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Her reply didn’t come as quickly as the last. My chest tightened in anticipation.

If I had lost all the courtesans to Damien, I would not be living. Breathing and living are not the same.

I hadn’t said the words aloud, but I had written them to Dynara after that first dream. She was the only soul I had told. She didn’t know the specifics, but she knew enough. Tears welled at the corners of my eyes. Dynara was a half a continent away, risking herself at every moment in the House of Harvest, yet still I felt like she understood me more than anyone else. Perhaps the distance made iteasier to tell her the truth. I couldn’t see the pity on her face while she sat in her room in Cereliath. Perhaps I would be more useful there—surely Dynara had a few lords for me to kill.

You don’t need to let the pain go completely. Just give yourself enough room to do more than breathe, Dynara wrote, as if reading my mind.

Do you need any help bringing the Halflings across the border?Damien had sent several battalions to Cereliath to guard the remaining orchards the moment he’d hung Curringham and Tarvelle outside the throne room. The House of Harvest was no longer under the control of House Curringham since there was no House Curringham left. It had been wiped from existence; not even the third cousins had been spared in Damien’s strike.

The atmosphere in Cereliath was tense, which only made Dynara’s plans more difficult to carry out.

No. There won’t be any soldiers left to chase us when I’m done here.

The thought of Dynara battling with Damien’s sellswords set my throat ablaze. I didn’t want to picture all the ways her plan could fail. I couldn’t lose more Halflings, and I certainly couldn’t lose another friend.

I scribbled the only thing that I knew would shift the conversation to less violent ends.I kissed Killian.

Dynara took an excruciatingly long time to write thirteen words.You thought being utterly selfish and a fool would make you feel better?

My breath shook as I inked the truth onto the page.I thought it would make this easier.

Her next line appeared much more quickly than the first.Are you pushing everyone away because you want to be alone or out of habit?

I didn’t fill my glass pen with any more ink. I didn’t know the answer to that question.

After several long moments, Dynara had discerned the truth for herself.It is not your job to protect us from whatever truth you’rekeeping. It might feel sharp and heavy in your hand, but it is not a blade you have to cut with. It can just be. With love, D.

Thick tears fell down my cheeks as the weight of that loneliness pinned me to the mattress. I wanted nothing more than to run away to Aralinth and spend the next week dancing with Dynara at my side. But she hadn’t given up. That flame of hope still flared in her chest. Mine was hollow and empty, unable to hold even the ghosts of my hope or the sting of my loneliness. I closed my eyes, too exhausted to fight off sleep any longer, and knew that I wouldn’t be alone soon enough.

CHAPTERFOUR

IWOKE UP ON THE FLOORof the throne room. The marble tiles were cold against my arms and back. I sat up, realizing that I was wearing one of the dresses that were fashionable at court. The plunging back revealed the full length of the scars I kept hidden. My stomach knotted with relief when I saw all my names were covered by the sleeves of the dress.

Damien didn’t need to know how far back my treason went.

I looked up from where I stood at the center of the room. It was empty. The walls were brighter than they ever had been in real life. The white stone and birch door were pristine, unmarked by time or dust. It made my skin ripple.

The doors leading to the royal chambers behind the throne opened and Damien walked through. I couldn’t see the hallway behind him, only blackness. Whatever control Damien had over my mind it seemed he could only construct one room at a time.

He was dressed in a dark green jacket and navy boots that made his remaining eye sparkle with the light of the springtime suns. Anyone else would have found him handsome, even with the jade leather patch over his missing eye, but all I could see was the touch of death hidden in his sharp cheeks and the kiss of violence hanging from his lips.

“I finally got you into one of those dresses.” There wasn’t a hint of pleasure in his tone as Damien slowly lowered himself into his seat. The wide buttons of his vest kept his back perfectly straight. His eyes traced the outline of my shoulder. “Turn.” The cold command echoed along the stone pillars.

Part of me wanted to ignore him. To press my back into one of the columns and refuse to move until I woke. But resisting was what Damien wanted. It is what he enjoyed, slowly breaking me down until he knew there was no way for me to put the fragments back together.

I pulled the soft waves Damien had given me over my shoulder and turned. His breath hitched as he witnessed the scars he’d cut into my flesh for the first time. I peered up at him over my shoulder. His throat bobbed as he leaned back into the chair, his hand curving around the end of the armrest so hard I thought the gilded wood would crack.

“Marvelous,” Damien whispered, licking his lip. “I’m glad to see my masterpiece healed so well.”

My jaw flexed. I hated seeing the satisfaction on his face. I couldn’t bear to give him any more of it. “It didn’t,” I lied, without thinking.

Damien tilted his head like a hawk.

I turned back to face him, suddenly deciding to test something. “This is a dream—your dream. You’re only seeing what you want to see. I carved over your scars years ago. There’s nothing left of thedesign.” I’d thought about doing it so many times that the words didn’t even taste like a lie as I said them.

Damien’s eye narrowed. “Then I will make you wear that dress for me in person.”

My stomach fluttered at his reply. It wasn’t a blatant rejection of my lie, which meant that Damien didn’t know the rules to this place either. I would take any bit of leverage I could get. “Is that an invitation?”