“You can kill me, Fox. I would forgive you. Some days it would be so much easier to close my eyes and never wake… I know I’ve done little to earn back your trust. But I ask for one last chance. You will find peace, Fox. It may not be the serenity you expect, but you will be all the better for it. You will find peace, and so will Khalad, and you’ll all be rid of the daeva and the blighted and everything else you feared about me. I swear that I will never raise my hand against Kion again, no matter how many armies they send after me. I will save the kingdoms, and I will save you in the process, and maybe I will save the bits and pieces of myself that need rescuing too.”

Her eyes found mine and she smiled. “I am glad to see you safe and sound, Bard. You won’t have long to wait.”

She walked away, Kalen gravitating to her side. Lord Fox lifted his blade again, lowered it, raised it. Finally, it slipped out of his hand, and he watched her leave us, for the third time.

“I wouldn’t have forgiven myself,” he said out loud to the darkness that had swallowed up Lady Tea and Lord Kalen. “She could kill a hundred more asha, and I still couldn’t forgive myself for ending her. And she knows it.”

9

People talk about their minds shutting down in the face of hopelessness, but mine opted to travel through different sceneries in the days following Daisy’s death. I couldn’t recall being moved from my cell to the securest dungeon the kingdom possessed, one closer to the palace and tied with the most restrictive wards.

I had no recollection of being led to the palace, where I presumed people stood and gawked and hurled insults as I passed. I don’t remember the chains encircling my wrists, though I remembered their weight. I paid no attention when Empress Alyx announced my imprisonment before her court; I only saw a vision of the Kion monarch, visibly aged from stress and worry, and I felt sorry for the inevitability of what was to come. I turned a deaf ear to Princess Inessa’s fumbled explanations to me: how her mother had no choice, how they would do their best to explore another truth for my sake, how this must be a misunderstanding. In stark contrast to her mother, I saw the princess becoming fiercer, ceaseless, and more beautiful in the coming months, and I was glad for Fox.

Fox. The barrier between our thoughts was back, and it may as well have been made from the strongest steel, for I could no longer feel his mind.

I couldn’t blame him.

Even Hestia and the other elders’ undisguised glee did nothing for me. Maybe they were right. Maybe I deserved this.