“ ‘Benched’?” He steps closer, anger sparking on my cheeks from his gaze. “Is that what you think this is? A team sport? And you are the star player being held back from glory?”

“No!” I shout.

He shakes his head. “So you wish to rescue Nicholas yourself, is that it?”

I gape. “No.”

“You are just as stubborn as he is,” he bites out. He glances at the door behind me and scowls at the sight of it, teeth flashing. “Just as foolish.”

“This isn’t about glory,” I snap. “And I am not a fool!”

He gives a low whistle, followed by a hollow, mocking laugh. “Douglas really has no idea what he has gotten himself into with you.”

“He hasn’t ‘gotten himself’ into anything,” I snort. “I’m not taking that Oath.”

Sel eyes me. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t even know him!”

He lifts a shoulder. “I didn’t know Nicholas. Nicholas didn’t know me. Not well, anyway.”

“And I think that was cruel,” I say. “You were children.”

His eyes widen slightly. “Irrelevant. You should take the Oath. You can manage without a Squire for now, but you need a Kingsmage.”

“Well, I don’t need Lark,” I protest. “I have you, don’t I? Tonight was my mistake, not yours. You’ve kept me safe.”

Some mixture of pain and frustration blurs across his face, leaving a heavy sigh behind. “I cannot keep you as safe as a Kingsmage can.”

“You are a Kingsmage.”

“Not yours,” Sel counters lowly. “And that makes all the difference in the world.”

“But—”

“Not. Yours.” He glares at me. “If I were your Kingsmage, I would have felt when Larkin took you tonight.”

I scoff. “You were fighting a dozen armored foxes, by yourself—”

“I would have felt your mortal fear like it were my own, the second it arose—”

“You got to me within minutes—”

“Only because I sensed your root, and I know it flares when you’re endangered.” He shakes his head. “Yes, I came running, but you could have been killed half a dozen times before I arrived, don’t you see?”

“Wait…” I ignore him. “Is that why you missed the last fox? Because you left the battle to find me?” Guilt rises again. I made this mess. Humiliated Sel in front of his superior, his peers.

“It does not matter.” His jaw tenses. “The Kingsmage Oath is person to person, not title to title, and my Oath is to Nicholas. A fact you made sure to underscore with me the first time I broached this topic, Briana.” With narrowed eyes, he watches the memory of that balcony conversation wash over me again. Sel hadn’t offered to be my Kingsmage explicitly, but he had offered… something. Something we still haven’t addressed.

Sel claimed me as his king.

More than that, he’d called me “cariad.” A Welsh word, and one I didn’t know.