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F ilak stared at Daisy for a silent, broken instant, his swallow bobbing in his throat.

“ Nei, Daisy ,” he rasped. “ Nei . You come. You stay.”

But Daisy couldn’t, she couldn’t, and even as she shook her head, the water was stinging behind her eyes. “ Nei , Filak ,” she whispered back. “ I can’t. Not yet. I need to go back to Lew .”

Filak swallowed again, and something flared across his eyes, bitter and bright. “ Nei Lew ,” he croaked. “ Ekki Lew . Lew hurt you, sólin mín . Lew danger .”

Daisy couldn’t argue it, her heartbeat spiking in her chest, and as if to prove his point, Filak swiped up her sketchbook from a nearby rock, and wrenched it open. Flipping through until he found that page she’d drawn in the garden, the one with Lew . Lew standing over her crouched form, feeding belladonna to her son. To their son.

“I — I know,” Daisy gulped, between breaths. “ Lew is dangerous. He did hurt me. And now — now he wants to do it to everyone else here. He wants to kill them all, and all their sons. And if he succeeds” — she took another ragged breath — “how can we hide in the Skyli and pretend? How could we ever forget?”

Filak grimaced, shook his head, but his eyes were glassy and distant now, speaking of loss and pain. Of his home in the north, maybe. And Daisy didn’t want to hurt him, but she saw him, she knew him…

“We can’t forget, Filak ,” she said, her voice hitching. “ We can’t escape. It will just — keep following us, keep haunting us. We need to try to face it, and I think — if I go see Lew — I think I can help.”

The certainty settled low in her voice, raised her chin, but Filak was still shaking his head, the pain flashing brighter in his eyes. “ Then send — one of them ,” he replied, with a flail of his hand up at the ceiling, at the mountain above them. “ You no risk you . Sólin mín. Sonur minn .”

It sounded pleading, anguished, plummeting in Daisy’s chest, but she swallowed hard, blinked back the wetness now pooling behind her eyes. “ I’m sorry, Filak ,” she whispered. “ But I know Lew . I’m the only person here who knows him. I can get him alone and talking. I can see for certain what’s behind all this, and make him face it, and find a way out. I can help.”

But Filak kept shaking his head, that fear and pain and grief so stark in his eyes, quivering on his mouth. And in another jolt of movement, he lurched for — his satchel. His satchel that Daisy hadn’t even noticed until now, propped there against a wall, and he frantically pawed through it, and then brought something out. A small leather bag, clinking heavy and strange…

“You stay,” he breathed, as he staggered back toward Daisy , releasing her still-captured wrists with a furious swipe of his hand. So he could hold the bag out toward her, fold her trembling fingers around it.

“You stay,” he repeated, harder. “ You keep.”

You keep . Daisy blinked at him, and then at the bag, at his claw tugging the top of it open. Revealing … jewels. A mass of bright, sparkling, beautiful jewels, all clinking and tumbling together. The sight so stunning it swallowed her breath, and there was a sudden, desperate urge to clutch the bag close, to rush off to a corner and marvel at the jewels one by one, to keep them for her own forever.

But — but — no. She couldn’t. And this was — it was —

“The mate-price?” she whispered, searching his eyes. “ The sálugjald ? The one you tried to give me, back in the sickroom? But I thought…”

She’d thought he’d meant it as a gift. As an apology, a reassurance. A way to leave him, if she wanted to.

But Filak clearly didn’t mean that now, and he again folded Daisy’s fingers around the bag, his eyes glittering on hers. “ I buy,” he said, his voice cracking. “ I give great fortune. Greatest sálugjald of all Nor -ka-esh. Thus , you stay. Mín .”

Thus, you stay. Mín . Something wrenched in Daisy’s throat — now Filak wanted to buy her, to treat her like property? When Julian had said Filak didn’t even like the sálugjalds , he’d never wanted to use one, after his own mother’s death…

But oh, gods, that desperation in his eyes. The need and the terror, the agony and the loss. Of course he didn’t want to buy Daisy , he hated the very thought of it — but he hated the thought of Lew more. He hated the thought of losing her, forever.

And Daisy hated it too. Hated shaking her head, and thrusting the sálugjald back toward him. Hated seeing that shock and hurt and despair, flashing through her mate’s eyes.

“But — I need you, sólin mín ,” he whispered, hoarse. “ I need your light. I love you.”

It was more quaking misery, wrenching through Daisy’s chest, and the water finally escaped her eyes, streaking down her cheeks. “ I need you too, Filak ,” she whispered back. “ I love you too. I want to stay with you. I still want to be your mate. But I ” — courage, seeing, please — “ I still need to do this. To try to fix this, and save them all. Please .”

Filak stared at her for another empty, jolting breath — and then he spun around from her, away, his hand snapping up to his face. And suddenly his shoulders were shaking, his breaths heaving in deep dragging gasps, because he was —

He was weeping .

“ Fokk , Daisy ,” he gulped, his voice a raw strangled croak. “ I pray and I pray and I pray. I pray you no leave. I seek. I work. I try. I show. I prove. I gain your love for me! But it is only — no. Always no. No , no, no!”

Every word was pain, a sickening strike straight through Daisy’s heart, because it was more of Filak’s deepest fear, his deepest darkest loss. Being alone, rejected, forsaken. By his people, his clan, his gods. By her.

And with her, he had still been brave. He’d still faced his fears, just like she had. They’d danced together into the dark. And now she was hurting him too, making all his greatest fears into horrifying truth, and she couldn’t even comfort him, try to ease the pain away. Because — she didn’t know if this would work. She didn’t know if she would ever escape Lew again. She didn’t know if Lew would hurt her, trap her, kill her.

She would need to see. For herself.

“I’m so sorry, Filak ,” she whispered, into the grief, the regret. But there was nothing else to say, no way to salvage it. Only waiting, and weeping, and watching, as her hurt, devastated mate finally wiped his eyes, and turned back toward her. Showing her his red-rimmed eyes, his quivering mouth, and his — his resignation. His agreement. His love.

He was proving it to her, the way he always had. Even now.

“ Ach, sólin mín ,” he said, as he reached for her neck, and gently stroked against the kraga . Blinking down toward it, his lashes wet and low over his watching eyes. As if he was drinking in the sight for one last time, one more deep shuddering breath, as his hand stuttered, and he —

He broke the kraga in two.

Its pieces fell to the floor with a clatter, its gold chain dangling empty and harmless against the stone wall. And it was all Daisy could do not to rush and scrabble for the broken pieces, to clasp them close, to beg for him to put them back, please…

But she couldn’t. She couldn’t. And all she had was Filak’s brief, anguished kiss, shouting of grief and pain and loss.

“As you wish, sólin mín ,” he whispered, all his promises brought to bitter, miserable life between them. “ You shall go.”