I shouldn’t even want to protect her if she’s a…”

Sylmar swore, glancing over his shoulder at Kendalyhn. “That girl needs to learn to keep her mouth shut. She’s supposed to find your secrets, not spill all of ours.”

“Well, like you said, I’m young and stupid.” Gaeren clenched his fists. “I don’t have secrets. I wanted to protect her because it was my childhood promise. She may not need my protection, but I’m not going to hurt her.” The words coming out of his mouth didn’t sound right. He still wanted to protect her, but deep down, it was like he’d been betrayed. Like she’d fooled him into caring about her for this very moment. So she could throw it in his face that he’d fallen for it.

Protecting her was the thing he’d held on to all these years. It was the one thing he’d needed to fix. And if he could fix this one thing, maybe it would get easier to fix the next thing.

He’d been a fool. All his life, he’d fought to avoid the drama of court and the pain of politics. He’d used his travels as a means of escape, not because he cared too little, but because he cared too much about the people around him, about the things he couldn’t change. Only now he realized it had made everyone think he didn’t care at all.

Maybe it didn’t matter whether or not he could change something. Maybe it only mattered that he tried. He should have tried harder.

Sylmar hummed, breaking through Gaeren’s thoughts.

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