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So I say nothing. Just stare.
She leans back in my arms, trying to catch my eyes again, forcing me to meet the messy ache in hers. “You’re not saying anything,” she whispers, quieter now, which somehow makes it worse. “That’s usually not a great sign, Kain.”
Gods.
I drag in a breath, sharp and cold, like I can freeze the answer before it slips out and brands us both. “You’re not pretty,” I say finally, voice low, gritty. “You’re lethal.”
She blinks.
I keep going, because I’m already too far gone to claw my way back. “You’re the kind of beautiful that makes men ruin themselves. The kind that drags empires to ash. And you walk around like you don’t know it. Like you’re not the kind of girl men should run from.”
She’s staring now. Not blinking. Not breathing.
And I should stop. Ishouldwalk away, put her down, let Lucien yell at her for the fire and let Silas distract her with a joke and let Elias—
No. Fuck Elias.
“She doesn’t need pretty,” I mutter, more to myself than to her. “She needs worship. And I’m too damned angry to kneel.”
Her hand comes up, brushes my jaw like she’s trying to decide if she’s real or if I’m the one unraveling in her arms. But she doesn’t speak. Doesn’t laugh it off. Doesn’t throw something careless at me like she usually does.
She justlooksat me.
And that’s worse than any words she could’ve said.
From ahead, I hear Lucien’s voice barking my name, sharp and clipped—thank the gods—and I snap out of it, shifting her in my arms again like she’s just another burden I carry. Not the only thing anchoring me to whatever scraps of sanity I have left.
“You’re drunk,” I growl.
She smirks, cheek pressed to my chest. “And you’re full of shit.”
I say nothing.
But I don’t let her go.
Orin
Lucien’s pacing again, sharp and rhythmic, his boots cutting lines into the gravel like he’s trying to reshape the world with steps alone. He’s never been a patient man. He calls it strategy. I call it desperation masked with command. He won’t say it, but I can see it—he’s unraveling beneath all that beautiful, brutal composure.
And I can’t let him make this decision alone.
“You’ll fracture them,” I say quietly, hands folded behind my back as I lean against the stone archway that marks the edge of the road. The ruins of the old Hollow chapel loom behind me, its bones caught in moonlight like a god half-forgotten. “If we go without telling them, they won’t forgive it.”
“They’ll live,” Lucien snaps, then adds after a pause, “Assuming this works.”
“That’s not a guarantee you get to gamble with.”
He stops. Finally. Turns on me with that Dominion-heavy glare, like I should bow just for breathing near him. But I’ve seen kings fall. Lucien Virelius doesn’t scare me.
“She won’t come if she knows,” he mutters. “You think Luna will let us walk into Branwen’s grasp willingly? She’ll find a way to twist fate around her fingers and storm the gates.”
“Yes,” I reply. “Because that’s who she is.”
Lucien laughs, dry and bitter. “That’s the problem, Orin.”
There’s a moment of silence between us, stretched taut with truths neither of us say out loud. I don’t remind him that Luna is stronger than Branwen ever expected. I don’t tell him that her magic—the binding—has already begun to unmake the rules we thought governed this realm.
Instead, I say, “She’ll come anyway.”