"My real.. gender?"
Kel froze.
Nesta knew? She knew the farmboy she took in was actually a girl? For how long?
No. This wasn't the time to worry about that. From the moment she chose to take Dash's hand that night in Serin, Keliyah, the female guard and princess's body double, had been left behind.
"I am Kel, your grandson," Kel declared firmly, "and I will not run away from this."
"Stupid girl!" Nesta brandished her wooden spoon. "If a couple of half-blind old folks like us can tell right away, do you think you can fool the sharp eyes of hundreds of soldiers? Women are not permitted in the army. Punishable by death!"
"If not them, what about that scary man who leads them?" came Harrow's muffled voice from another room where he sat bundling his farm tools together. "You think you can hide from the Dragon Emperor himself?"
Kel paused mid-protest.
The Dragon Emperor.
Calix.
Would she.. see him again?
