Текст книги "The Kiss of Deception"

Автор книги: Mary E. Pearson

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Pauline immediately voiced her disapproval. “This is a holy meal, Gwyneth.”

“And a celebration,” Gwyneth countered as she slid six roasted pigeons from the spit onto platters. “How do you think all those First Daughters came to be born from the Remnant? My bet’s that Morrighan knew how to swing her hips.”

Pauline rolled her eyes and kissed her fingers as penance for Gwyneth’s sacrilege.

I let out an exasperated sigh. “I am not flirting with anyone.”

“Haven’t you already?” Gwyneth asked.

I didn’t answer. Gwyneth had witnessed my frustration as I came in the kitchen door. Once again, Rafe had gone from attentive and warm to distant and cold as soon as we reached the inn. I’d slammed the kitchen door behind me, and I’d said under my breath, “What is wrong with him?” Gwyneth heard my grumbling. I tried to cover by saying I was talking about Enzo, but she would have none of it.

“What about the blond one? What’s the matter with him?”

“Nothing’s the matter with him! Why are you—”

“I actually think he has kinder eyes,” Pauline said. “And his voice is—”

“Pauline!” I looked at her incredulously. She turned back to arranging piles of bush beans.

“Oh, stop acting so innocent, Lia. You know you find them both attractive. Who wouldn’t?”

I sighed. Who wouldn’t indeed. But there was more to how I felt than simple attraction. I spilled sorrel, rose hips, dandelions, and loquats onto the platters surrounding the pigeons in a colorful edible nest, and even though I didn’t respond, Gwyneth and Pauline continued to go back and forth on the merits of Rafe and Kaden and how I should proceed with them.

“I’m glad my friendships provide so much entertainment for you two.”

Gwyneth balked. “Friendships? Ha! But a sure way to get the attentions of one is to lavish yours on another.”

“Enough,” I said.

Berdi poked her head through the swinging door. “Ready?” she asked.

Each of us took a platter into the dining room, which Berdi had lit with candles. She had pushed four tables together to create one large one in the center of the room. The guests were already seated around it, Kaden, Rafe, and three others from the inn. The rest had gone to the public meal.

We set the trays in the center of the table and Pauline and Gwyneth quickly took the remaining open seats, leaving me to sit with Kaden on my left and Rafe adjacent at the corner on my right. He smiled as I sat, and my frustrations melted into something else, something warm and expectant. Berdi took her place at the head of the table and sang the remembrances. The rest of us joined in, but I noticed Rafe only moved his lips. He didn’t know the words. Had he received no instruction at all? It was the commonest of prayers. Every child knew it. I glanced at Pauline, sitting on the other side of Kaden. She had noticed too. But Kaden sang even and clear. He was schooled in the holy songs.

The songs were finished, and Berdi gave thanks for each item on the platters, all the foods that the Remnant had found in abundance when they were delivered to a new land, and once each food was blessed, we were all invited to eat.

The room went from reverent whispers to festive chatter. The meal was eaten with fingers only, following tradition, but Berdi did break with custom by bringing out one of her blackberry wines and pouring everyone a small glass. I sipped the dark purple liquid and felt its sweetness warm my chest. I turned to Rafe, who was watching me. I boldly looked back as I slowly nibbled a piece of the silky dark pigeon meat and then leisurely licked my greasy fingers, never taking my eyes from him.

Rafe swallowed, though he hadn’t eaten anything yet. He scooped up a handful of pine nuts and leaned back to pop them in his mouth. One fell from his hand to the table, and I reached out and put it in my mouth. I blinked slowly, pulling out every trick I had seen Gwyneth use—and then some. He took another sip of wine and pulled on his collar, his chest rising in a deep breath, and then suddenly the icy curtain fell again. He looked away and began a conversation with Berdi.

