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“I just think if you’re going to call me whatever variations of my name that you want, like Ella , I should have other options too.”

He assessed me, jaw pulsing. “It’s Gavin.”

It was a softer name than I had expected. A testament, maybe, to a warmer, gentler man hidden behind that cold, gruff exterior.

“ Gavin. ” His lips twitched when I said his name. “You know, I never really agreed to keep training with you. You just demanded that you be the one I learn from.”

“And?” He rose to his feet without denying my claim.

“And I’ll keep training with you if you allow me to call you by your first name—your real name— Gavin .”

He chuckled. “Happy to see your negotiation skills are developing.”

I arched an eyebrow, not backing down .

The corner of his mouth curled into a smile before he leaned back against the nearest tree, crossed his arms, and resigned with a single nod, “Fair enough.”

It was a futile effort to suppress my grin.

“What is it?” he asked.

I bit my lip and shrugged. “I just hadn’t seen you smile much until we left Warrich, and you’re smiling. It’s… nice.” I groaned internally. Nice was such a stupid, empty word for the way his smile made me feel.

Smyth— Gavin— gritted his teeth, cocked his head in thought, and replied, “It’s easier to smile when there’s finally something to smile about.”

A flutter loosened the tension in my belly, and I had to endure a few minutes of silence just to gain back my good sense. Endure watching him withdraw the cover from an axe-head and prepare a few logs to be split.

“So your name is Gavin.” I crossed my legs and folded my thinly gloved hands in my lap. “Can I ask you another question?”

He drew in a long, contemplative breath while he studied me with narrowed eyes. Finally, he gave a non-committal grunt. All the approval I needed to proceed.

“What’s your favorite color?”

To my surprise, he laughed, and for the first time, I noticed the dimples poking out of the edges of his beard, his warm smile, and the faint laugh lines in the corners of his eyes.

A comforting heat flushed through me, chasing away the nagging fears of the present. He was so handsome, and his ruggedness gave him an edge that stole my breath.

“Green,” he finally answered, removing his worn black leather jacket. “Yours?”

“Blue,” I answered, which was my normal answer, but I did love the way the navy cloth of his shirt gripped his intimidatingly corded biceps and rippling forearms, so I specified, “Navy blue. Though there’s nothing quite like the orange and pinks of a sunrise too.”

“Tough decision.” He eyed me warmly.

I shrugged. “When’s your birthday?”

“The thirteenth of Helios.”

“Born in the summer.” I smiled. The thirteenth day of the seventh month of the year. I would have to remember.

“Mine is—”

“The third of Nyxar,” he finished for me. “A few weeks before the winter solstice.”

“How did you know that?”

“Because I know everything about you.”

I scowled, biting back nervous laughter and an indignant snarl as they battled each other, begging to break free. His arrogance, his presumption… they made me want to fight back.

And he knew it too. He smirked and proceeded to split a log in two with one effortless swing of the axe. Clearly something he had perfected.

“How could you possibly know everything about me?” I demanded.

“I told you.” He rested another thick log on the stump and geared to swing. “You’re my queen.”

I furrowed my brow and leaned forward, admiring the length of his powerful legs.

They were like long, thick trunks that effortlessly supported his solid core and vast shoulders.

Despite his toying, his provoking, I had the urge to draw close to him and touch him, just to see what a dominating body like his felt like.

I shivered and shoved the urge away.

“Can I help you with that?” I asked, pointing to the axe.

“Rest. I’ll teach you later.”

“You should teach me now.” I unwrapped the sandwich Gemma had packed me for supper and took a bite. “It would be a tragedy if you died and we didn’t have anyone to cut firewood for us. ”

He laughed again, a deep, husky sound I was quickly becoming addicted to. “Later.” When he saw my lifted brow, he added, “I promise.”

Smiling, I forced my head to clear and sputtered the first question that came to mind, desperate not to lose the flow of our conversation. “If your name is Gavin, why does everyone call you Smyth? Is it your surname?”

“My occupation, what I used to be, long ago.”

“Like a blacksmith?”

He gave a short nod.

“What is your surname, then, if not Smyth?”

“Don’t have a proper one,” he answered coolly. “Just Smyth.”

“You don’t have one?” I narrowed my eyes. “Everyone has one.”

“Not me.”

“What about your mother and father?”

“Born a bastard.” Rage rippled through him, there one moment and gone the next. Surely his mother had a surname. If there was no father, Gavin would have taken hers. “My mother died in childbirth,” he explained. “She bled out and didn’t have time for much beyond a first name.”

My pulse stuttered in my chest. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s been… a while, and I don’t remember her, of course,” he muttered, unbothered. “Ella?” The amused edge to his tone brought me out of my sad little rabbit hole. I looked up to see his smirk had returned. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Who says I’m worried about you?”

“Good girl,” he chuckled.

My stomach tightened and tingled at his praise.

Keep talking , I told myself. Keep talking, stop thinking, or you might pass out.

“So.” I cleared my strained voice. “How did you go from being a blacksmith to one of the prophesied queen ’s escorts?” I emphasized the latter with a roll of my eyes and as much sarcasm as I could muster .

Gavin stared at me in sudden brooding silence, arms full of firewood. “Is that what I am to you, Aryella?” He dropped the wood in a pile with irritated force. “An escort?”

Panic choked me. “I—I don’t—”

“Did it ever occur to you that you might mean more to someone than some bullshit prophecy?”

My mouth fell open. “I take it you don’t believe in my Aunt Christabel’s future-telling abilities.”

