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She couldn’t deny that something in her broke when he moved away.

Talasyn dove under the covers, pulling them up over her chin. She dared another glance at Alaric, his chest heaving, his lips wet and swollen, his black hair sticking up at odd angles from where she’d run her fingers through. An embarrassed flush colored his moon-kissed complexion as he reached down to rearrange his trousers. He looked as upset as she felt. The perfect pleasure of only a few moments ago had faded, leaving in its wake only a jumble of horrible thoughts, scattered and disjointed.

The man she had just done—that—with loathed her, and she was supposed to loathe him in turn. He was an unwilling political ally whom she would someday betray. He was her enemy. He was a monster.

And yet, her fingers were still sticky with his spend.

“You’re leaving tomorrow,” she said. And, in the act ofspeaking, she burst whatever bubble they’d been trapped in for the past month. She ripped away all the illusions they’d labored under; she knew that the moment she saw the resignation creep over his face.

But it was a miracle how steady her voice was, how it didn’t falter in the slightest. Talasyn supposed that she could be grateful for small mercies. “We shouldn’t have done this,” she told him.

He opened his mouth, dark irises flashing silver. Would he argue with her? Did she want him to?

But he seemed to think better of it. He gave a short nod.

She stole out of bed, heading to her bathroom so she could clean up. “I changed my mind,” she announced. “You’re sleeping on the floor.”

Without waiting for his response, she slammed the bathroom door shut behind her. Closing it between them, a shield from further mistakes.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

A pillow slammed into Alaric’s face in the early morning, unceremoniously rousing him from slumber.

His eyes flew open with a start. He grabbed the offending pillow and tossed it back where it came from, to his hellcat of a new bride. It landed in Talasyn’s lap, and he belatedly registered that she was sitting up in bed and looking at him in panic while a series of knocks sounded lightly on the door.

Every muscle in his body groaned in protest as he scrambled to his feet. He had enough presence of mind to return the cushions that he’d liberated from the chaise longue to their proper place, but he couldn’t help scowling at Talasyn as he joined her on the bed.

I can’t believe you made me sleep on the floor,he thought darkly. It wasn’t that he hadn’t gotten what he deserved for taking liberties with her, but he’d had a rough night’s sleep and he wasn’t inclined to be charitable.

She ignored him, calling out something in Nenavarene to whoever had come knocking. The door creaked open and Jie entered, clearly trying to fight back a saucy leer at the sight of the imperial couple side by side on the canopy bed.

“If it pleases His Majesty,” Jie said, “the Lachis’ka has to get ready for breakfast now.”

As Jie ushered Talasyn into the bathroom, Alaric took great care to avoid looking either of them in the eye. Right before the door closed behind them, though, Jie erupted into rapid, excited chatter. There was no mistaking whatthattone implied, even if he couldn’t parse the language, and regret and disbelief were sharp and heavy in the pit of his stomach as it all came rushing back to him. What he had done last night. With the Lightweaver. With the girl he’d met in battle whom he was nowmarriedto.

Why had she let him touch her? Why had she returned his kisses and touched him back?

She had called him Alaric. It was the first time he had ever heard his name in the shape of her voice. It had added to the blood pounding in his ears, to the fire in his soul. The memory of it now sent a pang through his chest.

He stared at his hand, holding it up to the early-morning light. The small shards of diamantine gemstones embedded into the wedding band on his ring finger sparkled.

This hand had been between his wife’s legs last night. The middle finger of this hand had beeninsideher.

She had fallen apart around him, and that fluttering of her inner walls as she clamped down had been the best thing he’d ever felt—perhaps even better than when he had come all over her lithe hand.

It haunted him: the sound of her soft cries, and the unexpected gentleness with which she’d stroked his hair as he lay slumped atop her, his world irrevocably changed.

But he was sailing home today, home to the nation that had caused her so much suffering. She wouldn’t be joining him for another fortnight. By that time, it would be too late to get those moments back.

Wasn’t that for the best, though?

Not long after Talasyn had finished dressing, an attendant knocked on the door with a summons from the Zahiya-lachis. Talasyn wondered what fault of hers had been unearthed by her grandmother this time, and then it struck her what a sad reactionthatwas to your own family wanting to speak with you.

Had she shared such a grievance with Urduja, the older woman would have scoffed. The Zahiya-lachis of the Nenavar Dominion had little patience for sentiment, and that was never more apparent as when she received Talasyn in her salon minutes later.

“Seeing as no corpses were discovered in your chambers this morning, I trust that you and the Night Emperor had an amicable night together.”

By some miracle, Talasyn was able to hold her grandmother’s gaze in a calm manner from across the table, even as her fingers twisted nervously into the fabric of her skirt. “It went fine.”