LOGINOn a whim, I try to roll him over, not expecting the iron cage of his arms to so much as shift. But he flips easily with a soft noise of surprise. I pull back, worried.“Apologies.” He smiles ruefully and taps the bandage on his face—on the side I rolled him to. “I think this will take some getting
“Oh.” I glance at Amval. Cirocco waits by his shoulder, clearly about to demand something similar. All the pressures of life suddenly descend back into place. With Kaloni dead, Amval has no rival for the crown. There’s going to be a coronation and then months of cleaning up what happened here. I’m g
Ingrid“The Goddess’ will is often far more complicated than any of us can guess,” Halit says, blood streaked on her cheek from the arrow she took to the shoulder before fleeing the altar.Laughter ripples through the temple. I know, from my second march up here, that the healthy hold up the wounded
And that is his mistake. The heartbeat he wastes on gloating gives me just enough time to slash at his unprotected throat, tearing through fur and old scar tissue.Blood waterfalls onto me, hot and fast. I wriggle out of the way before he crumples. Dead.Or at least it seems so. My halved vision mak
Amval“She will never be ready to marry my brother!” I shout as I storm into the packed temple, a sword lifted high above my head and a trail of allies collected from every corner of the palace behind me.Gasps ripple through the crowd, buoying my name forward. Ingrid turns, her jaw falling slack. T
I suck in a breath through my gritted teeth as Halit intones about the complexities of fate, how perhaps Amval dying was all part of Her cosmic plan for Cirocco and I to end up together. Maybe it was part of Her cosmic plan for me to punch a holy woman in the mouth.No. Joli is counting on me. Light
AmvalIngrid and I lurk above Lord Rik’s rooms, waiting. I inhale slowly, exhale slower. According to Ingrid, Corwyn doesn’t have any powers, but he has the favor of at least one mage.We both hope the mage abandoned him. Or, at least, that he is cocky enough not to waste a mage’s power on a message
AmvalThe moment Ingrid walks away, my mark sears like it intends to burn all the way through my skin and kill me, bringing this whole bitter trick to a bitter end.But I am made of sterner stuff than that. So, I take a heartbeat to catch my breath and then return to the stables. I have a job to do,
So, the perfect kingdoms to start rumors about if you wanted to deflect attention.“Who did you hear this from?” I ask.Bengu leans in. “One of the soldiers. Recai.”***I spend half a day tracing the rumor through the palace. Recai, it turns out, heard it from one of the visiting Oakspring Dunes so
IngridAfter Amval proves that there’s no point in talking to him, no matter what kind of evidence I have, my life in Som Palace barely changes. No one else even knows he’s here.Joli still hangs out with me when she can, but I realized a while ago that her smuggling business expands far past wartim







