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
IngridAfter my dinner with Kaloni, I can’t sleep. If she were just a grieving queen, she wouldn’t need to get rid of me. She wouldn’t be sniffing around my loved ones like she was looking for a bruise to punch. No, I’m on the right fucking track, and she’s not going to chase me off of it.I pull my
Finally, we reach the tiny room Ingrid stayed in when she first arrived at Som Palace and dump him in a chair.“We should tie him up,” she says.“With what?” I glance around the mostly empty room. “The sheets?”Ingrid blinks. “You’re a groom. Don’t you have rope?”“No!”She groans. So does Corwyn.“
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,
I don’t intend to lose either of them to the other’s foolishness.Which means I need to find Ingrid and convince her to abandon this plan before she discovers that she can’t possibly win. As much as I love Kaloni, she is competitive enough not to have warned Ingrid of the differences, especially if







