She liked it more than a little bit.

No guard had ever looked at her with such boldness. In fact, no one at all had ever looked at her this way. Angry and fierce and vastly unfriendly...but there was something else there. As if Cleo was the only girl in the entire world and now he owned a part of her. He made her breath catch and her chest tighten. Theon was entirely overwhelming to every one of her senses.

“My, my.” Nic’s voice cut into her thoughts. “Perhaps you’d like me to leave the two of you alone so you can continue to stare at each other all day long?”

Heat came to her cheeks and she tore her gaze away from Theon. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Nic laughed, but it wasn’t filled with amusement like before. It was much drier and less pleasant this time. He leaned forward and whispered so Theon couldn’t hear. “Just keep one thing in mind as you embark on this arrangement with your new bodyguard...”

She looked at him sharply. “What’s that?”

He held her gaze. “He’s not royal either.”

Jonas had cleaned the dagger’s blade twice, but it was as if he could still see his brother’s blood on it. He tucked it into the leather sheath at his hip and surveyed the border between Paelsia and Auranos. It was monitored, of course. Guards were assigned to keep watch over it from the Silver Sea in the west and across to the Forbidden Mountains in the east. Stealthy guards, since they couldn’t easily be seen—unless you knew what to look for.

Jonas knew. He’d been taught by the best—by Tomas. The first time he’d ever come close to this dangerous area was when he was only ten years old, his brother fourteen. Tomas had a secret, one he’d never shared with anyone until he decided to share it with his younger brother. He poached from their neighbors. It was a crime with an immediate death sentence if they were ever caught, but he’d thought it was worth it to keep their family healthy and alive. Jonas agreed.

Paelsia was once a land of gardens, lush forests, and hundreds of rivers filled with fish; a land filled to overflowing with wild animals to hunt. That had begun to change three generations ago. Slowly, from the snow-capped mountains in the east and across toward the ocean in the west, Paelsia had become less fertile, less able to sustain life. It all began to die, leaving behind brown grass, gray rock, and death. A wasteland. Closer to the sea, it improved, but by now only a quarter of the land was able to sustain life as it once had.

However, thanks to Auranos, what fertile soil was left was now used to plant vineyards so they could sell wine cheaply to their southern neighbor and drink themselves into a stupor rather than plant crops that could feed those who lived here. To Jonas, wine had become a symbol of the oppression of Paelsians. A symbol of the stupidity of Paelsians. And instead of refusing to accept this and begin a search for a solution, they lived day to day with a weary sense of acceptance.

Many believed that their leader, Chief Basilius, would eventually summon the magic to save them all. The most devoted of his subjects believed him to be a sorcerer, and they worshipped him like a god, bound to this world by flesh and blood. He took three-quarters of the wine profits as a tax. His people gave it over freely, solid in their belief that he would soon summon his magic to save them all.

Naive, Jonas thought, enraged. So unforgivably naive.

Tomas, on the other hand, hadn’t believed in such nonsense as magic. While he’d respected the chief’s position as leader, he believed only in the cold, hard facts of life. He had no problem regularly poaching from Auranos. He would have been more than happy to poach from Limeros as well, but the rocky terrains, wide moors, and frigid temperatures their northern neighbors had to offer weren’t as conducive to wildlife as the temperate climate and grassy valleys of Auranos.

Jonas had been amazed when Tomas first snuck him across the border into Auranos. A white-tailed deer had practically walked right up and presented its throat to the boys’ blades as if welcoming them into the prosperous kingdom. When the boys disappeared for a week at a time and returned laden with food, their father, unquestioning then as now, assumed they’d found a secret bounty of hunting in Paelsia, and they never told him otherwise. While the old man preferred them to work long hours in the vineyards, he allowed them their frequent journeys without argument.

If he’d known the truth, he would have been furious that his sons were risking their lives. The brothers had nearly been caught more than once, escaping only by the swiftness of their feet. All for trying to feed their family. For this, they were forced to risk their own necks in a land that could easily share everything it possessed and never notice the loss.

“One day,” Tomas had said to him while they stood in this very spot just before they crossed the border, “you and I are going to start a revolution. We’re going to make it so anyone can cross this border without getting an arrow in their backs. And everybody in Paelsia will experience the beauty and abundance Auranians get every day of their spoiled lives. We’ll take it for ourselves.”

Jonas’s eyes burned at the memory. Grief clawed at his throat. It had barely let go for a moment since the murder.

I wish you were here right now, Tomas. So much. We’d start that revolution of yours today.

His hand brushed against the hilt of the knife used by Lord Aron to stab his brother in the throat. All while a beautiful princess watched on with amusement.

That princess had quickly become Jonas’s obsession—the perfect symbol of Auranos itself. Coldly beautiful, greedy, and evil to the core. He found his hatred for her burning brighter with each day that passed. She’d likely already forgotten what happened now that she was back in her golden palace without a care in her pampered world. Evil bitch. After he finished with Lord Aron, Jonas fully planned to use the very same blade to slowly kill her as well.