Rorn’s chair slid over the stone behind me as he stood, and I stared at the wooden barriers before me. He knew a door couldn’t stop me, but it was why he’d even want to entrap me that held me so perilously still.

Slow, measured steps clicked behind me. “Even if we could tell them anything, of which we cannot,” Rorn said. “Why should we? No one has ever come to our aid.”

“Rorn,” I said—nearly begged. “I have to go.”

“Don’t be absurd. Besides, it’s far too late. By the time we finally heard of this news, the ships were likely already within sight of Nodoya’s shores.”

My heart sank. I almost couldn’t bear to ask, and I didn’t need to. “When did you hear of this news?” He’d known for days. Possibly weeks.

My eyes squeezed closed. That would mean a war was already underway, or worse…

Long over.

Breath lodged tight in my chest, I waited for an answer I wasn’t given.

Rorn stopped at my back with a hollow, sinister laugh. “He resides there, doesn’t he? This male you’ve been slowly wasting away over.”

“Wasting away?” I asked, incredulous as I whirled to face him.

“You heard me,” he pushed between his teeth. He gazed at me down the bridge of his nose, a cloud of swirling ire within his eyes.

The words hissed, and I stabbed a finger at him. “You keep me in name only, even though you were the one to destroy everything we had. Even after all this time, you still expect forgiveness for crimes you’ll commit again and again should it suit you. And although I’ve tried…” My chest rose and fell violently, my voice rasping. “I’ve tried, Rorn, and with all I fucking have left, that is why I’ve not had anything to do with you.”

“But it’s not the only reason, is it?”

Asshole.

I stepped back. “Fuck you, Rorn.”

“But you won’t, will you?” He smirked. “You won’t fuck me at all. Not while you perish every night to dreams of another.” If it was his mission to enrage me, it was working, and he knew it. He advanced until I was broiling fire pushed up against the closed doors, whispering heatedly, “You thought to deceive me, to hide your lover from me forevermore, but I saw it.”

Unsure what he meant, and a breath away from slapping him as his head lowered closer to mine, I couldn’t respond.