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It was a comfort to walk next to him, someone taller than me keeping pace, slowing his own steps to match mine.

In the dark, the only illumination was the occasional light in the stone walls.

It made everything seem quiet around us, a bubble where we didn’t need to worry about the land above us, the people who wanted us dead. The people we wanted dead.

It was a singular space where my magic wasn’t gone because there were no animals to talk with here. I had no need to scream until my voice went hoarse. I had no need to lose myself to the screech of discontent, the knowledge that I would never be whole again.

“How did you get Velethuil out?” I asked, keeping my tone from any hint of the emotion roiling inside me.

“I told them I was going to kill him.” Tallu raised an eyebrow, and I could see the unhappiness in his expression. He looked down but didn’t release my hand. His skin was so soft, although I could feel the calluses from years of training for war.

“I suppose there is a benefit to having a family reputation for bloodshed and murder.” My eyes couldn’t stop looking at him. I knew I needed to pay attention to where we were going, but my chest ached at the expression on his face.

Looking at him was like looking at the sun. Even in the dim, flickering electric lights along the corridor, he was the center of the world with his high cheekbones, the point of his chin.

Even without his crown, he looked as though he was wearing it.

“Did it hurt when she tried to heal you?” His question startled me, and I shook my head. “I cannot tell you the depth of my guilt. I should have protected you.”

And that was the reason I had trusted him and the plan we’d come up with.

Tallu had said he’d protect me, and I had believed him, though I knew better.

At least my mother had never said she’d protect me.

I had always known what I was with her: a powerful game piece she played.

Perhaps she was reluctant to lose the piece, but I knew my place as a weapon to be used and discarded.

Tallu had made me believe I was more than that, and I was a fool to let myself imagine it.

“I cannot speak with her, but tomorrow, you must convince Lady Dalimu to go with them.” Tallu’s voice brought me back. He was still looking at me oddly, his expression a frown of uncertainty.

I might be no more than an important game piece, but Tallu and I both wanted the same thing. I could be just as expendable for him as I was for my mother. More, even, because I knew exactly how my story would end now.

“We have only days until the one-month ceremony. What do you plan on doing with Kacha and Maki tomorrow?”

“I passed both of them while the guards took me to Velethuil.” Tallu’s face went stern, and his hand squeezed on mine convulsively, like he wanted to let go but couldn’t. “I will deal with them after the one-month celebration. With Bemishu also disgraced, we will have more options.”

I wondered if one of those options was my blade in the darkness, the imperial guards waking up to cells stained with blood. They would deserve it. I could not find any empathy for men who tortured humans and animals alike.

“Here.” Tallu gestured to a staircase that spiraled up, and I recognized the carving on the banister as a turtle. It would lead me into Turtle House.

“How will you get back?” I asked.

“The same way I got in. I do not think Asahi or Sagam wanted me to use the invisible exit for my own benefit. But I’m grateful they showed it to me.” He smiled at my expression.

“Be careful. It’s hard to celebrate a one-month marriage to a dead man. And your cousins might be into necrophilia, but I am not. If Miksha has to raise your body from the dead so that it might walk around like a macabre puppet, I will kill you again and feed you to the sea serpents.”

Tallu cradled my face between his palms, then, without hesitation, kissed me.

I wanted to resist, but my body wouldn’t oblige.

The press of his lips, the warm, muscular sureness of his body let me fall against him, let me know that no matter how it ended, I was in this now, with him.

Or—the thought struck me like an arrow— for him.

“I would never leave you,” Tallu said.

Then he was gone, and I snuck back into my rooms, managing a few hours of sleep before Nohe and Piivu woke me to start the day. My mind was fuzzy with exhaustion.

With the one-month celebration just over a week away, we had no time for anything to go wrong. And we were hiding a blood mage under the palace.

When Nohe left to check on the status of my clothing for the one-month celebration, I turned to Piivu. We needed to be careful, and I was hyperaware of the Dog in the room with me. It wasn’t Asahi, and I had been too tired when I woke to make friends with him, which now I realized was a mistake.

“Piivu, it was a great pleasure for me to converse with your sister the other day. She has a unique perspective on court. I am planning a walk through the garden labyrinth.” I left it there, lamely.

My mind was too fuzzy for subtlety, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to make it sound as though I was already planning on cheating on Tallu before we had even been married a month.

Piivu’s eyes went wide, and he nodded rapidly. Then I stood and went to wait for the woman whose life we were about to destroy again.