"If you see the runes on my arms start to glow—" I hold up my forearm so she can see the dark marks etched into my skin, "—don't touch me. Don't come near me. Lock yourself in here if you have to."
"I don't understand—"
"You don't need to understand." The wood groans in my grip. "You just need to obey. It's for your safety."
A pause. Then: "And if I don't?"
Bold. Stupid, but bold.
I meet her eyes. "Then I might kill you. And I'd rather not."
The truth lands between us like a stone.
She goes very still, processing this. Then, so quietly I almost miss it:
"Will you hurt me?"
The question hits like a blade between my ribs, sharp and unexpected andgods, the way she asks it—like she already knows the answer but needs to hear me say it anyway. Like she's been hurt so many times that the question is reflex.
This girl has been broken by her own people, branded and sold and stripped of everything, and she's standing in a monster's fortress asking if I'm going to add to the damage.
I look at her—reallylook at her—and see the burn scar on her shoulder, half-hidden by torn fabric. The blood-collar at her throat. The way she's holding herself together through sheer will and nothing else.
"No." The word comes out rough. Certain. "I will die before I let that happen."
Her breath catches.
Something shifts behind her eyes—not trust, not yet, but maybe the first fragile possibility of it.
"Okay," she whispers.
I leave before I can do something monumentally stupid.
Like promise her things I have no right to promise.
Like touch her.
Like make her mine in more than name.
Alone in my chambers,I strip off my armor piece by piece and scrub the blood from my hands.
It doesn't help.
The curse is still there, burning under my skin like coals, turning my thoughts sharp and violent and hungry. The runes along my forearms pulse hot enough to ache, and I grip the edge of the washbasin until stone cracks under my fingers.
I should be thinking about the oath. About the thirty-day deadline and the crown's inevitable demands when I refuse to return her. About what happens when they realize I never intended to honor the contract.
I should be planning my next move.
Instead, all I can think about is the way she felt in my arms—small and warm and trembling. The scent of her, soft and clean under the arena's filth. The sound of her voice askingwill you hurt melike the answer mattered more than anything.
I want her.
Not just to protect. Not just to keep safe from the crown's machinations and the Inquisitor's cold eyes.
I want her in ways that have nothing to do with duty and everything to do with the most dangerous parts of me. The parts the curse feeds on. The parts I've spent decades learning to control.
And wanting—wantingis how I lose control.
