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And it was. Though, not for lack of desire. Something always held me back. Fear, I guessed; I’d never been one to consider sex particularly sacred, but things felt…differentwith him. Andit terrified me, the thought of giving myself so completely to him, knowing all the things waiting in the wings, ready to rip us apart.

Besides, he had proven very…creative, and more than capable of using other methods to help me relax.

“Well, it’s only a matter of time before you do,” Aveline said, unfazed. “Anyone who’s spent more than a minute in the presence of you two can see that much.”

“I have a few larger concerns than who I’m sleeping with, and to what extent,” I mumbled, flopping back against the pillow.

“No disagreements there,” she said with a sympathetic click of her tongue. But she plopped the bottle down on my nightstand all the same.

I sleepily watched the herbs rising and falling in that bottle while Aveline hummed to herself as she laid out my dinner on the nearby table. The scents that wafted over to me were a strange combination of nauseating and enticing.

“Eat, my love,” Aveline encouraged, rubbing my back for a moment before dismissing herself. She tossed a handful of cheese slices to Phantom on her way out, putting an end to his pouting session.

I rolled from my bed and stomached what I could—which wasn’t much. A couple morsels of cheese, a bit of peppered turkey, a few crumbs of those cinnamon cookies that I normally devoured by the dozen. But I couldn’t even find the energy to bathe after eating, as I normally would. Sleep proved elusive, as well.

Eventually, I staggered out of my room and went in search of Aleksander. Phantom stayed behind, happy to have my bed all to himself—and to polish off all the food I’d left on my plate.

As I made my way through the halls, I kept my thoughts only on Aleksander; everything else was too exhausting to think about. My mind soon filled with images from the previous night, when the two of us had relaxed together in the massivetub that stood in the center of his washroom, sipping on sweet wine. Thoughts of repeating this activity proved more enticing than cinnamon cookies, even, and somehow my tired feet kept moving.

But he still wasn’t in his room, unfortunately. And he was no longer at the training grounds, either—nor anywhere else I looked.

It wasn’t Aleksander I ultimately found, but Zayn. I rounded a corner and nearly collided with the Elarithian lord; he was standing beneath a portrait of Calista, studying it with a frown and a pensive gaze.

Since our arrival in this palace, we hadn’t seen much of one another outside of occasional shared training sessions. I’d seen even less of him since the murders of a few days ago—and we almost never found ourselves alone together. I suspected he was avoiding me. That he disagreed with how close Aleksander and I were becoming, but he wasn’t one to argue if he could help it…so he was simply trying to pretend I didn’t exist, instead.

Nevertheless, he greeted me warmly, this time—maybe because it was too late to get away. We stood together for several minutes, engaging in a pleasant enough, if shallow, conversation.

As that conversation trailed off, his gaze shifted between me and the portrait he’d been studying.

“You favor her a bit,” he informed me. “Of course, they say that all the Vaelora of a given affinity favor one another, even though there’s no blood between them.”

I favored Queen Isolde, as well; there were several paintings of her hanging in the hall outside of my room. I had to pass them every day, and every day the weight of her eyes seemed to grow. And I couldn’t help but think of how my own eyes were the same color as the Queen of Eldris’s, too, even though we apparently shared no real blood.

All these powerful women with personal ties to me...

Why did I feel so weak, so uncertain, so small within their shadows?

I gave Zayn a half-hearted smile before fixing my eyes on the painting of Calista. Though she had never been a true queen, she was the very picture of regal grace. Her eyes were dark green, a stunning compliment to her raven-black hair. Her gaze was intelligent. The slight tilt of her head conveyed a sense of quiet dignity, while her lips were curved into a slight, mysterious smile, as if she was well aware of her own power and waiting for someone to dare to challenge it.

As I stared up at her, my turquoise bracelet tightened slightly against my wrist. I slipped my fingers between it and my skin, trying to relieve the pressure without taking my gaze from Calista’s.

“I don’t see the resemblance, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe you will once you take up your sword?” Zayn offered.

The words flooded me with a myriad of confusing feelings—and questions.

Did hewantme to take up that sword, knowing it would only make the relationship between all of us that much more complicated?

The last hints of warmth between us seemed to flee as the seconds ticked by in silence. I realized how much I missed the relationship we’d been building before the complications we’d found in this palace, and a question escaped me before I could stop it: “You told Aleks to be careful of me and that sword, didn’t you?”

“I tell Aleks to be careful of everyone. He’s a notoriously bad judge of risk—thinks he’s invincible, that one.”

“Be serious, Zayn.”

He was quiet for a minute, back to studying the portrait. His chest rose and fell with a deep sigh. “It was quite the tragedy,wasn’t it? The story of Calista and Argoth, I mean.” He tilted his face toward me. He wore his usual, carefree smile—close to the one I’d been missing—but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I guess I’ve just never been one for tragedies.”

“…I suppose I’m not, either,” I said, quietly. My lungs felt like they were shriveling up, preventing me from taking a proper breath no matter how hard I tried.