I do not remember crossing the battlefield. One moment I was collapsed against Kade, and the next I was on my knees beside my father's still body, Rowan already there, pressing frantic hands against a wound in his side that was bleeding far too slowly for a fresh injury.
"It's not right," Rowan said, his voice cracking with panic. "This wound looks hours old, not minutes. Look how dark the blood is."
I looked, and understanding hit me with sickening clarity. "Poison," I whispered. "This isn't from tonight's fight at all.
Someone poisoned him earlier and the wound just finally opened enough to show it."
"Lira," Rowan breathed, whipping around to where the young traitor still knelt in the mud, guarded by two warriors, her face going ashen with fresh horror.
"I didn't," she stammered. "I