My resentment surged. Maybe I didn’t know how to flirt. Or maybe I was just flirting with the wrong person. I looked at Gwyneth across from me. She tilted her head toward Kaden. I turned and engaged him in chatter. We talked about the procession, the sacraments, and the games that would begin tomorrow. I noticed our earnest attention on each other set Rafe on edge. His own conversation with Berdi became stilted, and his fingers tapped on the table. I leaned closer to Kaden and asked which games he would participate in tomorrow.

“I’m not really sure.” His eyes narrowed, a question lurking behind them. He glanced at my hand resting on the table in front of him, invading his space, and he leaned closer. “Is there one I should try?”

“I’ve heard a lot of excitement about the log wrestling, but maybe you shouldn’t—” I reached up and laid my hand on his shoulder. “How’s your shoulder since I bandaged it?” Rafe turned his head toward us, halting his conversation with Berdi.

“My shoulder is fine,” Kaden answered. “You nursed it well.”

Rafe pushed back his chair. “Thank you, Berdi, for—”

Fire shot through my temples. I knew what he was doing. One of his quick cold exits. I cut him off, jumping up before he could, and threw my napkin on the table. “I’m not so hungry after all. Excuse me!”

Kaden tried to get up to follow, but Pauline grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. “You can’t leave yet, Kaden. I wanted to ask you…”

I didn’t hear the rest of her words. I was already out the door charging for our cottage, humiliated, my frustrations doubling back in searing fury. I heard Rafe on my heels.

“Lia! Where are you going?”

“A bath!” I yelled. “I need a good cold bath!”

“It was rude of you to leave dinner so—”

I stopped and spun toward him, my rage so complete it was fortunate I didn’t have my knife strapped to my side. “Go away! Do you understand me? Go! Away! Now!” I whirled back, not waiting to see if he listened or not. My head throbbed. My nails dug into my palms. When I reached the cottage, I threw open the door. I grabbed soap and a towel from the wardrobe, whirled around, and slammed into Rafe.

I stepped back. “What’s the matter with you? You say one thing to me with your eyes and another with your actions! Every time I think we’ve connected, you stomp off! Every time I want to—” I fought back tears. My throat tightened. “Am I that repulsive to you?”

He stared at me, not answering, even though I stood there waiting for something, and I was struck with the horror of the truth. His jaw clenched. The silence was long and cruel. I wanted to die. He took a slow, calculated breath. “It’s not as simple as—”

I couldn’t stand any more of his evasive platitudes. “Go!” I yelled. “Please! Go away! Permanently!” I pushed past him and took pleasure watching him stumble against the bed rail. I charged on toward the creek.

I heard noises, half scream, half animal growl, foreign even to my ears, though they were coming from my own throat. He still followed. I turned on the trail to face him, spitting out my words.

“Why in the gods’ names are you tormenting me? What do you care that I left? You started to leave first!”

His chest heaved, but his words cut icy and even. “I was only leaving because you looked like you were occupied. Are you planning to take Kaden as another lover?”

He may as well have punched me in the gut, my breath was so completely taken away. I looked at him, my mouth open, still trying to comprehend his words. “Another lover?”

“I saw you,” he said, his eyes piercing me. “Your tryst in the woods. I think you called him Walther.”

It took several seconds for me to even understand what he was talking about. When I finally did, a blinding black cloud whirled behind my eyes. “You stupid, stupid oaf!” I screeched. “Walther is my brother!” I shoved him with the flats of both hands, and he reeled back.

I fled toward the creek. This time there were no footsteps behind me. No demands that I stop. Nothing. I felt ill, as if the greasy pigeon was batting its way back up from my stomach. A lover.

He’d said it with complete contempt. Had he been spying on me? Did he see what he wanted to see and nothing else? What had he expected of me? I retraced every step of my reunion with Walther, wondering how it could have been misconstrued. It couldn’t, unless you were looking for something unseemly. I had run to Walther. I called his name. I hugged him, kissed his cheeks, laughed and whirled in joy with him, and that was all.

