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“He handed over his favourite lover’s name.”

My throat bobs. “Fern.”

Daxeel’s hands tighten together, too threaded, too tense. He runs his teeth over his bottom lip before he lands his gaze on the fallen golden sun.

“It took just two letters to Fern for him to tell me all he knew about you—and your family,” Daxeel confesses, and that’s his tone, a confession he relents, but in a hushed voice, a sigh, not of victory. “I learned enough to weave my plan, to tamper with the seed, to have your father assigned to Comlar—and I learned a wicked truth. That you lay with that prince you slighted me with.”

“Because Fern told you that?” I scoff and run my hands down my face. “You did all of this, because what? Because my father made me slight you? Because you believe that I bedded a prince? And that is your justification for myfucking death sentence?!” My voice gravels and I throw a hand out as if to strike him, but my legs won’t take me closer, so all I hit is the air. “Oh, I loathe you, Daxeel, I loathe you to my core! You selfish, proud beast!”

“You thought I didn’t know what you’d been doing in my absence, how deep you wounded me,” he pauses, voice wavered.

Shadows cut deep into his cheeks; he clenches his jaw, tight.

After a beat, he lifts a dark look to me. “But I have been tracking your every move. Eamon was fool enough to think you would be safe under his arm, that if he got you through your time at Comlar—” His lips warp into a wicked, deadly grin, devoid of any true feeling. “—he could steal you away from me, from your father, and that he had earned protection for you both. But he only handed you over to me.” Slowly, he pushes from the bed and rises up like a tower standing over me. “I intercepted theseed given to Ronan. I made it so you came here, that your father was assigned here. I made it so you would survive the first passage—all so I could drag you into the second passage.”

He advances with a single, purposeful step. His boot flattens on the floor, and my withdrawal is a stumble back.

The tears rushing down my face are silent, my throat thick.

I choke on a wet gasp as he moves for me.

His hands are quick to snatch me by the arms and he pins me to his chest.

Slowly, lovingly, he brings his face to mine. “You have a purpose, Nari. I warned you of it.” He kisses the corner of my mouth, a gentle declaration of our ugly, bitter love. “You will meet my dagger…when the time is right.”

And his tongue flicks out; he licks the tears from my lips.

I scream a wretched sound.

Rage barrels through me, rushes through my veins.

I yank out of his hold and aim my twisted face up at him.

“I’ll fight you!” I shout and swat out at him. I strike his chest, hard, but he is entirely unflinching. “I’ll fight you until the very end. There is no promise your kind will win this Sacrament—and I will fight like my folk to make sure you don’t.”

A pregnant pause swells between us.

For a beat, he is a statue, frozen in his tension.

A frown starts to crease his hard face, but Ifeelit, the slight shift of his energy—inside the storm, behind the cloud of pain, there’s a glimmer of panic.

I grip onto that. “I have loved you all this time,” I hiss the words in an exhale that comes from my gut. “I have regretted much, but never loving you. Now…” My chest deflated with a sigh. “Now I am seeing other sides to life. You want to know whatI see?” My smile is wide and wet, and the teardrops dampen my jawline. “I see unrequited love in those around me. I see longing in your friends for things that will never be. I see my father selling me like cattle. And I see me in the middle of it all, begging those around me to love me as I am, mistakes and all—but I stand only with Eamon. He will forever be my Eamon, because no other loves my ugliness as he does.”

Shadows shudder around him. The dormant darkness turns to vapour and lifts from his shoulders, as though stirring from rest, as though ready to strike.

But all that comes is Daxeel’s answer, “I did. I loved you.”

“When it suited you,” I bite. “When you looked at me and saw a darling. A brat. You didn’t see me.”

His voice is soft. “I always saw you.”

I shake my head. “I won’t have you. If I survive it, I will walk out of this Sacrament—and never look back. Not at you or my family.” My jaw sets and the truth of my words bolts through me. My hand slaps to my breastbone before I say, “Listen to the beat of my heart, listen for the lie that isn’t here when I say,I will live my own life.”

These little fantasies of mine I entertained in my bed rotting, I have given them life, right now in this moment. I will turn my back on Daxeel who, as I realize, didn’t love me as I once believed. I will chase a future outside of these ugly males.

I will survive—and then, I will live.

Shadows unfurl from his shoulders. Some coil down his arms, others reach out for me, desperate, as he says, “No male can be without his evate after the bond is forged. If you do survive, ifwe bothsurvive, then—”