Page 211 of A Warrior's Fate

Her chest was tight as Kai pulled away, face drawn in confusion, before taking his seat across from her. It had been merely a bite into their meal when he asked, “Are you okay?”

Isla swallowed her piece of omelet, nodding. She didn’t want to tell him, frighten him in any way, with what she’d been afraid of, so she went with what their plan for breakfast chatter had been all along.

Strategy.

“Do you think the killer’s being used by someone else?”

Kai nearly choked at the proposal. “Why would you think that?”

“Because their behavior isn’t consistent,” Isla said. “They nearly kill you, now warn you. Nearly kill me, then warn me. It’s like they…broke character. Snapped.”

He furrowed his brows. “By killing?”

“By not.” Isla hesitated, pushing around the food on her plate and trying to figure out the best way to explain her theory, especially because of the topic she’d be broaching. “They killed your father and brother first and intended to kill you. Something that extreme requires planning and skill which they’ve proven to have.” She was mindful of the way Kai shifted in his seat, the tenseness of his jaw, and what she felt on the other end of the bond. “They broke from the plan when they got to you.”

“Why?” Kai asked gruffly, that guilt flickering in his eyes. “What made me any different from them?”

Isla answered as she had in his office, “I don’t know.”

“So why would that mean they’re being used?”

She shoved another piece of egg into her mouth, fueling her for what would surely be another rabbit hole.

“After that, they left you messages, and then saved me and Lukas in the Hunt. Then nearly had me killed—and then went back to helping us again.” She made a point of each nonsensical action.

Kai took a bite of his food, shrugging. “It’s definitely weird.”

“It’s more than weird,” Isla countered before starting carefully, “In the wasteland before Rhydian and Ameera showed up after the killer saved me from the bak, they seemed—hurt—when I asked them why they did it. Why they tried to kill me.” She knew she would sound crazy, but still posed, “What if it was because they…hadn’t wanted to?”

Kai dragged a hand through his bed-mussed hair. “They hadn’t wanted to, but they had to?”

Despite his assessing words, he didn’t look at all convinced.

Still, Isla answered, “Yes.”

Kai heaved a breath. “Isla.”

That tone.

Her back went straight. “What?”

Kai’s smile was soft, though there was still a tenseness to him. “You were the same way with Lukas when he came back from behind the Wall and tried to kill that hunter. Twice. And then turned on that other Callisto guard.” Now he looked as if he were choosing his words carefully. “How much you care is one of the many things I love about you—but Lukas? He tried to kill you. Had reason to. They told him that if he did it, they’d let him out, and he was going to. How can you still defend him?”

Isla dropped her fork and looked down at her hands, remembering the feeling of Lukas’s blood coating her skin, recalling how it had felt to tear through his flesh. Recalling that look in his eyes that still haunted her sometimes. That sudden clearness, openness, before she thought she’d watched him die.

“Because something still doesn’t feel right. With anything, him included. No one goes into the Wilds and leaves forgetting their entire existence.” She clenched and released her fists, refusing to look up, shame coiling in her gut. “We have nine days until the challenge, and the rogues have to be a distraction, one that’s working. We’re missing something—big. And if we look at what’s been given to us…I think it has to do with the house and the tunnels.”

“Fuck.”

Isla lifted her eyes in time with Kai dropping his own fork and wedging his hands into his hair. He lowered his head, shaking it and cursing again and again.

“What?” she asked, and he met her gaze, a low simmer behind his stare as his nostrils flared.

“I think there’s a witch in the Wilds.”

CHAPTER 44

“A witch in the Wilds?” Isla leaned back in her seat so far, she’d nearly toppled off. “How? They’d never survive.”

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