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Taristan shrugged. “And the Countless too, during the wars of the Temur emperor.”

She tried to picture the sight in her mind. A twelve-year-old boy against the ruthless raider folk and then the Temurijon, facing down the most fearsome cavalry in the known realm. It was a foolish endeavor, impossible even in her imagination.

“And then Ronin found you?” she breathed, trying to trace the line of his life.

“I suppose we found each other.” Taristan looked to the tent flap, as if the red wizard might return. Erida half expected him to.The little menace has a talent for interruption.“I was in my wanderings again. Jydi don’t raid in winter, and I went south with what coin I had. To what, I didn’t know. But something called me to Ronin. And called Ronin to me.”

Erida felt her eyes go wide. Her breath came hard, as if pressed from her lungs. “What Waits.”

His gaze snapped back to hers, black and ruinous. Slowly, he leaned forward in his chair, until his face was only inches away. “What else?”

The closeness of him sent prickles down her spine, playing along each bone. Erida did not move, her back still straight, her feet still planted on the carpet. She would not give him the satisfaction and surrender her space to him, even if it meant feeling his every breath on her cheeks. Up close, his eyes were not the empty, flat black she knew. They seemed more like the surface of a pool beneath a starless sky, too deep to fathom, hiding more than she could ever know.

He expected her to pull away. She could see it in the set of his teeth, the tightness of his brow. Her stillness rankled him, but Taristan was not one to back down either. They remained, nose to nose, unyielding on either side.

It delighted Erida.

“I wouldn’t have believed him,” she said, sporting a winning smile. It felt like victory. “Some strange wizard wanders up and tells you you’re Spindleborn, a Corblood mortal with a stolen destiny?”

Taristan did not laugh. “You believed your father.”

The Queen blinked, the mention of her father like a slap across the face. She steadied herself quickly. “What?”

“When he told you what you were, what you were born to. When he told you what your crown and your throne meant,” Taristan explained. She tried not to look at his mouth as he spoke. “Why did you believe him?”

A sorrow Erida kept at bay swept through her faster than she thought was possible, like the first flag of sickness. Tears pricked at her eyes, rising too quickly for her to hide. She gasped a breath, struggling for an answer.Because he was my father, because I trusted him, because I loved him. Because I wanted to be what he needed and wanted of a son. And...

The tears disappeared as swiftly as they came. Her sadness fell away, wrestled back into the box where she kept her useless things.

Taristan waited, patient as ever.

“Because I felt it to be true,” Erida said. “In my bones.”

His touch was nearly blistering, his fingers closing around her wrist with ease.

“So do I,” he answered, studying her hands as an artist would a painting, or a soldier a battlefield.

She dared not move, either forward or back. They remained, Taristan and Erida, connected by a strange, tightening circle. Erida felt it loop around her throat, like a necklace she never wanted to remove.

The candles flickered, sputtering for a moment in a phantom wind, though the air did not stir. They danced in his eyes, and red glared through the black, a burst of blood from a wound too deep for Erida to see.

Taristan dropped her wrist without ceremony and stood from his chair. He took the bloody cloth in hand, focusing on the stained fabric instead of her. Suddenly, the tent felt too hot, as if it were high summer instead of autumn.

“You should sleep,” Taristan ground out, striding for the flap.

Erida clenched her fists, every muscle in her body going tight with frustration. “Sleep will be easy. We are in for a long siege.”

He reached the entrance to the tent, pulling the canvas aside. He did not look back.

“Not so long as you might think.”

A fresh breeze washed in as he left, and Erida burned within, new sweat already cooling on her skin.

Too much of her wanted to go after him. Far too much.

“Fine,” she said to no one.

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