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‘Thought it couldn’t hurt to be clear.’ He tapped the knives on his belt. ‘So I’ve helpfully laid out the situation to them and made it … sufficiently explicit that I’ll be unpleasant about any attempts to contest your right to the throne or remove you from it in more clandestine ways. Took a few drops of blood, but I’m quite confident the message landed firmly enough to get us through the next few months without major trouble, at least.’

My jaw had sagged.

‘So.’ That conspiratorial smile bloomed on his face again, smug yet oddly soft at the edges. ‘Any other concerns?’

‘You … you’ve been threatening people in my name before even tellingme…’

‘You gave the impression you needed a break,’ he said, grinning at me as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘And I figured it might be best not to let any hopeful thoughts take root among the esteemed ranks of our opponents for even a few hours. So …’

‘Youmonster,’ I said weakly.

His grin broke through. ‘For you always, Your Majesty.’

Insanity. Utter insanity, and yet … if Agenor accepted the madness, and if Creon did, and if even the scheming and conniving bastards at the Crimson Court would refrain from objecting for a while …

Could I do it?

Hell, did I trust anyone else to do it?

It made me wince, that thought – too close to the whispering voices that had pushed me away from myself over and over again for months. I’d been the Alliance’s unbound mage because no one else could be. I’d been the godsworn symbol, because who else would be able to fill that role? And here was yet another pedestal waiting for me, another world to save, coming with a fight that wouldn’t end as long as the fae isles existed …

No.

No.

What did I want? Creon hadn’t even asked the question yet, and already the answer emerged from my thoughts so smoothly, gleaming in my mind like a freshly forged weapon –not this.

Not more choices.

Not more responsibility to carry.

I’d fought forpeace, damn it, not for a lifetime of backstabbing and intrigue and conniving courtiers, for an eternity of looking over my shoulder at every turn. Nothing could be further from the home I’d imagined than the Mother’s court I remembered, that twisted, violent place … And even if I could change it, or could at least try to change it, what wouldthateffort cost me?

More than reading books and sewing pretty dresses. More than running down beaches and eating pancakes and fucking Creon on every available surface.

More than I was willing to give.

‘So …’ I pulled up my knees, wiggling my toes in the moist grass. It was hard to look him in the eyes, suddenly. ‘So what if I don’t feel like becoming a High Lady, purely hypothetically?’

A single beat of silence.

And then his voice, softer, suddenly – ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

I jerked up my head. ‘Youwere?’

‘Much as it may surprise you,’ he said, a small, self-deprecating smile twisting around the corners of his mouth, ‘the time I spent at the Crimson Court was hardly the happiest of my life. I wouldn’t mind not moving back into it.’

Decade after decade of pain and cruelty, of living behind the mask of the male he no longer wanted to be – I should have known. ‘But … but you …’

‘Having a word with her commanders was a necessity anyway.’ He hesitated, then added, more cautiously now, ‘And I didn’t want to influence you too much. If it had been your life’s dream to spend the next two hundred years dealing with scheming sycophants, of course I would have come with you.’

‘You know very well it’s the bloody opposite of my dreams!’ An exasperated laugh escaped me. ‘Good gods. Can I just … refuse to do it? Is it that simple?’

‘You’re the one making the rules now,’ he dryly said, and the hint of amusement tugging at his lips almost changed my mind – that glimpse of unlimited possibilities. ‘I’m rather sure you can do whatever you like. Assuming you limit yourself to upheaving the fae isles and don’t try to build a home in Bakaru’s backyard, that is.’

I snorted. ‘I was thinking of the Fireborn Palace, but I’ll come up with something else.’

His wolfish grin made it harder and harder to keep thinking clearly – but gods help me, Ihadto be smart now, had to make sure I didn’t accidentally start a new war in my attempts to avoid one. If I refused to rule the empire in the Mother’s place …