Page 179 of Dare

“I’m indisposed,” I clipped, giving him a pointed look that caused his posture to waver.

“Yes, Sire,” he replied with uncertainty. “However, the Queens request an audience.”

Ah. I straightened and relented with a brisk nod.

Yet the knight dallied, his mouth compressing as if he’d been holding that insufferable trap shut since he and the convoy had stumbled upon me in the rainforest. I had returned to them once Flare had vanished out of sight with Poet and Briar. Thereupon, I had made sure to deter the legion from discovering the ruins. The fake camp I’d set up near the shore had achieved that.

Indigo had been the one to unspool the vine from around Solstice’s limbs. With pride, I could presume who’d used those knots to detain my First Knight. In any case, only one-quarter of the troops had survived the rainforest, its predators, and the wounds our clan had inflicted in the dark.

Presently, the soldier lingered but said nothing. My eyes thinned, and I lifted a brow in cold inquiry.

His bravado faltered. So much for verbalizing himself. But for treasonous reasons, I deemed it unwise to encourage this one. For a long time now, my intuition had been detecting the reek and prowl of an imposter.

Like a hotshot, Indigo flexed his shoulders. Indeed, here it came.

“You were gathering wood, Sire,” he testified.

It took a moment to comprehend this. He meant the lumber Flare and I had been collecting at the cove. Prior to the chase, we’d abandoned those timbers.

To this, I said nothing but waited for more.

Not for long. “There were two slings.”

And I had two arms. Though, pointing that out would sound defensive.

On to the next query. My silence prompted the knight to grow a pair of testicles. “It seems uncommon that you would leave them there.”

Correct. “Uncommon” was putting it mildly—a deliberate choice of word, often tossed casually around like daggers during roundtables between adversaries.

How uncommon to make that decision.

What an uncommon train of thought.

Anyone trying to survive wouldn’t abandon supplies, especially not a methodical man like the Winter Prince. Meaning that if I’d been gathering wood when the armada had appeared, I must have seen the ships. Yet I hadn’t remained to greet my rescue until later, in a different location.

Meaning I had vanished. Possibly in a hurry. Shortly before my brethren had been shredded by unseen forces, which they’d assumed were purely fauna.

I stared, denying this bullshitter my response. To do otherwise would require bending to his will.

I could remind him of what had happened to the last soldier who’d broken my trust. Though, doubtless Indigo remembered that disembowelment. He had witnessed that incident in Autumn, when I’d gutted one of his fellow soldiers in the presence of Poet and Briar. And while the troops had trusted my judgment, understanding the knight to be some form of traitor to the Crown, Indigo had nonetheless been casting me cursory glances ever since.

I would deliberate whether Rhys had recruited this warrior as a spy, but no. The Summer King’s informants had been scholars. By contrast, Indigo’s attitude could be a result of my falsified allegiance with Poet and Briar, which had been out of character for me. I had made the public excuse that I’d suspected Rhys of duplicity and therefore worked alongside Autumn to expose the king. While the explanation had satisfied my court, this soldier’s wariness hadn’t gotten past me.

Unlike Rhys’s spies, Indigo didn’t require the influence of Summer to motivate him. Nor did he know about my condition, because the spies hadn’t gotten that far into their investigations. Instead, the knight’s misgivings were rooted in something else, feasibly having to do with Flare.

With deadly calm, I selected one of the bottles and parsed its contents, holding it up and speaking in a detached voice. “I heard a disturbance in the wild and assumed some of the troops had crossed into the forest ahead of the rest. Naturally, I pursued this possibility.” With supreme focus, I set down the vessel. “I understand why you’re smarting that my Summer captive got away from us both—”

“I’m not smarting,” the obstinate knight protested.

Cooly, I lifted my eyebrows. At which point, the man sealed his mouth shut. Cutting off Winter’s prince was tantamount to civil disobedience. He might as well be asking me to extract his balls with a set of pliers.

Because he stayed quiet for a minimum of ten seconds, I trampled over the silence. “Needless to say, wood was hardly on my mind.”

Once more, Indigo recovered. This time, he had the guts to grow confident. Therefore, insolent.

His eyes flickered. “Pray, was anything else on your mind, Sire?”

Two words. “The forest.”