“Are you thirsty, Maren? Is your throat dry? Do take a drink.” He gestured to the copper pitcher, offering to refill my glass.
“I'm not thirsty.” Iwasthirsty. I’d been thirsty for a week.
He offered me a tight smile. “I can save you. Contractually, of course. I can write it all out, and we can sign it in blood.”
I stared at him, unsure what the right answer might be.
He tapped his fingertips together. “Do you want to burn tomorrow?”
“No,” I said obstinately.
“Good. In that case, are you willing to sign a contract?”
No,I thought. Inhaling deeply, I tasted the salty sea air. Outside, the sun shone on the water.
A contract. That meant writing my name. I knew how to spell my name, but I'd neversignedanything. “What does it say?” I asked slowly.
Thaan didn’t answer me. Instead, he lifted his head, lending his attention to Kye.
Belatedly, I followed.
Still leaning into the wall, Kye’s golden gaze met mine. A smile curved into the side of his cheek, a single dimple fleshing out from the side. His dark hair, still mussed from the wind, fell across his eyes, his shoulders relaxed even as the outline of his muscular shape pressed through the fabric of his black jacket.
Arms crossed, he looped one ankle in front of the other.
“It states your cooperation with a few things,” Kye said, his tone dripping with boredom. “Namely, that you’ll enter Calder willingly. As my future bride.”
23
The room went completely still at Kye’s words.
I felt them watching me. All of them. Even Cain had stopped whatever he was working on to twist in his chair, his eyes boring into my back.
“No,” I said.
I’d rather burn alive.
A muscle in Thaan’s jaw twitched. “No? You don’t want to hear the rest? You don’t want to knowwhythat’s part of my demands?”
“I don’t care why.” Poison entered my veins as I glared up at Kye. My fingers curled around the armrests of my new chair, my knuckles white with scorn. Every tendon within me went taut, so rigid there was no stretching any further.
“I won’t actually marry you, witch,” Kye said, his smile widening, though something like disgust dripped from his words. “I won’t even bed you. Unless you ask for it.”
“Nikolaos,” Thaan said sharply, turning his eyes onto mine. “My dear, let’s demonstrate some sensibility toward yoursituation. There is no negotiation between us. Either you listen to the terms of our agreement, or you perish at sunrise.”
He paused, waiting for a word from me, but I met him with silent, flaming eyes. I didn’t care if he offered me another roasted chicken. A seed, a feather, a bullion of gold. A flying ship that would take me toMihaunaand back. I’d turn it all down.
There was no way in this world I’d ever agree to marry Kye.
“You’re free to die tomorrow if you wish. But I assure you, marriage itself isn’t required. In fact, other than at events where you’d be socially obligated, you don’t even need to be in the same room as Nikolaos.”
He called Cain’s name, studying me as he waited with an empty hand in the air for the smaller man to place a scroll in it. Unraveling the parchment, Thaan set it out before me, sliding the candle holder to secure it from rolling away.
“Well,” he waved a hand impatiently over it. “Read it.”
My jaw tightened as I leaned forward. Words jumped from the paper at me, but I’d never read anything other than my mother’s book, and it had been at least a year since I last opened it, worried it would fall apart.
The scrawl was long and loopy, letters connected by tracks of ink in elegant dips and flourishes. I worked out the first line in my head, heat crawling through me as their expectant eyes bored into the top of my skull.
