Scarred

Tristan observes how Sara handles his mother and knows that she embodies exactly what he needs in a queen. He reflects, “[T]he thought of my brother having her at his side when it turns out she’s so valuable makes bile tease the back of my throat. Violence thrums in my veins, urging me to kill him now and steal her for my own” (169). Tristan plans to overthrow his brother within a fortnight.

Tristan walks to the banquet with Edward. It is important to Tristan and Edward that they are seen at the event. Tristan notices Sara watching him, and when he compliments her, Michael reminds him that she will soon be his wife. A chair is brought for Tristan, who sits next to Sara. Tristan and Michael’s cousin Lord Takan sits on her other side. Tristan puts his hand on Sara’s thigh, touching her intimately. Sara catches his hand and then surprises him by touching him back. When Michael asks for time alone with Sara before the banquet, she pulls her hand away and rises to go with Michael. Suddenly, Tristan and Michael’s cousin collapses. Tristan realizes that Lord Takan has been poisoned.

Sara poisoned Lord Takan because he was in the line of succession. She and Michael are escorted away by guards, and when they reach Michael’s office, he demands to know what happened. As Xander paces in apparent anxiety, Sara acknowledges that her cousin is a good actor; he was the one who gave her the poison for Lord Takan. When Tristan bursts in, Xander quips that he only appears when there is death. Tristan picks Xander up by his face and drops him. Sara sees why people are afraid of Tristan. Xander immediately blames the murder on the “jackals,” or rebels. Michael is particularly uneasy about Lord Takan’s poisoning, but Xander reassures Michael that he will take care of everything.

Edward and Tristan speculate about who could have killed Lord Takan. Anyone could be a suspect, and Edward asks if that includes Sara. Edward also asks why Tristan forbade the rebels from touching her, and Tristan deflects and says that he will kill Sara in front of his brother. It suddenly occurs to Tristan that Sara might have killed Lord Takan, particularly since they sat next to each other at the banquet. Tristan feels aroused by this possibility, realizing that the incident makes Sara even more attractive to him.

The banquet commences, and Tristan is jealous to see that Sara is the center of attention. Claudius—a friend of Michael’s—admires Sara, and Tristan is cruel to him. When Claudius goes to dance with Sara, his hand roams far too low. Sara excuses herself and leaves the banquet, and a moment later, Claudius follows. Tristan thinks that his brother will react to the implications of this interaction, but Michael is too busy ogling a servant girl.

Claudius intercepts Sara at the door to the ladies’ washroom. She is frustrated because Michael hardly looked at her and she was forced to dance with a parade of different men. Now, Sara warns Claudius that if he rapes her, he will be put to death. Claudius tells her that no one will believe her. As he chokes her and rips her dress, Sara finally reaches her dagger and puts it to his throat. Footsteps startle them, and Claudius shoves by her and runs. Sara starts to cry. She washes her blade in the washroom, feeling as though Claudius has stripped something from her.

Tristan sees Sara being assaulted. He realizes that he wants her to be his, and he imagines her sitting by his side while he is on the throne. When Sara puts a blade to Claudius’s throat, Tristan realizes, “My little doe is no doe at all. She’s a hunter, pretending that she’s prey” (189). Tristan hides when he hears footsteps but catches Claudius fleeing the scene and takes him to the cabin in the woods. He tells Claudius that he touched something that was not meant for him. Tristan tortures Claudius for assaulting Sara and for allowing Michael to beat him when he was a child.

Michael finally asks Sara to dance, although he has ignored her for most of the evening. As they dance, Xander cuts in and privately accuses her of endangering all their plans because she wanted to have sex with Claudius. Sara is appalled to realize that Xander believes that her run-in with Claudius was consensual when it was not. She is overcome with anger and pain at Xander’s accusation.

Tristan cuts in and dances inappropriately close to Sara, but his proximity makes her feel safe and important. Despite her best efforts, Sara almost begins crying. Tristan tells her not to cry there, where it is not safe. He gives her a note and then leaves. The note asks her to meet him in the queen’s garden.

Tristan feels unbearable jealousy upon seeing Michael and Sara together, but he knows that Michael would rather kill Sara than deal with the embarrassment of letting her go. Sara comes into the garden, and Tristan finds her even more beautiful in a simple gown. He asks her if she still wants to know a secret. She asks him how he got his scar.

Tristan reveals that when he and his brother were young, Michael was taunting Tristan one day and destroyed Tristan’s notebook of sketches. When Tristan fought back, Michael hit him with a fire poker. Tristan tells Sara that Michael injured him because he looked more like their father than Michael did. Sara is appalled, and Tristan tells her that Michael has done many things like that. Sara acknowledges this to be true. Tristan kisses her and realizes that he can never let her go.

Sara kisses Tristan but tells him that they should not be doing this. Tristan drags Sara toward the forest, and she goes along with him, torn between her desire for Tristan and her knowledge that if she is caught, she will be killed. Tristan brings Sara to the edge of orgasm and then tells her to declare herself his and promise that she has been intimate with no one but him. Sara angrily tells him that she would be lying if she said that. Tristan asks her for the names of her other lovers, and she refuses. He grins, telling her that she does not deserve to finish, and leaves her in the woods.

Sara is pulled from bed unexpectedly and hardly has time to dress before she is suddenly brought to King Michael’s office. Michael and Uncle Raf are discussing things that Sara does not yet understand, and Raf is upset with her. Finally, Raf tells her that Xander has been kidnapped. Michael has her open a box with decorations that depict a jackal standing over a dead lion. Sara discovers her cousin’s severed hand.

Tristan arrives, and Raf demands a private council meeting. Michael gets angry at Raf for telling him what to do, and Raf tells Michael that the previous king, Michael’s father, would never have allowed Xander to be taken. Michael orders Raf to leave, and Raf grabs Sara’s arm and painfully drags her with him. Suddenly, the pain stops, and Sara realizes that Tristan has Raf’s hand at an odd angle. He demands to know if Raf always handles women so roughly. Sara wants to smooth over the situation to avoid her uncle’s suspicion, but she appreciates Tristan’s protective action.

Raf takes her back to her quarters and tells her that the rebels took Xander. Unlike Raf, Sara does not believe that Xander is dead, reasoning that if he were, they would have sent his head, not his hand. Sara tells her uncle that they can save Xander, but he says that the “shadowed lands” are too dangerous. Then, he accidentally reveals that Sara’s father went to the shadowed lands. When Sara demands to know what Raf is keeping from her, he admits that her father was actually killed by the rebels as he was returning home. Raf tries to blame this on King Michael, but Sara is furious that Raf has been lying to her. He tells her that if she truly wants revenge, she’ll need to kill the “rebel king.”