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Lothaire swiped his face with a sleeve and cast him a rictus grin.

Sucking in wet breaths, Kristoff sensed he was about to impart more information. Kristoff also sensed he would not want to hear it.

Lothaire didn’t disappoint: “When I had no breath, do you think I was dreaming of air? Orfire?”

The unspoken question felt palpable in the storm.When Furie rises, what makes you think she’ll be saner than me?

Lothaire shook his head, sending blood flying from an array of wounds. “Come along, little brother. I suspect we were driven farther away from Mina. We have work to do.” Brushing off his coat with a casual mien and a mangled arm, he added, “And also those rascally hellhounds from before are returning in three . . . two . . . one . . .”

“Ahh-wooooooo.”

Thirty-Seven

Castle Vitis

Silt held Kosmina as she slept, moving not a muscle, wanting her to rest and heal.

As if it promised all the answers, he stared at the ceiling above the bed. He’d memorized every inch of that expanse, had watched as minute cracks appeared after a rumble, only for sorcery to repair them.

Despite ceding his blood streams to Kosmina over the last six days, his body grew stronger. Despite partaking, she might be . . . weakening. When they’d trained together tonight, had she lacked her usual stamina?

He refused to believe that. Her eyes weren’t getting redder, and her wound hadn’t worsened. He told himself his blood tamped down her illness and would forever.

He told himself this a lot. Seemed lying was all he did these days.

Apparently, Silt could abandon revenge. He might even be able to forsake smoke. But he could never jeopardize his ownsurvival to go with her—even though he’d told Kosmina he would.

Why did she keep believing him?

Because a sheltered young female like her was no match for a deceiver like him.

He wasn’t the only one wearing a figurative mask. Kosmina joked about her illness, but earlier he’d seen her glance at the mirror and avert her gaze with a look of disquiet. Another time he’d caught her on the balcony, staring with foreboding at the ghoul’s mountain, visible in the distance. She’d quickly recovered and donned her stoic expression. . . .

Though everyone in the castle knew about Silt’s ruse, somehow they’d kept the secret from her, and it weighed on them all. Enti, Xodin, and even Pearl had looked guilty whenever the princess accompanied Silt on his arm to dinner.

Enti’s irises no longer swirled when she was around Kosmina. Was it because the sorceress refused to read the mind of one so doomed and betrayed? Or because Enti herself was weakening?

Weirdly, Silt’s lie weighed on him—the Oathbreaker—the most.

Each time Kosmina expressed delight with him in bed.

Whenever he forgot their situation and found himself laughing with her.

Every hour they spent training, her with her sword and him with his floundering sand, for a trip he would never make.

Would she feel embarrassed or enraged once she discovered he’d duped her? He had a lot of time to think about this. He held her whenever she slept, wanting to be there if she woke amorous or thirsty. He always sent her drifting back to sleep with a satisfied sigh,“Adham.”

Though their bed play continued to astound him, he hadn’t taken her fully. The glimmer of an oasis on the horizon grew closer, but she withheld the last of the mystery from him. . . .

Now as he held her, his musings tangled: the pleasure of her in his arms versus the torment of his thoughts. He himself slept little.

She’d told him that whenever he did, his sorcery spilled out over into the room. So why couldn’t he channel it while awake? He felt as if a dam of silt blocked his sorcery, the way he’d once choked that crystalline river. How to explode the floodgates when he was awake?

If his powers returned to full strength, could he take on a hive of ghouls and a primordial to save this female from her fate? He gazed at one of his hands, willing it to light.Sputter.

With a silent curse, he returned his gaze to the ceiling. A builder like him recognized the stress fractures above as a systemic issue. Didn’t he suffer the same?

At dinner last night, he’d asked Enti, “Have your scouts uncovered anything about those immortals who entered Nightside?” If the two had somehow survived, they might have information or unexpected powers to help with Kosmina’s situation.