At last, the king relented, his claws retracting as he rolled his neck with a tormented groan. Still, he said nothing.

I waited, prepared to do what I must even if it would cost me everything—the only place I called home.

But the king I’d fought too many battles for and alongside just stared at me in a way he never had before.

And I knew this game of hiding in plain sight was now done. Dade would allow it no longer.

I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter. That I’d never cared what he’d thought anyway. That he wouldn’t know what true loyalty was if it bit him twice on his threatened ass. I tried, but I quickly gave up and stalked past Opal before warping back to the cottage to prepare.

I had a queen to find.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Aster

Rorn paced the length of my paint parlor. Now and then, he would stop only to glower at me.

The glass in the windows had been repaired. A lone crack still lingered in the one closest to the door. I kept my eyes trained on it in an effort to keep my ire from making things worse.

After being left alone for the remainder of the night and the following day, I’d half-expected that not to change, and I couldn’t say I was glad it had.

He’d arrived with dinner. Dinner I hadn’t yet touched.

My wrists burned from the iron. The manacles clinked whenever I moved. Painting and reading were impossible. Eating was nearly as impossible. A fitting pattern for the way things continued to be.

Eternally impossible.

Nothing and no one will ever keep me from you.

I’d spent my solitude trapped with every heated word, every exchange—every promise I’d forced him to make yet had known he could never possibly keep. Knowing didn’t stop the organ in my chest from bleeding, the burn of it a distraction from the ache at my wrists.

Scythe had expected the worst, all the while thinking there could be nothing worse than what I’d already divulged. I’d told him I was married.

I’d failed to tell him I was married to a king.

Perhaps, deep down, I’d known it would be too much. The enormity too high to scale. And perhaps that was why I’d already forgiven him for not even uttering a goodbye—for not saying anything at all as his king had handed me over like stolen goods being returned to its rightful owner.

I couldn’t blame him.

I could only blame myself for falling prey to temptation yet again. For daring to believe that I deserved to be happy again. For thinking I wasn’t selfish for wanting to somehow keep the happiness I’d found.