Page 129 of Queen of War and Ruin

Petrys makes a little humming sound in the back of his throat. I shake my head as I try to sort through the jumble of humiliating memories. Collapsing on the floor of the room in Ethiria, shaking in my wife’s arms on the rug that still smelled like red wine. Pushing Lilias to her knees and taking her from behind. Crawling through the darkness toward the bedroll where she lay, whimpering and tossing in her sleep, chased by her nightmares.

Lilias standing on the balcony in the abandoned hunting lodge that held the remains of Marion’s royal family. The look on her face when I told her I was going to find a priest who could divorce us and a barrel of wine big enough to drown in.

And that was the last proper conversation we had, wasn’t it? All the way back in Marion?

Gods, I’m an idiot.

“It doesn’t look that fucked up to me,” Petrys offers.

“Hells,” I mutter as I bury my head in my hands. “I have so much to apologize for, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“So, I take it you two weren’t exactly talking in the servants’ hallway back in Vsenrog?”

“Fuck you,” I say through the cage of my fingers.

“Let me guess,” Petrys says. “You had too much to drink and made an absolute ass of yourself?”

“Well, yes” I admit. “And⁠—”

“And?” Petrys interrupts. “Holy hells, there’s more?”

I pull in a deep breath and listen to the birds chattering all around us. Gods, I’d give anything to forget Ethiria, but the memory rises all the same. Panic and helplessness, like an iron clamp around my lungs. And my beautiful wife, singing prayers over her broken, useless husband.

“Shit,” I mutter, wiping my eyes. I turn to Petrys. “It happened again,” I admit, in a low rasp. “In Ethiria. I— I fell apart.”

Petrys looks at me with so much pity that I want to punch him. I turn my attention back to the grass under my boots as he clasps my shoulder.

Petrys has seen me like that before. He’s the only other person alive who has.

“Gods,” he says. “I’m so sorry.”

“It happened in front of her,” I say, through gritted teeth. “Damn it. She must hate me.”

Petrys laughs. It sounds a bit hollow in the soft sunlight.

“Why would she hate you for that?” he asks.

I shake my head. The answer is so obvious I can’t even find a way to put it into words.

“Look,” Petrys says. “I’ve spent a lot of time with her. She doesn’t hate you, asshole. These past few days, she looked like she was going to rip the whole palace down to find you.”

I sigh, then tip my head back against the tree. Leaves float and shimmer as my vision blurs.

“She loves you too,” Petrys says. “You know that, right?”

I open my mouth. But I can’t think of a way to reply that isn’t a lie.

Petrys eases back against an old, grizzled aspen tree and lets his hands rest on his knees. Wind makes the leaves above us rustle and sigh.

“I’m sorry,” I finally say.

“Hells.” Petrys turns to me and raises an eyebrow. “What are you feeling guilty about now?”

I swallow hard. “The whole ballroom saw you leave,” I continue. “The guards will be looking for you as much as they’re looking for me.”

Petrys frowns like he’s not sure what point I’m trying to make.

“You can’t go back to Vsenrog,” I tell him. “Not soon. Maybe not ever.”