Kindra was still trying to figure out what Caden meant when the priestesses sang up the sun and the flames finally burned out, leaving only the hot coals and ashes of her mother behind. Exhausted and hungry, she walked back to the village.

“Kindra?”

She kept walking. She didn’t want to look at Gar, much less listen to him try to explain himself. She supposed she should be thankful he realized she was gone, but she still couldn’t forgive him.

“Kindra, wait. I want to apologize.”

She turned so fast he almost ran into her. “I don’t want your apologies.”

“I should have followed you when you left. I didn’t know you’d go north.”

Kindra looked at him like he was stupid. “Of course I went north. What do you think I was doing when your brother attacked me? I went to Kaye.” Kaye would have understood, had she been in Fie Obsid. Now Kaye had missed their mother’s pyre. The thought made Kindra angry all over again.

“I’m sorry,” Gar said. “I tried to apologize, but you wouldn’t listen.”

Kindra was exhausted, hungry, and angry. She punched him in the face.

Gar made a muffled noise of surprise and brought his hand up to his jaw, opening his mouth a couple times to make sure it wasn’t broken. On his wrist was the same bandage Caden had been wearing. As she thought back to yesterday morning, she thought Monk had a bandage when he squeezed her arm. All of the men who took Loria to the pyre had a similar bandage, even Pine, whose wrists had been clear while he picked the rotten cloth off her mother’s bones.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Kindra grabbed Gar’s wrist as he opened his mouth again. “What’s this?”

He didn’t move. He had the same frozen look about him as the morning the Obsidians arrived to take Kaye. “It’s a scratch.”

“Deep scratch, if you bandaged it.”

He held her gaze, but looked as though he’d rather not. “Yes.”

“You didn’t have it two days ago.”

This time he did look away, if briefly. “It happened after you left.”

She shoved his hand down, fuming because he was still keeping secrets from her.

“Kindra…” He lifted the hand to her, but she slapped it away.

“Don’t touch me.”

His expression was so helpless she almost lost the nerve to hate him, but he still hadn’t answered her. “You, Monk, your fathers and Pine…even Caden has a bandage. What is it?”

“It’s nothing.”

She walked away. When he caught up all he said was, “You’ll know soon enough, I promise.”

He promised. He was lying to her again. She closed her eyes and shook her head. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “Then I know which Gar you are. Not my friend. Not…” It broke her heart more than she expected. More than she cared to admit. “You’re the Gar who lies and schemes for his own purposes.”

“That’s not true. It’s not for me.”

She opened her eyes and he looked so hurt that she was the one who had to look away this time. “I was going to say I missed you when you finally got up the courage to speak to me. I was going to say I wanted you back, too. But I didn’t know which Gar you were. I miss the Gar who didn’t keep secrets. The Gar who took me to Trina’s Day. I miss that Gar almost as much as I miss Kaye. But that was never really you.”

Everything about him seemed to break in that moment, but it didn’t matter, because he wasn’t her Gar.

“Don’t touch me again,” she repeated and walked away.