Page 31

My dignity—both as a man and a future ruler—was what kept me from shifting under her intense stare.

“The coronation is going along smoothly, as far as I’m aware.

I met with the royal jeweler a couple days ago to get fitted for my crown.

As far as the wedding goes…” I cleared my throat again, this time in anger.

“I haven’t really considered it much, beyond establishing it will be after the coronation. ”

“So, you have not announced a decision on the future queen.”

It was not a question, but I answered anyway. Harshly. “No, and I fail to see what that has to do with anything we are pursuing.”

I kept the answer intentionally vague. It was up to her to tell what pursuit I spoke of.

Whatever warmth Haron had brought with her swept from the room when her smile dropped.

If I wasn’t assured of her skills as a necromancer, I would have assumed she was an aeromancer manipulating the air.

Slowly, she rose from her casual position to sit ramrod straight in the chair, and for the briefest moment I had the same demeaned feeling as when I was a child, standing in front of Father as he sat on his throne and looked down at me.

“Of course you wouldn’t see it, Your Highness .

” She made the title sound like the most vile curse.

“But it appears Trisne was targeted because she was selected as a possible bride for you, and her own father practically disowned her when she publicly rejected the nomination to study in the City of Scholars.

I had approached Jinon to confirm my suspicions it was his piece of shit friend Forol Hent, only to find him vehemently denying he knows anyone by that name.

Now I am concerned this murderer may target other bride candidates and am trying to eliminate my options by determining if you have narrowed your selection down.

“So yes, your wedding is very fucking relevant to me sitting here in your study now. And if your foresight extended any further than your dick, you would see that I would only seek your audience during court hours to discuss the ongoing issue of a noblewoman who has been brutally murdered . One that you have done little, if anything, to solve!”

The lashes her tongue gave me did an excellent job of cutting me down to a miniscule shape of a man.

Even as rage bubbled in my chest at the indignation of being dressed down by Haron, shame built a painful lump in my throat that kept it from spewing out as a hateful defense.

Instead, a low rumble of a growl rattled my chest, and my fingers curled tightly around the edges of the armrests.

It took an embarrassingly long time for me to find my voice again. “You do not… get to speak to me that way.”

“Why? Because it’s too honest for you? Tell me, little princeling, am I lying now? ”

A snarl just about escaped my mouth at the demeaning nickname before I promptly choked on it in alarm.

Tendrils of Haron’s red hair that escaped their braid were lifting from her face as if floating on the wind.

Something charged the air and made my skin pebble along both arms as the beast reacted.

Haron didn’t seem to notice the deep indigo aura enveloping her body, pulsing rhythmically like a slow, steady heartbeat.

Every one of my heightened senses burned with the overwhelming amount of raw magic now emanating from her still form.

Danger! Danger! Danger! My mind screamed with every pulse of that wild power.

“No,” I answered, hating how small my voice was. “No, you’re not lying. You never have.”

The expression that ghosted across her face was almost too quick to catch, but it almost looked like…

guilt. “I would not lie to you about this, Irin. And I hope the same is true for you.” Haron took a deep breath in through her nose and held it for a moment before exhaling slowly through her mouth, like she was centering herself.

That threatening aura slowly folded in on itself until the oppressive feeling left the room.

“Just because we fucked once doesn’t mean my goals have changed.

Or that you have any semblance of ownership over me and what I choose to keep private in my personal life. Have I made myself clear?”

My head bobbed automatically. “Very. I’m sorry if I offended you. I was… out of line.”

Gods, that apology tasted bitter… but it wasn’t a lie.

Haron leaned back into the chair and plucked her glass from the side table.

“Apology accepted.” The rest of the goldtine—not that there was much left—slipped past her lips when she threw the drink back, and she set the glass carefully on the side table.

“I should go. I have plans later this evening.”

“Of course,” my answer practically fell from my mouth. “Will you be back tomorrow? Or sometime this moon phase?” That gave her seven days to cool off. I hoped it wouldn't take that long for her to forgive me.

She pushed herself up smoothly from where her body had sunken into the soft chair cushion.

The smell of damp earth, moss, and heavy fog—the scent I now associated with Haron—wafted by as she passed, and I found myself breathing deeply to trap it in my lungs.

If I couldn’t keep her here with me, I could at least commit her scent to memory to comfort me when I lay alone in my bed.

Haron was already swinging her cloak around and pinning it beneath her throat by the time I rose to escort her from the study.

Still, she refused to look at me. It was a risk, I knew, but I couldn’t help reaching my left hand out to run the backs of my fingers down her arm.

Fuck my pride at this point. “Haron?” I asked softly. Her jaw muscle fluttered from how tightly she clenched it.

“I don’t know,” she finally answered, though I had almost forgotten my question of when—not if—she would come back. Her response wasn't a lie.

Haron pulled her arm from my touch and reached out to rip the study door open.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say it felt like she was running away.

Fear and insecurity clambered around in my head and tinted my vision red as I stood staring at that door.

Never in my life had I experienced the overwhelming urge to capture and…

possess someone, like I did with Haron Val Toric.

Not even when I’d learned who my mother was and approached her for the first time.

Pila Monato was happy to operate as a stand-in for my wet-nurse on occasion.

She would sit by my bedside, brushing hair from my forehead as she told those stories passed down by her Julran ancestors that lulled me to sleep.

But when I’d turned to her for any kind of comfort or support, her gates had slammed shut as if responding to a violent siege.

Like showing any kind of affection or motherly care in public was a weakness in her eyes.

Maybe it was. When Father told me of her sudden death fifteen years ago—almost to the day, I remember it was the Chilled season when I turned eighteen—it was as if he’d told me one of the barn cats had passed.

I was just as emotionless as he was, the both of us sitting at the small table in his private receiving chambers and sipping goldtine.

Looking back, that was the first time Father sat down to drink with me outside of a political meeting or meal.

As a man myself, I longed for a partner to share my burdens with.

Someone who did not look at me and only see what they could receive from helping me.

Someone more than what my mother was to Father, just a woman to help pass the time and give him heirs when his own wife did not.

Queen Belva had died shortly after Pila was taken on as his mistress, her suicide a well-kept secret in the palace walls.

The poor woman felt she was no longer useful to him.

Her only purpose was to give him children, of which she tried for the better part of ten years into their marriage.

My birth was practically her eviction notice.

Haron filled all those painful, bleeding cracks created by my cold and distanced upbringing.

She soothed my soul with her unwavering pursuit of the truth and her unapologetic but empathetic honesty.

Haron didn’t need me. I was the one who sought her out, after all.

But she kept pulling me in with some unnatural attraction I couldn't ignore.

Never would I have anticipated meeting someone like her when I went looking for the country's strongest necromancer, someone so full of life and fire and driven to achieve what she set her mind to.

It felt like an honor to be needed by Haron, to be wanted by someone so independently successful.

And I felt like I was letting her down.