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K ing Theodore’s soldiers moved like specters, silent and quick. Even their armor hardly rattled through Fort Linum’s too-quiet darkness.

We wound down the stairs that led to the empty entry hall in a neat, long line. Outside, the winds cut through the valley, catching on the corners of the fort. They moaned like a woman dying. I tried to not take it as an ill portent.

Theodore descended ahead of me, Agatha behind, and I cradled the vase of seawater to my chest like a mother would a babe. It was this meager seawater that would allow me to use my power to get us past King Nemea’s men.

Agatha whispered over my shoulder. “You were in the king’s chamber. You’re wearing his robe. You’re wet with seawater.” The damp silk of said robe stuck to the open wounds on my back. My long, wet hair covered the bloodstains. “Tell me what’s happened?”

I craned to look at her over my shoulder. “I promise, I will tell you everything when we’re safe on the ship. Please, please, just do not panic when I do.”

Her eyes flashed. “Panic! Why would I panic?”

“Gods, Agatha.”

She bit her lips between her teeth, stopping up her worry and questions, and gave me a weak nod.

An ugly feeling seized me at the thought of confessing to Agatha.

A braid of shame and pride twined through me like a second spine at what I’d done to Evander.

As I descended the stairs and passed Nemea’s throne room, I thought of the inscription upon its wall.

The monster is always slain. I thought of Evander’s blank, blue-lipped face, and a pang of uncertainty struck me.

Perhaps I was just as monstrous as he had been. Perhaps my own slaying was yet to come.

King Theodore’s commander—Lachlan—gathered us all close when we reached the towering main doors.

“There are never guards stationed in the courtyard. We’ve always seen them gathered at the stables and barracks at the base of the mountain stairs,” he said quietly.

Then his stern eyes locked with mine. “We’ll need you to get us past those guards.

We need horses from the stables to get down the mountain road and to the king’s ship in Port Helris. ”

My mouth went dry. A tremor had begun in my muscles, either from the cold or shock, I couldn’t say. I fought against it and gave Lachlan a tight nod.

The lead guard pulled the massive door just wide enough for us to squeeze through sideways, and one by one, we wound our way through Fort Linum’s entrance like a silent serpent.

The wind had cleared the sky so only the bright, swollen moon and a speckling of stars filled it.

It lit the pale stones an eerie, watery blue.

Agatha and I huddled against the fort’s rough wall.

A gust whipped my hair up and into my eyes while the six guards spread through the courtyard, swords drawn, checking the smears of shadow cast by the pillars.

Theodore faced me and stepped nearer, his body cloaking me in sudden warmth. “Swear fealty to me now,” he said, low and close. “Before you leave Nemea’s domain and while there’s a witness. This way he won’t be able to claim you were stolen.”

I scowled and held the vase tighter. “You can’t possibly think it will matter to him. And how will he know? He’ll respond the same regardless.”

“It matters to me,” he said. “I won’t have the disloyalty of stealing another king’s subject in the night as a nick on my crown.”

My scowl only deepened.

He stepped even closer, gaze bearing down on me, and my breath caught. “Considering what I have done for you tonight, the least you can do is bend the knee.”

I held his glare for three beats of my hammering heart.

It turned my stomach—kingdoms and the inane rules that shaped them.

I did not want the gravel cutting into my knees.

I did not want to step from one ruler’s fetter into the next.

The responsibility of honoring, and kowtowing to, and obeying another man who would not do the same for me in turn. And yet it was the way of things.

I turned to Agatha and shoved the vase at her. “Hold this.”

With the courtyard cleared, the guards came back and made a wall around us. Lachlan leaned in, sounding nettled. “Quickly, quickly, if you don’t mind.”

I shot him an icy look. Then begrudgingly, shakily, I lowered myself to my knees. The gravel was as sharp as I’d expected. “What do you want me to say?” Theodore looked so severe staring down at me, his nose and brow highlighted in the moon’s opalescence.

It was Lachlan who answered. “Make it up.”

A gust ripped through us, raking my damp hair into the air.

I clawed it from my cheeks and met Theodore’s gaze with as searing a look as I could muster.

“I denounce the ruler of the Isle of Seraf.” Another gust boomed.

Cold and howling, it pulled tears from my eyes.