Except that it was a secretive meeting, deep in the woods.

When I reached the creek, I planted myself on a boulder and rubbed my ankle. It throbbed from my careless stomping.

What had I done? My throat twisted into a painful knot. Rafe only saw me as a fickle, dallying maid who played with a multitude of inn guests. I closed my eyes, swallowed, and drew my breaths in slowly, trying to force the ache away.

I would own up to my mistake, and I had made a perfectly glorious one. I had presumed too much. Rafe was a guest of the inn. I was a maid who worked there. And that was all. I thought of the terrible scene in the dining room. My shameless flirting with Kaden, and everything I had said to Rafe. Heat flushed my face. How could I have made such a mistake?

I slid from the rock to the ground, hugging my knees and staring at the creek. I had no interest in cold or hot baths anymore. I only wanted to crawl into a bed where I could sleep forever and pretend today had never happened. I thought about getting up, walking to the cottage, and melting into the mattress, but instead my eyes stayed locked on the creek, thinking of Rafe, his face, his eyes, his warmth, his disdain, his vile presumptions.

I had thought he was different. Everything about him seemed different, every way that he made me feel. I’d thought we had some sort of special connection. I was obviously so very wrong.

The sparkling color of the creek dimmed to shadowy gray as daylight receded. I knew it was time to go before Pauline worried about where I was and came looking for me, but my legs were too tired to carry me. I heard a noise, a soft shuffling. I turned my head toward the path, wondering if Pauline had already hunted me down, but it wasn’t her. It was Rafe.

I closed my eyes and took a long pained breath. Please leave. I couldn’t deal with him anymore. I opened my eyes. He was still there, a bottle in one hand, a small basket in the other. He stood tall and still and so beautifully and irritatingly perfect. I looked at him blankly, betraying no emotion. Leave.

He took a step closer. I shook my head, and he stopped. “You were right, Lia,” he said quietly.

I remained silent.

“When we first met, you called me an ill-mannered boor.” He shifted from one foot to the other, pausing to look at the ground, an awkward worried expression crossing his face. He looked back up. “I’m everything you could ever call me, and more. Including stupid oaf. Maybe especially that.” He walked closer.

I shook my head again, wanting him to stop. He didn’t. I got to my feet, grimacing as I put weight on my ankle. “Rafe,” I said quietly, “just go away. It’s all a big mistake—”

“Please. Let me get this out while I still have the courage to say it.” The troubled crease deepened between his brows. “My life’s complicated, Lia. There are so many things I can’t explain to you. Things you wouldn’t even want to know. But there’s one thing you could never call me.” He set the bottle and basket down on a patch of grass. “The one thing you can never call me is repulsed by you.”

I swallowed. He closed what gap was left between us, and I had to lift my chin to see him. He looked down at me. “Because ever since that first day I met you, I’ve gone to sleep every single night thinking about you, and every morning when I wake, my first thoughts are of you.” He stepped impossibly closer and lifted his hands, cupping my face, his touch so gentle it was barely there. “When I’m not with you, I wonder where you are. I wonder what you’re doing. I think about how much I want to touch you. I want to feel your skin, your hair, run every dark strand through my fingers. I want to hold you, your hands, your chin.” His face drew nearer, and I felt his breath on my skin. “I want to pull you close and never let you go,” he whispered.

We stood there, every second, every breath an eternity, and slowly our lips met, warm, gentle, his mouth soft against mine, his breaths becoming mine, and then just as slowly, the perfect moment paused, and our lips parted again.

He pulled back far enough to look at me, his hands sliding from my face to my neck to my hair, his fingers tangling in it. My own hands reached up, slipping behind his head. I pulled him to me, our lips scarcely touching, taking the tingle and warmth of each other in, and then our mouths pressed together again, and his hands glided to my back, pulling me closer.

“Lia?”

