“It wasn’t him.” The admission was soft, but steady.

Without a pause, Roark waved his hand, signaling the prince to look at him, not me. He is fortunate my blade is not in his heart.

Thane folded his arms over his chest. “What did you mean, Ly?”

“He’s not broken.” I intentionally turned away from Roark’s glare. He wanted to take my actions as his, but one kiss and I could not stomach the thought of never having another one. “Ser Tomas is melded.”

Thane’s brows lifted. “You sealed his mouth?”

Again, Roark intervened, stepping between me and Thane. He attacked her. Hurt her. Had her against the wall.

Thane peered at me. “That true?”

What was the point of hiding the truth? I rested a hand on Roark’s arm, a silent plea to keep steady, and straightened my shoulders to the prince. “Tomas seemed to believe I was his simply because of his station in the Myrdan court. He said if he assaulted me, put a child in me, the kings would see me as ruined and give me to him as a wife.”

A wash of rage twisted Thane’s face. Kind and personable, but harm someone he loved, and Thane could reveal the dark edges of his soul with ease. “Did he, now?”

“Roark had the opportunity to kill him,” I went on, “but he didn’t. He insisted on trying to take the fall for me”—I turned to the Sentry with a narrow look—“but I was the one who did this.”

The prince said nothing for a dozen heartbeats. Then Thane descended the few steps to Tomas’s side and nudged the bastard in the ribs with the toe of his boot, and crouched, elbows on his knees, waiting for Tomas to crack his eyes open.

“You won’t be able to eat,” he said, voice rough. “Nor drink. What a horrid way to die. I suppose you should have kept your hands off her.”

Tomas moaned, eyes imploring the prince for aid.

“Yrsa told me about you, the things you say to her. It is unfortunate your family has such prestige and my father will crave diplomacy. But hear me.” Thane gripped a tuft of Tomas’s hair. “If you are healed, if you can speak again, you say nothing against the melder or the Sentry.

“Refuse and I will see to it a bone crafter snaps each bone in your body, then Lyra will be given the chance to repeat what she has done today. I will leave you on the Night Ledges, where the crows or Unfettered Folk will decide your fate.”

Thane kicked his boot into Tomas’s ribs, revealing a brutality in the prince I’d not seen. Then again, as Gammal told me, one never truly knows another until they see the darkness inside. Then we made the choice to love all their jagged, broken edges or not.