MasukOn 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
But we don’t. And though I know all I need is the sweet heat of her, I don’t intend to leave her without the kind of apology she deserves.My mouth trails down her chest, down to the thin web of skin over her hipbone. Her groan echoes through the mine, and I shush her teasingly.Her hand tightens in
IngridTwo days before my wedding, I sit in the temple in front of Halit, the holy woman, and struggle not to fall asleep. She has that cadence to her voice, more lullaby than stirring religious rhetoric, and the temple is muggy-warm with late summer heat.And, of course, Kaloni has been running us
“Me?” I shake my head. “I saw that red dress you wore to the coronation, and I nearly wept.”She blushes prettily. “Oh, I was nothing compared to Kaloni.”I wait for Sibel to jump in and encourage her sister, but there’s a moment of quiet. Even Cirocco just stares down at his breakfast. Goddess, has
She is extremely competitive and can be lured into bets with odds strongly against her.Kaloni is horrifically afraid of spiders, and she’s even more frightened of anyone finding out. Anything.I sketch them out, draw lines between them, rank them by what I think she would do to keep them hidden, a







