Chapter 14: Ronan’s Suspicion

I’m dead.

The thought landed with a clarity that stole the air from Naya’s lungs. Not eventually. Not metaphorically. If Ronan knew what her father had written, there was no version of this palace that let her walk out of it alive.

Her palms turned damp. Heat crawled up from somewhere deep in her chest, and beneath her skin, something restless stirred, some instinct she barely understood clawing to break free in response to the fear flooding through her.

Ronan watched all of it. She could see him cataloging every flicker crossing her face.

She forced herself to turn fully toward him, though her legs felt unsteady beneath her.

He drew a dagger from his belt, almost lazily, and gestured toward the chair she’d just left.

"Sit."

Naya barely registered moving. Her body carried her back to the seat as though someone else were controlling it.

For a moment, Ronan simply stood there, letting the silence stretch. Naya folded her hands tightly in her lap, aware of her own pulse thundering in her ears, her throat too dry to swallow properly.

Then came the sound. A low growl, restrained but unmistakable, rumbling from somewhere deep in his chest.

She lifted her eyes to find him already watching her.

He rose and crossed the room, but instead of stopping in front of her chair, he settled himself on the edge of the dining table, close enough that his presence pressed against every nerve she had left.

He raised the dagger. The flat of the blade grazed beneath her chin, tilting her face upward.

"So," he said quietly. "What was it my father-in-law couldn’t say through normal routes?"

Naya swallowed hard, forcing her voice steady. "He just wanted to know how I was."

Silence.

Ronan stared at her for a long moment. Then he laughed, soft and almost amused, which somehow terrified her more than anger would have.

"Is that so?"

She nodded, keeping her face as calm as she could manage while her fingers trembled in her lap.

He didn’t challenge the answer outright. Instead, he studied her the way a predator studies something it already knows is lying still. "Why not send that message through the usual channels? He knows exactly where you are. He knows you’re the King’s wife. He has access to official correspondence." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Yet he chose to smuggle a letter in through a servant disguised as a cleaner. Why?"

"I don’t know," Naya said.

The blade remained beneath her chin, unmoving.

"Don’t lie to me."

"I’m telling you the truth."

He tilted the dagger fractionally, forcing her chin a little higher. "Look at me when you lie."

She held his gaze, though it cost her everything she had left. The heat beneath her skin intensified, and she felt the same restless stirring inside her respond to the tension radiating off him. Another low growl escaped him, quieter this time, and she couldn’t tell if it came from anger or from the effort of holding himself back.

Finally, he pulled the dagger away.

For one brief, foolish second, Naya thought it was over.

"Did you and your father take me for a fool?"

Her breath caught. "No."

"Your family has already deceived me once." His voice dropped, colder now. "Elara was presented as my bride. She supposedly poisoned the woman I loved, then vanished before I could hold her accountable for it. You appeared in her place. And now, after everything, your father secretly sends you a letter through a stranger." He leaned closer. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that’s simply a concerned father checking on his daughter?"

"He was frightened," Naya said quickly. "That’s all."

"Frightened of what?"

Naya’s stomach dropped. She hadn’t meant to say it that way.

"Frightened of the war," she corrected, too fast, the words tumbling over themselves. "Because of what happened with Elara."

Ronan’s eyes stayed fixed on hers, unmoved. "You’ve been nervous since you walked into this room. You’ve barely touched your food. You’ve avoided my eyes all evening." His voice dropped lower still. "And the moment I mentioned that letter, you looked like you’d just seen your own executioner."

Naya’s stomach twisted violently. He’d been watching her the entire time. Every bite she hadn’t taken. Every glance she’d avoided.

"I’m going to ask you one more time," Ronan said, leaning in until barely any space remained between them. "What did your father want?"

Naya’s mind raced through every possible answer. If she told him the truth, there was no coming back from it. If she lied and he already suspected enough, she might be destroying herself regardless.

She chose the lie anyway.

"Nothing," she said. "It was nothing."

Something shifted in his expression. Not the anger she braced for.

Something colder. Disappointment, sharp and final.

He straightened slowly, drawing back from her, the dagger lowering to his side. Naya’s lungs finally remembered how to work, air rushing back into her chest in an unsteady gasp.

Then he looked at her again, and whatever relief she’d felt died instantly.

"Keep your secrets," Ronan said, his voice frighteningly even.

Naya didn’t move.

"I’ll find out what your family sent you here to do."

Her heart plummeted straight through the floor.

He turned and walked toward the door, each step unhurried, deliberate. Just before he reached it, he paused and glanced back at her over his shoulder.

"And when I do, Naya Ripley," he said quietly, "you’ll wish you had told me tonight."

He left. The doors swung shut behind him with a soft, final click that echoed far louder in her ears than it should have.

Naya sat frozen at the table for a long moment before the breath she’d been holding finally escaped her in a shaking exhale. Her body still felt cold despite the heat that had lingered beneath her skin only moments ago.

There was no relief in his leaving. None at all.

Because she understood, with sickening certainty, that Ronan didn’t know everything yet.

But he knew she was hiding something.

And he had just made it very clear that he intended to find out exactly what.