Cool and fractured, it poured out of me as I stood and rounded the table filled with lunch and scrunched piles of dead flowers and parchment. “It’s never been so abundantly clear that you do not.”

“I know this has been exceptionally difficult for you, but you know it changes nothing.”

“This?” I spat. “They change everything,” I surprised myself by shouting. Chest heaving, I tried to calm down as he stood there and watched me, assessed me, searching for a way in beneath the rubble he’d made of me. “Everything, Rorn.”

“She will have the babe and then she—”

“She?” I repeated. “She carries your precious heir. She has broken your marriage. She has changed our entire lives.” Breath panted from me. “You will say her fucking name.”

His eyes narrowed, words now gritted. “Carelda hasn’t changed anything. She will have the babe and then she will leave.”

“No,” I said.

Shocked, he blinked. Almost laughed. “No?”

“I could not have said the word any clearer, my king.”

Rorn shook his head. “I fear I do not understand.”

Staring at him, it was growing painfully obvious that perhaps he never would understand. “Just go, please.”

“Not until I know what I can do to finally make you better—”

“Nothing,” I snapped, and turned for the easel I’d prepped this morning. “There is nothing you can do, so kindly take your false concerns and irksome troubles elsewhere.”

“Astrantia, what am I to do? Tell me,” he said, shockingly hoarse. “If you wish Carelda gone, then tell me and I will make it so immediately.”

I turned back. “What are you to do?”

He frowned, nodding.

I snatched the teacup and sent it soaring across the room.

He ducked. It met the wall. Porcelain and tea sprayed the stone as he gaped at me, wide-eyed.

“What are you to do?” I laughed. “What am I supposed to do?” I advanced on him, growling, “Tell me, Rorn. You tell me how in the fucking stars I’m supposed to go on like this because I mean it…” I clutched his tunic, the emerald stitching snapping. “I mean it when I say I want to know.”

“Bloom,” he rasped, his eyes wet.

I shook him, barely moving him an inch. “I need to know because there is nothing. I have been reduced to nothing.” I sniffed and whispered, “You took it all, every fucking thing I had, all I was, and the worst part?” He watched a tear roll down my cheek. “I just let you. I just…” The sobering fact drained me, my fingers loosening their hold. “Believing it was fated by the stars, I just let it all happen to me.”

Rorn caught my wrist as I made to leave, but I pulled free and ran down the stairs.

“Bloom,” he roared, following and too fast for me to outrun.

So I used the only remaining power I had—I disappeared.

The docks were empty.