“Your aunt—” He cut himself off with a clenched fist, shook his head, and released a joyless laugh. “When you’re with me, let’s focus on you learning to take care of you . Forget the rest. Can we do that?”

Nodding, I gulped down my nerves and compulsively steered the conversation in a direction that was less confusing.

“It sounds like you all have been anticipating me and my power for quite some time,” I rushed out, my voice brimming with anxiety. “Has Molochai really cursed our world with four hundred years of death and suffering all because of one woman?”

He released his tension with a heavy sigh, answering, “There is no limit to what a determined man will do for one remarkable woman.”

“More like an unhinged, obsessed man,” I grumbled.

His mouth twitched upward. I’d never been so relieved to see the faintest traces of a grin. “That too,” he answered.

It was an effort to avoid his gaze—if only to give my pulse a rest—as we sat for a long while—a half hour at least—listening only to the early-winter wind, rustling woods around us, and crackling fire.

Until a gold coin landed in the dirt before me.

“A coin for your thoughts?”

I looked up at him sitting casually with his large, clasped hands resting over his bent knees .

“I can feel your discontent from here,” he explained, noting my suspicion, “and you wear your thoughts on your face far, far too much for your own good.”

Something I would need to work on to be queen.

I sighed, defeated. “Molochai… that part is terrifying, but straightforward. He wants to kill me. He’ll either succeed or he won’t. It’s the rest of it that doesn’t… sit right.”

He waited for me to elaborate. I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. Again and again. Like an idiot.

“I will not judge you, Aryella,” he finally said, his deep voice steady, soft, like a warm breeze relaxing my muscles. “And everything you say to me belongs to us. No one else.”

I fidgeted with my thumbs and stood to my feet, pacing.

“I am trying to be happy and brave about all of this.” He watched me, glued to my every movement, as I walked back and forth, back and forth…

“I am trying to not pity myself, to be grateful for being chosen and wanted and revered when I know there are hundreds—thousands, likely, if not more—far, far worse off than I was or ever will be, but I—” My fists clenched, knuckles cracking.

“I’m not even nineteen years old and supposed to save the world with some kind of mysterious power from the Selvaren. ”

I picked up, studied, and then thrust a frozen, rotten berry back into the bushes.

“The man I’m supposed to marry is already picked out for me.

I don’t know him, don’t know if I want him, and hate myself for being selfish enough to think about what I want—at least in that way—when lives are at stake.

” I threw my hands in the air. “And come to think of it, I don’t even know my own middle name.

” Not that it mattered. It just felt like something I should know.

“If I’m bound to die sooner than later, I’d at least like to have a say in who I am and how I lived. ”

“Jay. ”

“What?” My hands fell to my side. I released an exasperated breath and sat down on the withered tree stump he’d used to chop wood. “What are you—”

“Your middle name.” He stood up this time. “It’s Jay. Your mother loved blue jays.”

“Elowen?” I laughed. “She hates birds.” It was true. She’d always left the hens to me.

Smyth’s eyebrows furrowed. His closed mouth was a tight barrier, holding something back.

“How would you know that?” I asked quietly.

“My queen,” he reminded me nonchalantly, and pressed on. “Blue jays represent courage and intuition in the face of fear. Confidence when confronted with insecurity. Do you know what Aryella means?”

“No.”

“It means ‘lion of the gods.’” He covered the distance between us and squatted down in front of me so that our eyes were level.

My pulse raced at his closeness, less than a step away, and the way his shoulders rose and fell with each breath, how the wind seemed to move with him, like he commanded the air itself.

“I won’t lie to you, Ella, I’ve seen and felt a lot of things that make me doubt the existence of the gods, but if they’re out there, you’re proof.

So forget Simeon and Elowen, forget Elias Winterton, forget everything and everyone else.

” I inhaled sharply when he placed one strong, warm hand over my heart, the other cupping my jaw.

“You are magnificent. You forge your own path. And your voice—a lion’s roar—will send those who try to control you cowering at your feet. ”

“That doesn’t sound like me.” My voice was barely above a whisper.

Indeed, I struggled to breathe with him so close, so…

warm and strong and sure of himself. And this— his gentle assertiveness—was the reason I was drawn to him.

He spoke as if my duties as queen meant nothing to him.

As if he saw through the walls I’d put up before I could remember why I’d put them there, before I could begin to understand any of this new life.

He saw me . The others cared for me, but around him, I didn’t feel the weight of expectations.

With him, just him, I felt light. I felt seen and known and real . I felt capable. I felt free.

“What’s your middle name?” I asked softly.

“I don’t have one of those, either.” He saw my face fall, chuckled softly, and squeezed my hand.

“I don’t need one. I’ve known who I am for a very long time.

” His thumb caressed my cheek. My lungs came close to collapsing at the warmth, the care of his touch, his intoxicating scent, that mix of leather and cedar.

“Didn’t I tell you not to worry about me? ”

I nodded and smiled at the gentleness glowing brightly in his eyes. He smiled back—that half-smile I was beginning to admire so much. My lips parted and my breath quickened. His eyes darted to my mouth, and I thought he might—

“Perimeter’s clear!”

At the sound of Ezra’s voice, Gavin cursed under his breath and withdrew so quickly, I could’ve been a live flame. He ran his hands through his dark, shoulder-length hair and put what felt like a mile between us.

As if he shouldn’t be touching me, shouldn’t be so close, and he damn well knew it.