“I’m not fretting.”

“If your contact doesn’t arrive soon, though, we’ll have to leave. It’s too dangerous to be this close to the palace, especially with your pretty face plastered up all over the place.”

Jonas had to agree with him there.

He left Felix outside and slipped into the small temple wedged between two populated taverns. A ten-foot-tall marble statue of the goddess Cleiona stood near the entrance. She had long flowing hair, a peaceful yet haughty expression, and the symbols for fire and air—the elements she embodied—etched into her upraised palms. Her robes, despite being carved from marble, were thin and diaphanous and left very little to the imagination.

Those breasts alone are worth worshipping, Jonas thought as he passed the statue.

He pulled the hood of his dark cloak closer around his face as he entered the grand altar room. There were only three other people inside, sitting in pews with their eyes closed.

He took a seat near the back and waited.

There were no temples in Paelsia. No official religion, no deities. However, during his brief visits to Paelsia in recent days, he’d begun to see small clay idols in the deceased Chief Basilius’s likeness. It sickened him, knowing that the chief had been a liar and a thief, selfishly living high and mighty in his compound while his people starved.

Jonas didn’t mourn his loss, not for a single moment.

He waited in the quiet temple, the rhythm of his heartbeat his only way to know much time had passed. Finally, he heard the creak of the main doors opening, followed by footsteps.

“Wait outside,” the new worshipper said firmly to the guard at her side. “I need to be alone with my prayers.”

“Yes, princess.”

Jonas pulled farther back into the shadows and watched Princess Cleo walk up the aisle and across the row of benches facing a large mosaic of the goddess, making her way toward the back of the temple through an archway. He slipped off the bench and, glancing at the entrance to make sure that the guard had left, followed her down a passageway about twenty paces long that led to a smaller room. Hundreds of candles blazed with light on narrow shelves, celebrating and acknowledging the goddess’s fire magic.

Cleo lit a candle and carefully placed it next to the others.

He waited in silence.

“I received your message,” she said without turning around.

“I’m glad.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. It’s good to see you again.” After all the hardships he’d faced, seeing the princess in person lightened his heart. “Are you going to look at me?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Come on. Didn’t we part as friends?”

“Did we? I seem to recall the last time we met you were horribly injured and all of your friends were dead.”

He flinched at the reminder of that terrible day. “I wanted you to come with me.”

“And what? Live in the trees with a group of Paelsians who despise me simply for being who I am?”

He let himself imagine a future just like that—he and Cleo living together in a tree house surrounded by birds and squirrels, far above the rest of the world.

The ludicrous thought almost made him laugh.

No, his life was much more earthbound and practical than that—and so was hers.

“Perhaps not,” he allowed. “Palaces with large comfortable beds to share with your new husband are much more to your liking, I’m sure.”

She spun around, her eyes blazing, and slapped him. Or, at least, she tried to—Jonas caught her wrist before the blow landed.

So quick to resort to violence—so unlike most Auranians, who were much more likely to drink and eat and stare adoringly at their own reflections than to fight for themselves. “Easy, your highness. A clandestine meeting with a wanted criminal isn’t the best time to make a scene. There are potential witnesses snoozing not so far away.”

“You were silent for so long I thought you were dead.”

“I didn’t know you cared.”

She let out a grunt of frustration. “Someone secretly tucked your message into my sketchbook. I was lucky to have found it in time to make my excuses to come here.”

“Didn’t know you were an artist, either.”

Cleo glared at him, her arms crossed over the bodice of her violet gown. Her dress was not nearly as revealing as what the goddess out front wore, but Jonas certainly wasn’t complaining.

“Clearly,” she said slowly, unpleasantly, “you’re alive and well and ready to make light of everything I say.”

She was every bit as forthright as he remembered—it was one of his favorite qualities about her. She didn’t bother with proper royal etiquette in his presence, which was fine by him. Frankly, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed her until this very moment. “Hardly, your highness. Much gratitude for meeting with me.”

“You’re being hunted like a wild boar. It was foolish of you to enter this city.”

“And yet, here I am.”

“I’ve already heard about your victory at the road camp.”

He frowned. “That was no victory.”

“Perhaps not overall, but you finally got your revenge on Aron, didn’t you?” She wrung her hands, making her large amethyst ring glint in the candlelight. “I’m not saying that he didn’t deserve it, of course. He did. And I hate that I feel any grief for him at all. But he’s just one more piece of my previous life that’s now been taken from this world.”