We heard Pauline’s distant worried call and moved away from each other. I wiped my lips, adjusting my shirt, and saw her coming around the path. Rafe and I stood like awkward wooden soldiers. Pauline stopped short when she saw us. “I’m sorry. It was getting dark, and when I didn’t find you in the cottage—”

“We were just walking back,” Rafe answered. We looked at each other, and he sent me a message with his eyes. It only lasted a brief second, but it was a full, knowing look that said everything I had felt and imagined about us was true.

He stooped and grabbed the basket and bottle, handing them to me. “I thought your appetite might return.”

I nodded. Yes, it seemed it already had.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I leaned forward in the tub as Pauline scrubbed my back, savoring the slippery luxury of the bath oils on my skin and the hot water soothing my bruised muscles. Pauline dropped the sponge in the water in front of me, splashing my face.

“Come back to earth, Lia,” she called.

“It’s not every day one has a first kiss,” I said.

“May I remind you that it wasn’t your first kiss?”

“It felt like it was. It was the first one that mattered.”

She had told me as we were drawing water for our baths that everyone could hear us yelling from the dining room, so Berdi and Gwyneth had started another round of songs to drown out our words, but Pauline had heard me shout go away, so she never thought she’d end up interrupting a kiss. She’d already apologized several times, but I told her that nothing could take away from the moment.

She lifted a pitcher of warm rosewater. “Now?”

I stood and she let the fragrant water trickle over my head and down my body into the tub. I wrapped myself in a towel and stepped out, still reliving every moment, especially that last brief exchange looking into each other’s eyes.

“A farmer,” I sighed. “Isn’t that romantic?”

“Yes,” Pauline agreed.

“So much more genuine than a stuffy old prince.” I smiled. He worked the land. He made things grow. “Pauline? When did you—” And then I remembered it wasn’t a subject I should broach with her.

“When did I what?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.”

She sat on the end of the bed, rubbing oil onto her freshly bathed ankles. She appeared to have forgotten my half-said question, but after a moment she asked, “When did I know I had fallen in love with Mikael?”

I sat down across from her. “Yes.”

She sighed, pulling her knees up and hugging them. “It was early spring. I had seen Mikael several times in the village. He always had plenty of girls around him, so I never thought he’d noticed me. But he had. One day as I walked by, I felt his gaze on me, even though I didn’t look his way. Every time I went by after that, he stopped, ignoring the attentions of those around him, and he watched me until I passed, and then one day—” I watched her eyes looking at the opposite wall but seeing something else. Seeing Mikael. “I was on my way to the dressmaker, and he suddenly fell in step beside me. I was so nervous I just looked straight ahead. He didn’t say anything, just walked beside me, and when we were almost at the shop, he said, ‘I’m Mikael.’ I started to reply, and he stopped me. He said, ‘You don’t have to tell me who you are. I already know. You’re the most exquisite creature the gods ever created.’”

“And that’s when you knew you loved him?”

She laughed. “Oh, no. What soldier doesn’t have a posy of sweet words at the ready?” She sighed and shook her head. “No, it was two weeks later, when he’d exhausted every posy at his disposal, and he seemed so dejected, and he looked at me. Just looked at me.” Her eyes glistened. “And then he whispered my name in the sweetest, weakest, most honest voice, ‘Pauline.’ That’s all, just my name, Pauline. That’s when I knew. He had nothing left, but he wasn’t giving up.” She smiled, her expression dreamy, and resumed massaging oil into her foot and ankle.

Was it possible that Pauline and Mikael had shared something true and real, or had Mikael just drawn from a new well of tricks? Whichever it was, he had gone back to his old ways and warmed his lap now with a fresh supply of girls, forgetting Pauline and tossing aside whatever they had. But that didn’t make her love for him any less true.

I bent over and rubbed my hair with the towel to dry it. I want to feel your skin, your hair, run every dark strand through my fingers. I pulled the wet strands to my nose and sniffed. Did he like the scent of rose?

