“You can take them with you,” Damien said.

She glanced over her shoulder and spotted him between the table and outer door.

“I also had a scabbard commissioned, but it is not done yet. In the meantime, feel free to store your swords in your room.”

There was still a tinge of red to his face, causing him to look more like a young man than a grand lord.

Suddenly she wanted to laugh, both to ease the awkwardness from moments before and at the look on his face. But she refrained, although the corners of her lips twitched. It was good to know Damien was an ordinary man, despite his title. “Thank you.”

He gave her a small bow and left the room.

After exchanging pleasantries with Sten and Cedric, Selene left the training room. For the first time since arriving at Northwind Castle, she felt hope for the future burgeoning inside her heart.

20

A week later, Selene held her heavy cloak close to her body as she trudged through the snow toward Baris Abbey. Snowflakes fell thickly from the sky, coating the pine trees in blankets of white. To her left, the sea was grey, barely moving below the cliffs.

As she walked, her mind drifted like the white snow around her. She had spent the last few mornings with Damien in his study, catching up on the news from Rook Castle and the responses from the other houses. She wasn’t really surprised about what had all come to pass, given the secrets she knew, but it still saddened her: the assassination of House Vivek, the lies her mother had spun about Damien’s disappearance, the call for each house to mind its own business and not provoke the empire. Now the question was, what would her mother do next? And what about Amara? Had she come into her gifting? Was she training to be a dreamkiller?

Had Selene’s escape been for nothing?

Then there was Damien. She thought there had been a breakthrough between them. They had talked, even laughed, during those times in the study. And they had sparred again. She’d even caught him looking at her from the corner of her eye when he thought she wasn’t paying attention. That kind of look sent her mind and heart spinning.

But then the last two days he seemed more and more lethargic: the blank stares, the shuffling of papers even though he hadn’t looked at them, the repeated questions. No more spark to his eyes, no smile tugging at his lips. This morning Taegis told her Damien wasn’t feeling well and would be in his room all day.

Was Damien really ill, or was it something else?

She rubbed her nose and sighed. Moments later, the cheery lights from the abbey windows appeared through the snowfall. Selene walked faster, and she could hear the crunch of Karl’s boots behind her. No doubt he was as cold as she.

Selene reached the door, pressed down on the metal latch, and pushed inward. A blast of heat and light greeted her as the door creaked open. Monks stood in the main room, conversing or reading near the massive fireplace. She spotted Cohen, talking to a shorter monk. Then again, everyone was shorter than Cohen.