Page 113 of Embers of Ruin

“What?” I ask. It comes out softer than I want.

His gaze meets mine. For a moment, there is no king in his face. No crown. Only a man looking at me as if I am both salvation and ruin, and he has not yet decided which one will destroy him first.

“Nothing,” he says.

Liar.

The word is right there on my tongue but I can’t make myself say it.

His hand shifts, and his knuckles brush my cheek. The touch is so gentle it feels impossible that it belongs to him. Thorin, who commands shadows and an entire continent. Thorin, who throws darkness like blades and keeps truths locked beneath stone. Thorin, who infuriates me with every breath he takes and somehow makes it impossible to breathe when he stands too close.

His thumb grazes my cheekbone and my eyes flutter.

Traitors. All of me.

“Lyra,” he says.

My name in his voice is a warning, a question, a mistake we are both already making.

I look up at him. “Don’t.”

His hand stills and for half a second, pain flashes through his eyes. Then he begins to pull away. And because I am apparently determined to ruin my own life, I catch his wrist. Thorin goes utterly still. I don’t know what I’m doing.

That’s the first problem.

The second problem is that I don’t let go.

“I meant don’t say my name like that,” I whisper.

His gaze burns into mine.

“And how is that?”

As if my name means as much to you as yours means to me.

I don’t say it. Thank the gods, I don’t say it.

But something in his expression tells me he hears it anyway.

His hand turns beneath mine, not pulling free, only shifting until his fingers close around my wrist. The touch is light and controlled. But beneath it, I feel the pulse of his shadows and the answering warmth of my own magic, both of them circling something I don’t understand well enough to name.

His mouth lowers slightly, but not enough. I need him closer. Want him close to me. I want him pressed against me like he was that night in the dark corridor, wrapped in shadows.

I stop breathing.

This is madness.

It has to be.

I hate him.

I absolutely hate him.

I—

The archive doors burst open.

The sound snaps through the room like a blade and I jerk back so quickly I nearly knock the ancient book from the table.