My first encounter with Rafe had been a contentious one, and not by any stretch had I been smitten the way Walther was when he saw Greta. And Rafe certainly hadn’t wooed me with sweet words the way Mikael had Pauline. But maybe that didn’t make it any less true. Maybe there were a hundred different ways to fall in love.

From the loins of Morrighan,

From the far end of desolation,

From the scheming of rulers,

From the fears of a queen,

Hope will be born.

–Song of Venda

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I nearly burst with joy watching Pauline dress in the new clothes I’d bought her, a loose peach-colored shift and delicate green sandals. After weeks of wearing the heavy clothing of Civica or her drab mourning clothes, she blossomed in the summer hues.

“Such a relief in this heat. I couldn’t love it more, Lia,” she said, admiring the transformation in the mirror. She turned sideways, pulling on the fabric to judge its girth. “And it should fit me through the last spike of autumn.”

I placed the garland of pink flowers on her head, and she became a magical wood nymph.

“Your turn,” she said. My own shift was white with embroidered lavender flowers sprinkled across it. I slipped it on and twirled, looking at myself in the mirror and feeling something akin to a cloud, light and liberated from this earth. Pauline and I both paused, contemplating the claw and vine on my shoulder, the thin straps of the shift leaving it clearly visible.

Pauline reached out, touched the claw, and shook her head slowly as she considered it. “It suits you, Lia. I’m not sure why, but it does.”

When we arrived at the tavern, Rafe and Kaden were loading the wagon with tables from the dining room and cases of Berdi’s blackberry wine and preserves. As we approached, they both stopped mid-lift and slowly set their heavy loads back down. They said nothing, just stared.

“We should bathe more often,” I whispered to Pauline, and we both suppressed a giggle.

We excused ourselves to go inside and see if Berdi needed help with anything else. We found her with Gwyneth in the kitchen, loading pastries into a basket. Pauline stared longingly at the golden-crusted blackberry scones as they disappeared layer after layer into the basket. Berdi finally offered her one. She nibbled a corner self-consciously and swallowed.

“There’s something I need to tell you all,” she blurted out breathlessly.

For a moment, chatter, shuffling, and clanking of pans stopped. Everyone stared at Pauline. Berdi set the scone she was about to add to the basket back on the tray.

“We know,” she said.

“No,” Pauline insisted. “You don’t. I—”

Gwyneth reached out and grabbed Pauline’s arms. “We know.”

Somehow this became the signal for all four of us to go the table in the corner of the kitchen and sit. Gentle folds pressed down around Berdi’s eyelids, her lower lids watery, as she explained that she had been waiting for Pauline to tell her. Gwyneth nodded her understanding while I looked at all of them in wonder.

Their words were sure and deliberate. Hands were squeezed, days counted, and sorrows shouldered. My hands reaching out to become part of it all—the agreement, the solidarity, Pauline’s head pulled to Berdi’s chest, Gwyneth and I exchanging glances, so much said with no words at all. Our relationships shifted. We became a sisterhood with a common cause, soldiers of our own elite guard promising to get through this together, all of us pledging to help Pauline, and all in the space of twenty minutes before there was a tap at the kitchen door.

The wagon was loaded.

We went back to our duties with Pauline buoyed among us. If I’d felt like a cloud before, now I was like a planet winking from the heavens. A burden shared wasn’t so heavy to bear anymore. Seeing Pauline’s lighter steps made mine glide above the ground.

Berdi and Pauline left to load the remaining baskets, and Gwyneth and I said we would follow after we’d swept the floor and wiped the crumbs from the counters. We knew it was better to deter furry gray visitors now than watch Berdi chase them with a broom later. It was a small task that was quickly done, and when I had the kitchen door halfway open to leave, Gwyneth stopped me.

“Can we talk?”

Her tone had changed from only minutes earlier when our conversation flowed as easily as warm syrup. Now I heard a prickly edge. I closed the door, my back still to her, and braced myself.

