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I would kill Dryhten and Tamsyn would be saved. Then... if she wanted me as much as I wanted her, we could be together.

She would be free. No longer his wife. No longer a whipping girl.

She would be free to choose.

32

Tamsyn

IFINALLY GOT MY WAY.

The day after Stig’s arrival, he invited me on a ride. I wasn’t naive. I knew he wanted to get me outside the fortress, alone and away from prying eyes and ears, so that he could talk to me. So he could verify for himself that I was really safe, that no one was hurting me here—namely, my husband.

He didn’t believe Fell to be the kind of man who wouldn’t harm me. He thought the Beast of the Borderlands was a brute. A barbarian. All the things I had once assumed. To be fair, everyone had believed that of him.

In Stig’s mind, Fell could only be mistreating me. Stig would never suspect that every night I spent in bed with my husband I felt my resolve weakening, that I sank deeper and deeper into bewildering and complicated feelings, longing for the man I could never trust myself to have.

Whatever the case, whatever the reason, I was finally outside the fortress, finally riding through the soaring foothills that served as a prelude to the Crags, and I was glad for it.

Last night, Fell and Stig had closeted themselves away with their most trusted warriors to strategize and discuss important matters. No one had to tell me what those matters were. I knew the most important subject up for discussion had been me.

Well. Notmeme.

Me the dragon.

They weren’t going to let it go. They were going to send out hunting parties. They were going to search every corner of every wood for the dragon. I felt their determination like a noose settling around my neck, tightening incrementally, bit by bit.

I might spend every night sleeping safely in a warm bed, Fell a comforting, tempting presence beside me... but I felt like a volcano ready to erupt.

I was not safe here. I was not secure. I felt like a body poisoned. Toxic venom winding through me, doing its work, grinding and churning toward my slow and inevitable death.

The irony was not lost on me. Fell thought it was not safe for me to venture outside the fortress, too worried about the threat of a dragon. Of course, I knew there was no threat. There was just me.

And the riskiest place of all? In bed beside him, my would-be killer.

I lifted my face to the curling mist and exhaled as Stig and I ambled along.

Eventually, Fell would learn that Stig had taken me outside the fortress. He would be displeased. But I would deal with that then.

Currently there was just contentment—riding with my friend through the mist-shrouded countryside, the Crags a comforting shadow beside us, weaving a silent song in my head, pulling me closer by a gentle thread, beckoning...

“I suppose we should turn back. Getting a little too close to...” Stig’s voice faded as he glanced up toward the jagged, snow-covered face of the mountain nearest us.

He wanted us to turn back for the obvious reason. I could have pointed out that the last sighting of the dragon had been miles away from here. But the speed with which dragons flew made that a moot point. Dragons could be anywhere in Penterra. Or anywhere else. It didn’t matter where we were. And yet I would rather not feed into any of the frenzy around the topic of dragons. If anything, I wanted to douse those flames.

“Let’s walk for a bit,” I suggested.

Stig hesitated only a moment before nodding. We dismounted in unison. Gathering our reins loosely in gloved hands, we strolled leisurely.

Taking a breath, I plunged ahead. “I don’t want you to worry about the dragon anymore.”

I made the request solemnly, almost as though I were uttering a prayer, and that was what it felt like. A desperate prayer. A desperate hope I was casting into the wind, hoping someone heard it, some god or deity with the power to help me.

We ventured deeper into the woods, our boots crunching over pristine whiteness. Tree branches creaked and groaned overhead in the wind from the weight of last night’s snowfall.

I stroked a gloved hand down the nose of my mount idly and sent Stig a hopeful look.

“Not worry?” He looked at me incredulously. “How? How can I not? A dragon alive?” He shook his head. “Ittookyou. You are lucky to have survived. It killed one of Dryhten’s men. Weallneed to be worried. This is not a problem only for the Borderlands. It concerns all of us. And there could be others.”