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“Do you think Daggar knows the truth about these stones, though? Did he only tell you about them so that you could make an attempt for them, and he could, what, arrest you for stealing? You’re the lord protector—literally the law of the land. Only the Imperium is higher. What’s his game?”

“I don’t know if he has a game.” Fortiss sighs.

“He’s definitely skittish, but his men seemed loyal enough out on the plains, for all that most of them didn’t follow him into the Eighth House.

Did you notice that? Other than a few guards and his generals—the rest didn’t get close. The whole place seems empty.”

“We didn’t let them know we were coming, and they’ve been through a lot recently,” I point out. “Perhaps they really are patrolling up and down the border. I would be, if people kept showing up dead.”

“Fair…” Fortiss reaches into his pocket and pulls out a silken pouch that smells of aromatic tobacco.

“Nazar offered this up for our search when I told him what we were looking to do, and why. He didn’t want me to draw any attention by trying to steal anything, And the scent could throw off any casual search. ”

“Not for very long if these talonstones don’t clink together,” I point out, but dutifully we fill the pouch with enough stones to visit all twelve houses of the Protectorate three times over.

Then Fortiss tucks it back in his belt. He glances at the hummerlets, then back to me.

“I’m, ah, going to let them go dark now.

With the torches guttering outside, we should have enough light to see by. ”

“I mean, I guess…?” I bite my lip as Fortiss whispers something comfortingly to the hummerlets, then opens the door of the room. He peers out and seems to come to a decision.

“Here you go.” He pulls one of the talonstones out of the pouch and hands one each to the tiny birds. With delicate fingers, the hummerlets grab the talonstones as Fortiss murmurs “Kreya.”

The hummerlets disappear.

“What?” My jaw drops in surprise as Fortiss shuts the door again firmly—this time locking it from the inside. The room descends into utter darkness.

“What are you doing?” I squeak, hearing him breathe out a long, shuddering exhale. I stick my hands out into the darkness, grateful when I brush the table beside me. This much blackness is disorienting.

“Do you trust me, Talia?”

“What?” I blink, but before I can recover, I hear him step toward me. A moment later, he wraps his arms around me, pulling me close. Naturally, instinctively, my body melts toward him and his lips come down on mine.

Our kiss is nothing like the stolen, aggressive embrace I shared with Tennet.

That was a battle, I realize—this feels more like a war—of wits, of twining hearts, of kindred souls, a war that might be fought over years, decades, generations to come.

And I want that war— need it. I have fought with and against this man, I have trusted and been betrayed by him…

and I’ve betrayed him as well, yet here he is, holding me—kissing me.

It's…glorious.

In that moment, that breath, I know in the deepest, secret places of my heart, the world will never, ever be right if Fortiss is not with me.

We barely know each other, but I know enough to want to learn and grow with him, to explore and lead with him.

To rise and fall and face every new danger by his side.

I want to see him at his pinnacles and depths—I want to cheer him and heal him, I want to hold him in my arms and soothe away his nightmares when he can do no more than sleep.

Fortiss is everything the Protectorate has been and everything it will be.

Like me, he was held down, discounted and ignored by those who had no interest in letting him soar.

Like me, he turned himself into something entirely different, built himself into a leader and dared to explore a magic that had been left dormant and lost for centuries except for Rihad’s corrupt dabblings.

The Protectorate will be remade because of him. Because of me, too.

And I want this—want it all. More than anything I think I’ve ever craved in my life. More than everything I thought I could be allowed to even dream.

“Fortiss…” I manage against his mouth, even as something cracks inside me, the glass-thin hold I had on my emotions, my fears, my identity, myself. I sway a little more into his body and he growls against my lips, then wrenches himself away from me.

And shocks me to my toes.

“Do you want him?” he gasps, the question making my heart seize up.

Though I can’t see anything in the utter darkness, I can feel the desperation coming off him in sudden waves.

“If you want him, Talia, if you want to be Tennet’s wife—if you want him to take you away and be your partner in anything you do, I can make it so.

I can ensure that you get whatever you want. You deserve to get whatever you want.”

I gape wordlessly as he huffs in frustration, then paces across the room. I can’t even pick him out in the darkness, so how he can see I have no idea, but I turn my head to follow the sound of his footsteps.

“I thought I’d have more time,” he mutters. “But I don’t. Everything is happening too fast, too fast! But this, if this is what is decreed and you want it, if you want it?—”

I suck in a shaky breath, but before I can even say anything, he’s back in front of me.

