Filth streaked him from temple to collar. His hair, once peppered with silver, lay darkened with grime. Dirt smeared his jaw and throat. He wore a high-collared Velli tunic, plain and severe. In a crowd, I might have missed him.
Except for his eyes.
Those eyes.
“You saw.” The words scraped from me as I recoiled, clutching the blanket to my chest.
I had not imagined it. He’d been here. In this palace. When I bargained with Deimos. He watched it unfold through a stranger’s disguise.
“I have seen enough to justify the destruction of Vellos,” he hissed. “But first, I’m getting you out of here.”
Resolve hardened every syllable. My gaze dropped, hunting for steel. No armor. No spear or sword. Nothing but dirt and stubborn fury.
“How?” The question broke between a laugh and a plea. I would’ve heard of an army. The halls would ring with alarm. Deimos would have hidden me deep underground. But Ineededhim to mean it. Needed it the way lungs need air.
“Let me worry about that.”
His mouth tried for a smile. It faltered, sorrow pooling in his gaze. He grieved already. Grieved the woman I had been. I could never be her again.
Doubt crawled under my skin. Pain twisted my thoughts. I had to know this wasn’t some dark Velli trick—or a mind splintered past reason.
“It’s you?” I whispered.
His face tightened—and he reached for me.
His lips met mine. Rough. Wind-burned. Cracked from long miles on the road. They were strange, unfamiliar, yet I knew them.
Iknewhim.
I stared over his shoulder, refusing surrender. This was not the polished king who left Radaan in gleaming armor. How had he crossed enemy borders? How did he think to steal me back alone? With no army?
He shifted, angling his head. The tip of his tongue brushed mine in the faintest question.
My eyes closed.
I knew that question. The hesitant plea. The tentative hope that I wouldn’t turn away. Beneath mud and dried blood lingered the scent that belonged to him alone. Cinnamon warmed by sun. Crushed leaves. Green things after rain.
Life.
My hands fisted in his tunic, and I fell into him with a sob.
His arms cinched around me, crushing welts and broken skin. Pain tore from me in a hiss. He jerked back as though burned, but I clung to him, fingers locked behind his neck.
“Get me out,” I begged. “Please, Kallias!” I forced my feet to the floor, muscles shaking as I pulled away from his touch. “We’ll go now. I can run. I can–” My vision swayed and darkened.
“Nienna, stop.”
I knew the meaning buried in his tone. But I refused it. “Egath might return. He’s searching for someone who–” My words stalled as realization struck.
“Me.” His expression hardened into stony caution.
“You.” Everything went still. A vast emptiness. He saw. Watched me bare my throat. Witnessed Egath’s mouth on my skin, embracing me like a lover. “Kallias, that wasn’t–”
“He will burn,” he whispered. “They all will.”
A king promised the annihilation of an entire race—and I did not stop him. I couldn’t summon mercy for the servant who spared me a fraction of empathy, or any others that might’ve been innocent, condemned only by being born.
No. Not tonight. I would do more than watch as they went up in flames. I would strike the match myself.