It muffled my soft words, sent a chill over my body. “I… I swear my… loyalty—”

Theodore lowered himself to his knees before me, his eye to mine, and my every thought dissipated. He was close enough for me to whisper and still be heard. My brow buckled with confusion at the gesture.

He gave a sharp nod. “Quickly.”

I fumbled through my memory for the long and dismal oath I’d made to King Nemea when I’d been younger.

“I, Imogen Nel, pledge my loyalty to you, King Theodore Ariti of Varya. I… will try … to honor you in word and deed, will and action. Before Eusia—” I shook my head.

Cleared my throat. “Before the Great Gods, wherever they may be, I swear it.”

The side of his mouth gave a wry downward curve. “You’ll try ?”

I nodded. “I swear it.”

He gave me a hard look and helped me to stand. The shaking in my limbs was too much now to hide and Theodore steadied me with both hands at my waist. Agatha watched us with astonishment as she handed me back my vase.

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head, eyes blinking rapidly.

The group split up. Theodore and I, accompanied by four guards, hurried toward the stairs that led down to the stables and entry gate. Agatha remained with Lachlan and the sixth guard. We came to the edge of the first step and my vision rippled at the abrupt, shadowy drop.

“This is the way you entered the fort?”

“Yes.” Theodore set warm fingers to my elbow when he saw how I swayed. “They’re uneven. Some are very short. Others are much higher than they should be.”

“There has to be another way.” Panic skittered over my skin, through my chest. “Nemea couldn’t have made all the guests climb these.”

“My lady—”

“I’ll spill it. I can’t see three steps down in this dark and I’ll misstep and spill it and we’ll all die for it.”

“That’s a possibility.” There was not a flicker of emotion in his voice, but his gentle touch on my elbow firmed. “But if you do not move forward, death—yours, mine, Agatha’s—is a certainty.”

Behind us, the wind screamed around the edge of Fort Linum in a pained warning.

This was not where I wanted to die, in the place that had made me small and frightened.

I straightened my spine under Theodore’s scrutiny.

The man who thought he knew me—who’d called me a coward.

I adjusted my hold on the vase and took the first step down.

My progress was too slow. I felt with my bare foot for the edge of the step, making my way down with Theodore’s hypervigilant aid, and feeling certain that I would never be warm again.

My teeth clicked loudly in my skull. My whole body shivered.

The silk robe I wore whipped against my bare legs.

I stopped on a particularly narrow stone tread and tried to calm my trembling.

Theodore looked up at me from the step below. The terror—the worry—in his eyes made my stomach dip. “Ah, fucking Gods,” he grumbled. “Come here.” He reached up like he was going to wrap me in his arms.

I stepped back. “What are you doing?”

“Your Majesty,” the guard behind me whispered. “We need to keep moving.”

“A minute.” Theodore scowled. “The lady is about to freeze to death. She needs to warm up.”

“You’re not suggesting that you warm me.” His blood pumped through my veins but the thought of being touched, of letting him press his body to mine, felt far too intimate.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “The other people here are clothed in metal, so yes, it would be me.”

The guards ahead of us came back. “We’re only halfway down, Your Majesty. What would you have us do?”

Theodore’s gaze lingered on me for a moment. “Go ahead. See what’s waiting for us at the bottom. If you think we would be overwhelmed, return. If not, tuck yourself away among the rocks. We’ll be down shortly.” Theodore looked to the two guards behind me. “Wait for us ten steps down.”

When we were alone, Theodore let out an enraged huff.

“I’m fine,” I said, though my body quaked. It was foolish—I knew it was—to not accept his help.

“Clearly.” His hands were propped on narrow hips. “But this incessant blood bond will not let me ignore the fact that you’re shaking. You’re cold. You’re scared—”

“Don’t you dare call me a coward again—”

He held up a hand. “I said you were scared. ” In the moonlight, I could just see the sincerity that softened his eyes. “I’m scared too.”

My fingers flexed against the vase I held, but I said nothing. I couldn’t decide if knowing that he, the descendant of a Great God and king, was also scared made me feel better or worse.

“Tell me what you need.” Again, his voice was so perfectly empty of feeling, deep and resolute in his chest. But that look in his eye made me believe that he meant it.