Page 142 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

“I don’t know,” said Aurienne.

Tristane’s long nails rapped at the bed’s headboard. “I found him as an ill-fed boy and taught him how to take, and, for three of your little human decades, it’s all he’s known. He doesn’tgive. It’s not a part of his character. If you tell me you don’t know again, I will kill you. If you lie, you die.”

Aurienne swallowed. She ran through the truths and found them unsuitable for sharing; they would rope Mordaunt into several instances of overt treason against his Order.

Except perhaps one.

“We were lovers,” said Aurienne.

“Lovers?” repeated Tristane.

“We didn’t fully realise what the other was until—too late,” said Aurienne.

Tristane fell silent as she assessed this claim. Her hair was a black edge in the dark, her eyes a dangerous glimmer. Everything was a weapon.

“Youwerelovers. It’s over?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you threw yourself over his body as a Dreor’s scythe came for him.”

To this, Aurienne could make no answer.

Tristane studied Aurienne in the dark, if one could call this studying—her gaze punctured its way straight through to the back of Aurienne’s head.

“You thought it was over,” she said. “But, at the very last, your heart said otherwise.”

Aurienne nodded. To her surprise, her eyes had filled with tears.

“There’s truth in what you’re saying. But it’s not all the truth.” Tristane leaned over Aurienne. “I want to chisel the full truth from you. But I won’t. I owe you a favour for saving my eye. We will call things even.”

Tristane pushed the window open and swung a leg over the windowsill. “Goodbye, little Haelan. Serve Fria well.”

“Wait,” called Aurienne. “What—what are you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never encountered a seith system like yours before, in many, many years of studying it. It’s in a league of its own.”

Dawn had broken. Footsteps were approaching the door.

“Don’t ask too many questions,ma petite,” said Tristane. “Pray we don’t meet again.”

“Praying works?”

“We listen on occasion,” said Tristane. Her too-bright eyes faded last.

The footsteps outside the door were Xanthe’s. She was so delighted to find Aurienne conscious that she strangled her immediately.

“Can’t—breathe,” gasped Aurienne from within the fierce hug.

Aurienne did not share Tristane’s visit—her threatening aura lingered and promised retribution for indiscretions.

She enquired about the man for whom her heart had said otherwise.

“Mordaunt,” said Aurienne. “How is he? Where is he?”

“In my ward,” said Xanthe. “Sound asleep, as he should be—asyoushould be.”