His hands come up to either side of my face and he pulls me to him once again.

When he hesitates, I lean into him, giving my tacit consent.

This time when he kisses me, it’s a long, searching, and needful embrace, leaving me breathless by the time he finally drags his mouth away from mine.

He leans his forehead against mine. “But you can’t leave me, Talia,” he whispers.

“You can’t. You’re like nobody I’ve ever met before, nobody I ever will meet again.

I felt an instant kinship to you even when I knew—knew!

—you were off to be married, that first day near the Shattered City.

And when I met you as Talia…I was lost. Even when I saw you as Merritt, I knew there would be no warrior I’d rather ride into battle with—I just didn’t fully understand why.

Now I do…by the Light, I do. I saw you fight, I saw you rage, I saw you cry—and I saw your eyes when you looked at me, doing everything you could to get me to see Szonja, to understand.

I’ve seen—Light, everything —and I still barely know you.

So he can’t have you, Talia. He can’t.” He draws in a shuddering breath, his whole body quivering with emotion. “Unless…unless you want it.”

I sense more than hear his mind crashing against the walls of his own prison, and my heart shatters all over again.

Tennet and Fortiss aren’t so different after all.

They’ve both been brought up in a world where women have a certain place to occupy, even—especially—if you loved them.

Fortiss’s heart is pounding so loudly I can hear it, feel it against my own chest, thudding in a cadence with my own rushing pulse.

He wants so desperately to claim me for his own, I know…

but even more than that, he wants me to have a choice.

A choice.

That makes him unlike any man I’ve ever met in the Protectorate…and this is who will be our leader. This is a man worth giving everything to, knowing he will pour back into me his energy, his fire…his love.

This is a choice I can easily make.

“ Fortiss ,” I whisper.

I don’t know if it’s the darkness surrounding us like a second embrace, or simply the fact that we have been here and done this before, but Fortiss and I are suddenly matched action to action, thought to thought.

Like lovers who’ve known each other for decades, not weeks, we pull at each other’s clothes, unlacing and untying, shimmying out of tunics and breeches until there is nothing between us but the cool close air of Daggar’s vault.

“No,” Fortiss announces grimly, and I blink, swaying uneasily in the open air as he dives for our discarded clothes. No? Then a second later I hear the telltale scratch of flint and the smell of sulfur—and light leaps high from his cupped hands.

“What are you doing?” I squeak. “I thought you didn’t want anyone to realize we were here.” I stare at him, weirdly flummoxed as he stalks over to a torch and lights it. The thin flame provides more than enough illumination to fill the room.

He turns to me, a new smile creasing his lips as his gaze roams over my body, hot and fierce. “I couldn’t stand another moment without seeing you with my own eyes, Talia. I’ve imagined you for so blighted long.”

We stare at each other for a long moment, and I drink in every disparate image of this beautiful man—his broad chest heaving, his shoulders taut and muscled, his long, sculpted arms, the left now heavily banded.

His waist arrows down to narrow hips, and his heavily muscled thighs ripple as he strides back over to me, pulling me to him.

This time he doesn’t ask my permission. I shudder against him as his broad palm slides down my rib cage and rests against my waist, while his other curls around the back of my head and draws me in for a long, lingering kiss.

I press back and give as good as I get, touching him, tasting him, my fingers splaying over his chest, down his rippled abs, circling his hips as he shifts against me. His breath is coming faster now, harder, and he hooks his hand into my breeches and drags them down?—

A door crashes open at the far end of the hallway.

Fortiss and I spring apart like we’ve been lashed with a whip, staring at each other, then at the door, then back at each other.

As one, we lurch toward our clothes. It’s a testament to our skill as warriors, how quickly we recover.

We move in one timing, with each hard-charging thud of the runner outside coinciding with another article yanked onto our body—breeches, tunic, boots.

Whatever we can’t throw on in time is stuffed into pockets, and by the time someone tries the door, we’re dressed.

“The light!” I hiss, but Fortiss doesn’t attempt to snuff out the torch. Instead, he yanks it from the wall, holding it high in one hand as he draws his knife in the other. Then he gestures to me to pull the door wide.

I do and jerk back in utter surprise. “Syril!”

Her eyes snap wide in horror. “Talia—what are you doing here? This is a house of death .”

“But—”

“Follow me—bring the fire!” She turns and hisses something, then throws her torch back up the corridor. Fortiss and I pile in behind her, and only then do I see it.

The hallway is filled with snakes.