The prince leaned back, an arm over the back of his chair, and met my gaze without wavering. “Maybe I’m not half as bad as you think, Princess.”

Was this another part of his game? He looked and sounded so genuine. No cruel smile, no frost to his gaze. He said it simply, matter-of-factly, and yet I still couldn’t believe him. This was the man who’d threatened to have his army attack to prove a point.

“You’re not what I expected,” he added quietly. In the dim light, he looked haunted, his muscles tight and eyes soft and full of exhaustion. For half a breath, I saw someone else entirely.

Then, as if suddenly remembering himself, his eyes glazed over, and his smirk returned, that other person vanishing like a phantom in the night. “But I suppose you’re not half of what you once were,” he mused.

I shook away the image I’d had of him, focusing instead on the sharp lines and lupine features of the warrior before me. How could I ever have seen anything else? “At least my soldiers treat me with more respect than a pile of feathers, Princeling,” I said.

He stiffened. “Do they? What about your people? I imagine they’d take issue with a princess who turned her back on them.”

I scowled, but his words settled deep. I stood, picking up my plate. “You can eat alone.”

* * *

I finished dinner in my room with Kiva, where I relayed my conversation with Ericen. We’d cracked open the windows, letting in fresh evening air sweetened by the scent of fruit trees, and I’d piled my pillows at the end of the bed and plopped down. She sat on the floor, her sword in her lap.

“I think you’re imagining things,” she said when I mentioned how difficult it had seemed for him to talk tonight. As if he hadn’t wanted to say those things.

“Maybe.” I rolled onto my stomach to face her, releasing a breath. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“It was inevitable. The world is reaching a breaking point.” She pulled her sword from its sheath, the black gold rippling like molten night. The tension that had seemed permanently ingrained in her face earlier that day had subsided. The dark circles under her eyes remained, but she looked better.

She met my gaze, her pale eyes soft. She knew what I was thinking; she always did. “In Korovi,” she said quietly, “my first kill would have been celebrated. In Miska warrior tradition, I would have a ceremony, and the sword that spilled my enemy’s blood would be named.”