Through my dress, I casually grazed the knife anchored to my left thigh by a lace garter, reminding myself it was there as I walked the perimeter of Kye’s sitting room, gazing at its contents. I felt his eyes on me as I wandered, though I ignored him. We’d barely spoken since our vows—if you consider that speaking to each other. A circular target hung from the wall thatfaced my rooms, four arrows stuck fast in its wooden rings, six more in the wall itself.
At least he wasn’t a perfect shot.
Crossing my arms, I ignored the unfamiliar scrape of my new ring against my own skin. An odd little thing, I hadn’t yet had the proper chance to inspect it, and likely wouldn’t until tonight, if I even cared to.
I raised my brows at a pair of knitting needles impaled through a ball of yarn, a blanket half-finished on his couch.
Following my eyes, he grabbed the entire thing—needles, yarn, and blanket—shoving it in a drawer. “Helps me when I need to think,” he said.
A soldier’s uniform, pants folded over a hanger and completed with a jacket, sat on a hook in the wall, its breast covered with ribbons and sewn-in metal badges. Antlers over the open hallway, a map of Calder painted over a tapestry, a desk piled haphazardly with books on warfare and military strategy. I leaned over the open text with curiosity and paused as my eyes drifted half-way down the page.
A register of Leihani, dating back twenty-three years.
Maren, female. Born to Ano, father, and Alana, mother. The third day of Gemnaa.
The book snapped shut.
“Let’s get this over with.” Kye’s eyes burned.
I squared my shoulders, refusing to ask what exactly he consideredthisto mean. “Fine.”
Neither of us moved.
The air hummed between us, rich and alive and torrential. My mouth tasted dry, my legs unsteady. My breath came and went in short bursts, untamed even by the tight cage of my whalebone corset. His gaze dropped to my chest, bursting from its organza-lined prison with every gulp of air, and then darted back to me.
“Nervous?”
“No.”
Kye straightened, a smile curling the side of his mouth, raising the crescent shaped scar he’d acquired under the sun of the Juile Sea, his eyes leaching into mine with cold apathy. “Come on.” He turned, following the trail of petals.
Mihaunaabove, I needed to get it together before I lost it completely.
Hate, I reminded myself. Poisonous, soothing hate. I wasn’t here to play his games. I wouldn’t be fooled by him again. By his sparkling eyes or his garden-mint smell. I’d be damned before I let myself fall into his trap a second time.
Squeezing the knife through my dress, I followed.
More petals on the mattress, and my stomach performed an intricate flip. Kye shrugged off his jacket, laying it over a chest at the foot of his bed, and nodded to a chair set in the corner. “Sit.”
I stiffened.
Rope sat in front of the chair, innocently coiled and ready.
My gaze shot to meet his. “You must think I’m incredibly stupid.”
He smiled back. “Sit or I’ll make you sit.”
Sing. Sing to him now, and tell him to walk back to the reception and slice into his own throat.
The party was still rife and strong downstairs. Music floated in from the windows, the lilt of a thousand voices chatting and laughing seeping in through the glass pane. I don’t even think anyone would question seeing him do it. He was so grim and broody, and he seemed to strive for whatever task might undo his father’s carefully orchestrated plans.
A movement caught my attention—a shadow passing over a narrow hole in the stone wall. My breath hitched as I realized someone was watching us from the other side.
Kye grabbed a bow from his open chest, nocking an arrow in the same movement, the stretch and release of the bowstring zinging in my ears as a breath of wind tugged at my hair.
His arrow disappeared through the hole, and I listened to the heartbeat on the other side flee down the stairs.
“Who was it?” I asked, appalled by the existence of a hole built into his wall. “Was it Thaan?”
