Page 112 of The Crown’s Temptation

He had saved my life at his own expense. That was true and I did not erase it. But he had also crossed lines on multiple occasions and Axar had said he was unwell and even that no longer mattered.

It did not excuse his behavior enough to make it forgivable.

I was not the Asharin who would stand at a breakfast table with tears in her eyes asking what she had done wrong. I was not the Asharin who absorbed things in silence and carried them alone for days. That version of me had been ground down slowly by people who mistook patience for permission and I was done being patient in that way.

But I was also done letting people see when they had lost me. There was no power in that. The power was in staying calm. In being kind. In continuing to appear exactly as I had the day before, warm enough to be read as present, giving nothing away.

He had spent his blood and his marrow keeping me alive when everyone else had given up. That was a debt I would honor, but not a reason to hand him anything more.

Part of holding the upper hand was expecting nothing at all. Not in the way that broke something in you, but in the way that freed you from the grief of being disappointed. I expected nothing from Teorin now. Not honesty. Not restraint. Not even respect, as evidenced by his disgusting performance at breakfast this morning.

I expected nothing and I would continue to be calm and occasionally kind and he would not notice the difference. Men like him only noticed the absence of warmth when it arrived as punishment. I had no interest in punishing him. I had no interest in him understanding what he had lost.

One day he would need my loyalty and I would not have it to give.

I sat at the vanity and looked at my own face. I was beautiful. Even having died. Even with a strange ruby pressed into my cheek.

In many ways it had been easier hiding beneath a veil. I sighed. I was done hiding. And I was done with Teorin’s nonsense in the same way I was done with Sevrin’s.

My mother had said live by loyalty and selfishness. I was beginning to understand what she meant. She did not mean selfishness in the way that took from others. No. She meant selfishness in the way that refused to give what had not been earned. That kept certain things for the people who deserved them and offered nothing to the ones who did not.

Colsar deserved them.

Eravic had earned some of them.

Teorin had spent his.

I smoothed my dress and went to find Maridale for luncheon.

CHAPTER 25

Shorelines and Secrets

The day moved quickly.

Luncheon with Maridale was pleasant although strangely dull. In many ways she seemed more timid than I had remembered her to be. I wanted to speak to Dali, to ask her what had happened between her and Teorin last night that made him feel comfortable enough to get pleasured at the breakfast table in front of me, but I did not know how to ask Maridale to leave and I did not feel like discussing the strange breakfast with anyone. The cook came out and handed me the provisions for Eravic which I took myself, and then evening came quickly.

He was already at the shoreline when I arrived.

He looked at the provisions in my hands and said nothing, only nodded, and we walked in the comfortable silence that somehow felt natural between us. The dark water moved somewhere beneath its own surface and the air here was colder than the rest of Morrath, salt without sea, the kind of cold that made you aware of your own breathing.

He held something out to me. A small cloth pouch, worn at the edges.

"What are these for?" I said.

"I have heard Morrath is not much for gambling."

I laughed before I could stop myself. Then I remembered my unfortunate gambling experience involving dice and human fingers and poisonous blood.

“I would rather play with you,” I said. “But we have nowhere to play."

"We do." He nodded toward a small hut set back from the shoreline. "That is where I stay when the trade routes take too long and the sea legs get the best of me."

"Is there a table for gambling?"

He smiled. "Aye."

I remembered then that I had planned to go wait for Colsar. I started to say it. "Next time, perh⁠—"