“I’ve heard some news,” she said.

I turned to face her and smiled, refusing to let her serious expression alarm me. “We hear news every day, Gwyneth. You need to give me more than that.”

She folded a towel and laid it neatly across the counter, smoothing it, avoiding eye contact with me. “There’s a rumor—no, very close to a fact—that Venda has sent an assassin to find you.”

“To find me?”

She looked up. “To kill you.”

I tried to laugh, shake it off, but all I managed was a stiff grin. “Why would Venda go to such trouble? I don’t lead an army. And everyone knows that I don’t have the gift.”

She bit her lip. “Everyone doesn’t know that. In fact, rumors are growing that your gift is strong and that’s how you managed to elude the king’s best trackers.”

I paced, looking up at the ceiling. How I hated rumors. I stopped and faced her. “I eluded them with the aid of some very strategic help, and the truth be known, the king was lazy in his efforts to find me.” I shrugged. “But people will believe what they choose to believe.”

“Yes, they will,” she answered. “And right now Venda believes you’re a threat. That’s all that matters. They don’t want there to be a second chance of an alliance. Venda knows that Dalbreck doesn’t trust Morrighan. They never have. The ferrying of the king’s First Daughter was crucial to an alliance between them. It was a significant step toward trust. That trust is destroyed now. Venda wants to keep it that way.”

I tried to keep suspicion from my voice, but as she related each detail, I felt my wariness grow. “And how would you know all this, Gwyneth? Surely the usual patrons at the tavern haven’t spilled such rumors.”

“How I came by it isn’t important.”

“It is to me.”

She looked down at her hands resting on the towel, smoothed a wrinkle, then met my gaze again. “Let’s just say that my methods loom large among my regrettable mistakes. But occasionally I can make them useful.”

I stared at her. Just when I thought I had Gwyneth figured out, another side of her came to light. I shook my head, sorting out my thoughts. “Berdi didn’t tell you who I was just because you lived in town, did she?”

“No. But I promise you how I know is no concern of yours.”

“It is my concern,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

She looked away, exasperated, her eyes flashing with anger, and then back again. She breathed out a long huff of air, shaking her head. She seemed to be battling her regrettable mistakes right before me. “There are spies everywhere, Lia,” she finally blurted out. “In every sizable town and hamlet. It might be the butcher. It might be the fishmonger. One palm crosses another in return for watchful eyes. I was one of them.”

“You’re a spy?”

“Was. We all do what we have to do to survive.” Her manner jumped from defensive to earnest. “I’m not part of that world anymore. I haven’t been for years, not since I came to work for Berdi. Terravin is a sleepy town, and no one cares much about what happens here, but I still hear things. I still have acquaintances who sometimes pass through.”

“Connections.”

“That’s right. The Eyes of the Realm they call it.”

“And it all filters back to Civica?”

“Where else?”

I nodded, taking a deep breath. The Eyes of the Realm? Suddenly I was far less concerned with a grunting barbarian assassin combing the wilderness for me than with Gwyneth, who seemed to lead multiple lives.

“I’m on your side, Lia,” she said, as if she could read my mind. “Remember that. I’m only telling you this so you’ll be careful. Be aware.”

Was she really on my side? She had been a spy. But she didn’t have to tell me any of this, and ever since I arrived, she had been kind. On the other hand, more than once she had suggested that I return to Civica and live up to my responsibilities. Duty. Tradition. She didn’t believe I belonged here. Was she trying to scare me away now?

“They’re only rumors, Gwyneth, probably conjured in taverns like our own from lack of entertainment.”

A tight smile lifted the corners of her mouth, and she nodded stiffly. “You’re probably right. I just thought you should know.”

“And now I do. Let’s go.”

