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I tensed, my entire body going cold as fear gripped me. My wrist flamed with pain.

“Aren’t there fucking rules against this?” he asked. He traced my cheekbone again, the skin of his hand so smooth against my face—too smooth. I bit the inside of my cheek, heart hammering. Outside, the wind howled, rocking a window that wasn’t closed properly on its hinges. His brown eyes widened as he scanned my cheekbone, his thumb tracing the injury slowly up and down.

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.He couldn’t sense injuries from a vorakh. But still, my vision went in and out of focus as icy cold fear ripped through me.

“There are rules,” I said, willing my voice to sound even. “But…accidents happen. Especially when you have the whole novice class in a fight.”

“Lyr, tell me honestly. Were you limping?”

“No. If I were, wouldn’t I still be now?”

“Then what was all that crap the forsworn bastard was spewing? He….” Tristan stretched his neck from side to side. “He was acting like I’d hurt you.”

My eyes widened. “Tristan, you’d never hurt me,” I said quickly.

“Then what the fuck was going on back there? Why would he think that?”

“I—” I shook my head, my mind freezing.

“Maybe I missed the mark. Maybe I wasn’t seeing what I was supposed to see or paying as much attention as I should have been. But he’s with you all day, every day. He was at the habibellum. If he didn’t see you get hurt, didn’t see you get this,” he swept his thumb against my cheek before his fingers cupped my chin and tilted my face up to his, “when did you?”

I wracked my brain for a lie, a story, a cover-up. This was exactly why I hadn’t wanted Rhyan saying anything. The habibellum had been the perfect excuse to cover up my newest wounds and bruises. It was a perfect alibi for Meera’s vorakh. And Rhyan had destroyed it in a single conversation.

“Tani,” I said suddenly.

“Who?”

“That girl, the soturion from Ka Elys who tried to push through our row. I didn’t tell you because, well, what happened with my back took precedence. But she—we got into a fight the other day. Not exactly a legal fight. And I came out with cuts and bruises that left Rhyan concerned. Because he hadn’t been there to see.”

“She did that?” he asked.

I watched his mind churn, knew he was deciding to go after her, to report her and attempt to bring her down. He’d drag her back to court, to another proceeding that would only end in her favor and potentially expose me and Rhyan, at best for using kashonim and at worst for being…more.

The fires we lit in my living room crackled and spit, but my heart beat loudly over the sound. I couldn’t think. I needed to stop Tristan. I gripped his arm, pushing his hand down into my lap and interlacing our fingers.

“There was a trial today because of it,” I said. “Tani was held accountable. That’s why she was trying to annoy me in the arena—to get back at me. The Imperator was there, too, to oversee. I had to go to the trial during training hours, and then I had to make up the time. That’s why I was training with Rhyan late. Imperator’s orders.”

Tristan narrowed his gaze. “Then what was the forsworn’s Godsdamned problem? Why was he so convinced I hurt you if he knew what happened?”

“He….” I sucked in a breath, stumped for a lie, for a way to keep weaving a believable story.

“Lyr, he’s dangerous. I can see it in his eyes. He’s not just a killer. There’s something off about him. He may be farther than Lethea, too. The way he talked to me—I only left so he’d calm down.”

“He’s not crazy,” I blurted out.

Tristan leaned back, and I realized my error. I’d defended Rhyan.

“I mean, what he was doing…was projecting.”

“What?”

“Don’t you see?” I asked, the idea forming clearly in my mind. I’d use a truth to conceal a lie. “Tristan, you were right. He left me unprepared for the first habibellum—left me unprotected. And when you pointed that out, he got upset. He tried to deflect and say it was your fault. He just feels guilty. It makes him look bad. That’s all it was. His own insecurity. If I don’t stay in the Soturion Academy, neither does he—and that’s it. He’s back on the streets, outside the Empire, forsworn and in exile forever.”

Tristan looked deep in thought as he considered my words, his eyes flicking occasionally back to my face, to my cut, to my black eye. I could sense his unease with my lies, how close he was getting to finding the hole in the story I’d fed him.

I knew what I had to do.

I sucked in a breath, tightening my fingers around his and drawing his hand up my thigh, higher and higher, guiding him to the center between my legs.