Either Aelindor or Caspian had noticed and cared enough to source women’s undergarments for me at a frontier outpost.
In the mine, I learned that small things were the difference between surviving and living. A cup of relatively clean water when you expected rust. An extra ration of bread from a friend who had nothing to spare. Mom taught me to be grateful for every drop of kindness and to pay it forward.
All the care, the kindness, the protection from the heirs felt enormous. I didn’t know how to carry that weight without it cracking something open inside me.
I dressed and stood before the clouded mirror above the sink.
The woman staring back was a stranger.
I hadn’t looked—really looked—at myself for a very long time. But now, in the soft light of the washroom, I couldn’t look away.
My hair fell to my shoulders in a dark midnight-blue cascade, a single streak of radiant white cutting through the crown. No more cropped cut dusted with ore.
My face had changed as well. The gauntness was gone—the hollowed cheeks, the sharp jaw that had made it easy to pass as a boy. Real food and weeks of rest had filled the angles into high cheekbones. My lips were fuller now, flushed with color instead of cracked. My long lashes, the one feature that had nearly blown my disguise a dozen times in the mine, framed eyes that had changed most of all. The midnight dark hue was the same, but the hunger behind them was no longer feral.
The edges remained with me though, and they would never vanish. Toughness was my spine, and it held the rest of me upright—the curves that had appeared in the right places, the height that put me above every woman and man, except for three heirs.
I looked like someone worth fighting for, and the thought embarrassed me. I shoved it down, smoothed the shirt over my hips, and turned away from the mirror before the woman in it could make me feel anything else.
I was going to dine with all three heirs. Nervousness coiled in my stomach, and my heartbeat refused to get under control.
I stepped out, and Frost led me to the end of the hall. He paused outside the room, gave me a nod that carried something like encouragement, and withdrew.
The door clicked closed behind me.
The dining room was simple. A wood table, four chairs, Stormglass lamps casting a warm glow that softened the concrete walls. No war maps. Just food and three men who made the air change weight.
Aelindor sat at the far side of the table in a white linen tunic, open at the collar. Without his silver coat, he looked lighter. Less armored. The kind of beautiful that made you forget how lethal he was.
Drakken sat to his right. Dark shirt, sleeves rolled to his forearms, collar undone, the fabric pulled tight across his chestin a way that mapped the hard terrain of his body with a specificity I resented. His gray eyes found me the moment I walked through the door. They didn’t let go.
Caspian sat closest to the door, an empty chair at his side—mine. His wine-red hair was pushed back, still damp at the temples. He wore a fitted black T-shirt that hid nothing. Broad shoulders, thick arms, the kind of build that came from centuries of shifting into forms designed to hunt and kill.
Three men. Three kinds of devastating.
They weren’t in uniform. They’d called it quits on duty, and their evening was for this. For me. The concept of being a woman was still strange after a lifetime spent pretending to be a boy. But standing in that doorway in soft cotton, with three princes looking at me as if I were the only thing worth seeing, the pretending felt very far away.
Heat climbed my neck. My pulse kicked against my throat. Every nerve I owned pulled taut, and the breath I’d been holding came out unsteady, giving me away.
Their power felt different tonight. On the battlefield, their presence commanded. Here, with the curtains drawn and the lamps low, their power relaxed.
Aelindor’s magic caressed my cheeks like a warm current. Caspian’s heat radiated in waves I felt in my belly. And Drakken’s banked fire slithered up my spine.
My toes curled. Desire rolled through me so suddenly I nearly swayed on my feet.
So I lowered my gaze and fixed it on the food.
Thick burgers on dark bread. A pot of stew that smelled like root vegetables and salt beef. Roasted potatoes. A basket of rolls with actual butter. Not a feast. The heirs never took more than enough, aware that half the continent scraped by on foraged roots and dirty water.
“You look stunning, Max.” Caspian pulled out the empty chair and stood beside it, one hand on the back, beaming at me with the open admiration of a man who felt no reason to disguise what he wanted.
My pulse spiked, but the catastrophic part was that my body didn’t just hum for Caspian. It hummed for Aelindor, whose winter-blue eyes held mine across the table with a warmth that made the air between us feel charged. It hummed for Drakken, who sat rigid, tension radiating off him.
All three. At the same time. More than desire. Closer to gravity.
Guilt sat on my chest like a stone. They’d walked into the DarkVeil for me. They were planning to cross a continent for my sister. And I couldn’t choose. Wouldn’t choose.
You really have no idea, do you, girl?The demon’s voice dripped with amusement.
