“Good,” he said. “Saves me from having to explain what is expected of you.”

Terror flooded me. If I screamed, no one would come to my rescue. He could do whatever he wanted to me and no one would question him. Every instinct told me to grovel and beg for mercy beneath the weight of his determination, but my knees didn’t buckle. I met his piercing metallic gaze, knowing that a defiant expression would mean little when he felt my terror as though it were his own.

His face twisted in disgust that matched the emotion pounding in the back of my head. “You can take the bed,” he said, spinning away from me. “I’ll have none of this.”

Crossing the room, he threw himself down on a chaise and pulled off his boots. I stood in silence as he sorted through a stack of books, opened one and stared at the first page longer than it would take to read. With a sigh, he tossed it back on the pile, and without looking at me even once, said, “Goodnight.” His troll-light winked out, leaving me standing in absolute blackness.

One hand pressed against the wall, I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness so I might make my way over to the bed, but it never happened. Swallowing hard, I rubbed my hands briskly over my arms, trying to ward off tears as much as the cold. He’ll hear you if you cry, I thought. Bad enough that he knows what I feel without giving him the satisfaction of hearing me break. But it was hard not to. Tristan’s melancholy magnified my own, and my weary and aching shoulders slumped beneath the burden.

This was not how my marriage was supposed to happen. A drop of blood rose on my lip as I bit it in an attempt to force away visions of what might have been. Gran’s dress, my friends and family feasting on a warm summer’s day. A young man from a good family who loved me as fiercely as the sun shone at noon. My wedding night… A fat tear ran down my cheek before I could wipe it away. The older girls living in the Hollow often whispered about what passed between two people who’d just been wed, and I’d wanted those things. But I also knew enough to recognize that I’d been lucky tonight.

Taking a couple of tentative steps in the direction of the bed, I gained confidence walking blind and promptly collided with a table. The furniture and I both went down with a thump, accompanied by the sound of smashing glass.

“Stones and sky, girl!” Tristan snapped. “Have you not made things hard enough without destroying everything I own?”

“I can’t see,” I shouted back at him, trying to climb to my feet and banging my head against another table in the process. “Ouch!”

A ball of light appeared above me as I rubbed the growing lump on my skull. I was starting to get quite the collection.