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‘Do I?’ she shot back. ‘Because it sure looks like it.’

The Rider narrowed his eyes, locking his emotions behind his practiced wall of sheer, unshakable cognition. ‘I came with you because I adore and respect you, and I wasn’t going to let you go alone into the enemy’s lair. However, I am also a soldier and will not sit back while a potential war surrounds us. This isn’t just about you, Issa. Pegasi is in danger. My people, our people, might be at probable peril. The gods have already erased one civilization from existence. Do you want to hazard a second annihilation?’

Her flames flared, brighter, hotter.

‘You think I don’t know about the Ascended’s warring past?’

Her voice shook, edged with fury. ‘I’m au fait with my people’s military complex and the warriors it designs. I was one of them, for Sacran’s sake. However, by rooting around and spying, you’ve just put my loved ones, my father, and I, at risk. If the Ssigis soldiers discover what you did tonight, do you think they’ll sit idly by?’

Ki’Remi clenched his teeth. ‘They won’t find out.’

She laughed then. A bitter, hollow sound. ‘Won’t they?’

The conflagration around her pulsed in warning.

He had never seen her so undone, unmoored, and incandescent with emotion.

‘Your sheer arrogance and stubbornness wound me,’ she whispered, shaking her head. ‘I have fought for years to keep my family safe. I have sacrificed so much to get to this point where I am close to an audience with Sulfiqar. You, the one person I trusted above all else, might have now jeopardized that.’

He stepped toward her. ‘I did what I had to do and was careful about it. Hell, Mirage had my back, and she’s the best.’

‘She might rule Pegasi, but she’snadain this place where your soul and mind can be vaporized with a single whisper.’

‘Kidaya,’ he called, ‘please -’

She cut him off with a raised palm and a long suck of her teeth.

Then she turned away, shoulders rigid as steel.

Her firestorm imploded into embers that floated to the ground as, without another word, she walked to the bed, climbed in, and twisted her back to him.

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Ki’Remi dragged a hand over his face, frustration burning in his gut.

She had a right to be angry.

But he had done what needs must.

He had fulfilled whatshewould have in his position.

Still, that didn’t make it hurt any less.

The heavenly bodies above Sivania pulsed in slow, endless spirals.

Through the glass-paneled ceiling of their celestial prison, casting pale gold light over the smooth stone floors and walls of the divine suite.

All was still.

Yet Ki’Remi lay wide-eyed in the dark, his thoughts far from sleep.

Listening to her breathe.

Feeling too much. His heart racing too fast, freakin’ guilty at arguing with her.

She was livid, no doubt, evidenced by her stiff shoulders and the emotional barrier she’s thrown up between them.

Itfokkin’ burned; it hurt to know he let her down.