Berdi had gone ahead in the wagon with Rafe and Kaden to set up the tables. Gwyneth, Pauline, and I walked to town at a leisurely pace, taking in the festive transformation of Terravin. The storefronts and homes, already glorious in their bright palettes alone, were now magical confectionery decorated with colorful garlands and ribbons. My conversation with Gwyneth couldn’t dampen my spirits. Indeed, it oddly elevated them. My resolve was cemented. I would never go back. I did belong here. I had more reasons now than ever to stay.

We arrived at the plaza, full of townsfolk and merchants spreading their tables with their specialties. It was a day of sharing. No coin would be traded. The smell of roasted boar cooking in a covered pit dug near the plaza filled the air, and just past that, whole slinky lamprey and red peppers sizzled on grills. We spotted Berdi setting up her tables in a far corner, throwing out gaily colored tablecloths to cover them. Rafe carried one of the cases from the wagon and set it on the ground beside her, and Kaden followed with two baskets.

“It went well for you last night?” Gwyneth asked.

“Yes, it went very well,” Pauline answered for me.

My own answer to Gwyneth was simply a wicked smile.

By the time I reached Berdi, I had lost Pauline to a table of hot griddle cakes and Gwyneth to Simone, who had called to her from a miniature pony she rode upon.

“Don’t need you here,” Berdi said, shooing me away as I approached. “Go, have fun. I’m going to sit here in the shade and take it all in. I’ll see to the tables.”

Rafe was just returning from the wagon with another case. I tried not to stare, but with his sleeves rolled up and his tan forearms flexing under the weight, I couldn’t look away. I imagined his work as a farmhand that kept him fit—digging trenches, plowing fields, harvesting … what? Barley? Melon? Other than the small citadelle garden, the only fields I had experience with were the vast Morrighan vineyards. My brothers and I always visited them in early autumn before harvest. They were magnificent, and the vines produced the most highly prized vintages on the continent. The Lesser Kingdoms paid enormous sums for a single barrel. In all my many visits to the vineyards, though, I had never seen a farmhand like Rafe. If I had, I certainly would have taken a more active interest in the vines.

He stopped next to Berdi, setting his case down. “Morning again,” he said, sounding short of breath.

I smiled. “You’ve already put in a day’s work.”

His eyes traveled over me, beginning at the garland on my head that he had taken some pains to hunt down, to my decidedly new and slight attire. “You—” He glanced at Berdi sitting on a crate beside him. He cleared his throat. “You slept well?”

I nodded, grinning.

“What now?” he asked.

Kaden came up behind Rafe, bumping into him as he set a chair down for Berdi. “The log-wrestling, right? That’s what Lia said everyone is the most excited about.” He adjusted the chair to Berdi’s liking and stood tall, stretching his arms overhead, as if the morning of fetching and hauling had been just a little warm-up. He patted Rafe’s shoulder. “Unless you’re not up to it. Can I walk you, Lia?”

Berdi rolled her eyes, leaving me to squirm. Had I created this quagmire when I flirted with Kaden last night? Probably, just like everyone else, he’d heard me yelling at Rafe to go away, but he evidently hadn’t heard anything else.

“Yes,” I said. “Let’s all walk together, shall we?”

A scowl crossed Rafe’s face, but his voice was cheerful. “I’m all for a good game, Kaden, and I think you could use a sound dunking. Let’s go.”

It wasn’t exactly a dunking.

Once we wove through the crowd, we saw a log that was suspended by ropes, only the log wasn’t suspended over water as I had assumed, but over a deep puddle of thick black mud.

“Still up for it?” Kaden asked.

“I won’t be the one falling in,” Rafe replied.

We watched two men wrestle atop the log while the crowd cheered valiantly at every push and lunge. Everyone gasped collectively when both men teetered, arms swinging to regain balance, lunged again, and finally fell together facefirst. They came up looking like they’d been dipped in chocolate batter. The crowd laughed and roared their approval as the men trudged out of the muck, wiping their faces and spitting out mud. Two new contestants were called. One was Rafe.