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Cautiously, Tanwen slipped through the hidden door.

The small glow from her flickering candle barely illuminated the empty, dark marble washroom. The only other light was that of Maja and Parvi, which streamed in, white and gold, from the skylight overhead.

Before Tanwen could fully adjust to the dimness, a sudden force pinned her against the cold stone wall. Her candle fell from her hand, snuffed out, as a sharp gasp escaped her.

In the shadows, Zolya’s eyes glinted with ferocity as he pressed a knife against her throat, his grip firm and unyielding. For a moment, panic surged through Tanwen.

This is it, she thought.

This was how he would right his earlier wrong, how he would kill the Mütra. But then recognition dawned in Zolya’s gaze, and he recoiled as if stung by his own actions, releasing her from his grasp.

“Tanwen,” he breathed. “What are you doing here?”

His open robe revealed his shirtless torso and low-slung trousers, his white wings half-expanded at his back. His hair fell to his shoulders, tousled as though he had been disturbed from slumber. Zolya stood before her, a temptation.

“I need to know what you’ll do,” said Tanwen, forcing her voice to be steady, unmoved by the vision of him.

“Do?” he questioned, brows pinched.

“About me being Mütra.”

Zolya regarded her a long moment, a dozen thoughts dancing within his gaze, before he sheathed his blade, then laid it on a nearby table. “I’m not going to do anything,” he said.

Despite his response, Tanwen felt no relief, only more confused dread. “Why not?” she asked.

Zolya looked at her evenly. “Would you like me to do something about it?”

“No,” she replied quickly. “I just don’t understand ... why you won’t.”

“I already told you why,” he said, his tone carrying an edge of exhaustion. “I am not your enemy.”

She hesitated, wishing, wanting , to believe him, but her years of watching what happened to the Mütra who were exposed left her in a state of perpetual distrust.

“Though I understand why you would think I was,” Zolya added after a beat, features pained, “after I took your family from you.”

The room warped and bent, his words knocking the air from Tanwen’s lungs.

“I know,” Zolya continued, gaze penetrating. “I know that Gabreel is your father.”

Tanwen shook her head with disbelief, taking a retreating step toward the hidden pathway at her back. “How?” she breathed.

“You rather gave it away in the orchard,” he replied.

Her hand involuntarily went to her mouth, trapping her gasp. No, thought Tanwen, grief and guilt clawing through her gut. No. I’ve ruined everything.

She had not meant to say so much earlier in the grove, but her anger and agony regarding Eli and everything else weighing her down had overwhelmed her. Tanwen had been desperate for a release, and lashing out at Zolya had been the only nearby option.

“I don’t know how I didn’t see it earlier,” Zolya admitted, redrawing Tanwen’s attention to where he studied her beneath a stream of moonlight, his white wings and hair aglow. “You share an uncanny resemblance with them, especially your brother.”

“Aberthol is my twin.” The words were out of her mouth before she knew what she was saying.

Stop it! Tanwen silently scolded herself. Haven’t I done enough damage? She couldn’t bear the thought of giving Zolya any more leverage. And yet ... deep down, a part of her held on to the belief that he wouldn’t exploit such information against her.

And in all honesty, it was a bloody relief to cling to such faith, to finally release all she had kept hidden. Zolya now knew everything, all parts of who she was and was not supposed to be. No one besides her family and her animals had ever known her truth.

Zolya now did, and he had laid down his knife.

Sheathed it and set it aside.

I am not your enemy, he had told her.

But then what was he to her? What could he be?

Tanwen was Mütra and the daughter of the inventor he had stolen away for the king, for his father.

“Tanwen,” said Zolya, her name a whisper echoing in the quiet room. “I’m so sorry.”

As she noted Zolya’s clear pain and guilt etched into his features, haunting his blue gaze, her breathing grew shallow.

His apology pricked open the well of grief Tanwen had desperately been attempting to smother. Everything she had been trying to contain regarding the loss of Eli, her brother’s torture, her withering father, her mother alone and so far away, overflowed.

Her family, the only safety net she had ever claimed, was splintering.

Tanwen’s throat tightened, tears gathering behind her eyes.

“What I have done ...” Zolya paused with his hard swallow. “It’s unforgivable. But I will do whatever I can to make it right.”

“Free my father and brother,” she challenged, begged.

The groove between Zolya’s brows deepened, a look of remorse. “You know I don’t have that power.”

Tanwen scoffed, incredulous. “You are the prince; you have power.”

“Yes, but not enough to reverse a king’s command.”

“Then how could you ever make this right?” Tanwen seethed, turning from him. Her chest felt cleaved open.

I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.

Tanwen cried.

She let loose loud sobs that she tried muffling with her hands.

A breeze drew her attention to Zolya, now a graze away; he hovered, unsure, the heat of him pressing against her exposed skin along her back. She could sense his need to embrace her, but she understood that given the nature of his apology and the things he couldn’t change, it would be completely inappropriate. He had kidnapped her family, put their lives at the mercy of the king, a king who tortured her brother, who forced her father to erect a new mine despite what it would cost future Süra.

And yet still ... while Zolya had committed his sin, Tanwen hated understanding it had not been done by his own desires or beliefs. He had been compelled to follow orders beyond his control.

You are my enemy, she had accused him.

No, he had corrected, that is my father.

Gods, why was this so bloody complicated?

Tanwen drew in a steadying breath, forcing her composure as she wiped at her eyes.

Zolya was right.

The king was the problem. For many.

But not for long, she thought, though a sting of guilt followed.

Since losing Eli, she had nearly forgotten what she had done that morning.

She had helped in a plot to kill the king.

As she had agreed to do for a Low God.

Obeying orders, just like Zolya.

Tanwen’s hands weren’t exactly clean either.

But she had already accepted her involvement. Had been firm that Zolya could never know the sin she was part of.

Tanwen was already treading a precarious edge with what Zolya did know about her. This could send her toppling over, with Zolya being the one to push.

Hesitantly, she turned.

Zolya loomed over her, a wall of contained power mixed with clear worry. His muscles were taut beneath his open robe, as if he struggled to keep himself from touching her.

Tanwen fought her own desire to fold into his offered strength, allow herself to be warmed by his heat. Despite the chasm of their circumstances, there forever appeared a stubborn bridge, connecting them, inviting them to cross over toward each other.

“I must ask,” Zolya began slowly, “was that your intention in coming here, then, to the palace? To free your brother and father?”

Tanwen’s silence seemed to give him his answer.

Zolya frowned. “You know it’s impossible to escape Galia.”

“It’s hard,” she corrected. “But not impossible.”

Zolya shook his head, almost pityingly. “Even so, my father will not stop hunting you.”

“I have hidden my entire life,” Tanwen reasoned, chin lifting. “I have no issue hiding for the remainder of it.”

A shadow played across Zolya’s features. “Do you even know where your father and brother are being kept?” he asked.

“In an old groundskeeper’s cottage along the northwest perimeter of palace grounds.”

“So you have a plan,” he said, a statement, not a question.

“I do.”

Zolya remained quiet, pensive, which only drew Tanwen’s uncertainty.

“Will you stop me?” she asked.

His gaze bore into hers. “No,” he said, “but I also cannot help you.”

“Not stopping me is helping me,” Tanwen explained.

Zolya allowed her declaration to fill the washroom, the truth of it heating the small gap between them.

Yes, his silence seemed to say. I know.

Tanwen’s pulse rushed, her skin aching with her longing.

If she leaned a breath closer, they’d touch.

By some miracle she remained still.

“When will you attempt this?” he asked, gaze dipping to her lips.

“Soon,” she exhaled, heat rushing through her body. She wavered on whether to share more, but it was as if a dam had been broken and all her truths were pouring free. “During the evening of the next full moons.”

Zolya’s surprise visibly flared. “That is at week’s end.”

“Yes.”

“The princess’s prewedding celebration is that night.”

“It is.”

Understanding dawned in his features, of how perfect the opportunity was, given the palace would be thoroughly preoccupied that evening.

Zolya’s jaw set along with his nod. “While I cannot be the one to physically free your family, I can do what I can to help make your escape easier.”

A shock of disbelief washed over Tanwen. “How?”

“I will find ways.”

Tanwen regarded him for a beat, a warmth of gratitude filling her lungs.

I can do what I can to help.

“So you are helping me,” she said.

Zolya’s gaze did not waver from hers. “Tanwen.” Her name spoken on a gruff whisper. “If you needed me to tear down the stars from the heavens, I would. Your safety and happiness are all I care for. To not be able to fly your family from Galia myself is maddening, but you must understand, having my involvement known would not help either of us after you ... leave.” He forced out the last word as if it were an unbearable thought. “I can better keep you and your family safe if the king believes I am still loyal to his demands of Gabreel. So what I can do, I will do quietly.”

Tanwen worked to keep her expression neutral as a waterfall of emotions cascaded through her: humility for his clear devotion toward her, desire to ease his worried brow, and guilt that soon the king would not be of issue.

So long as the princess uses your stone, said a niggling voice of worry in Tanwen’s mind.

At the intruding thought, she resisted shifting.

While Tanwen did not know if the princess was going to use the poison, let alone use it when she’d prefer her to—at the night of the prewedding celebration—those were worries for another time. Preferably a time when Tanwen was not standing before the prince, so raw and wanting and seen.

“Thank you,” she managed. “Your help ... it proves what you have said.”

“And what is that?” asked Zolya.

Tanwen held his stare. “That you are not my enemy.”

Zolya’s features twisted with clear remorse. “Tanwen ...,” he started before stopping himself.

“Yes?” she pushed.

“I’m sorry this could not be different.”

This. Us.

Tanwen swallowed past the lump forming in her throat, did her best to ignore the renewed pain raking across her heart. “Yes,” she agreed. “But perhaps one day it will be.”

When you are king.

Zolya seemed to hear her unsaid words, a determined spark lighting his gaze.

“Yes, perhaps,” he repeated, eyes running the length of her.

Tanwen was on fire, her nerve endings burning, screaming for her to reach up and touch him. For him to reach down and touch her.

“We could ...,” Tanwen ventured before pausing, her fear of how intense her feelings were for this man becoming overwhelming.

“We could what?” questioned Zolya, swaying ever closer, ever tempting.

“We could allow things to be different tonight,” Tanwen forced out.

Zolya grew still, unbreathing, as his eyes darkened with his mix of desire and uncertainty. Are you sure? he seemed to ask.

Tanwen had never been more certain of anything in her life.

Amid all the pain of today and what surely awaited them tomorrow, Tanwen wished only to have one last slip of reprieve. And have it with the man who had embraced her for who she was—Mütra—and had not cared. Who knew what she was planning—to free her father and brother—and would not stop her. Who would do what he could to help. To protect. Despite the threat Zolya might represent as the prince of Galia, a kidar, and Volari, she had never felt so safe in her entire life, standing here, alone with him in his chambers.

Zolya was the sanctuary she had longed for all her life.

The home she had fought to build and keep.

He stood gazing down at her, seeing all of her, and remained marveling.

Tanwen reached up and dragged Zolya down to her lips.