Page 25 of Queen of War and Ruin

That low whisper of intuition dances across the back of my neck. The rest of my godsdamned life will be fairly fucking short if we don’t get moving. Sure, no one recognized us in a crowded, dimly lit common room where everyone was drunk and we were soaking wet.

But in the daylight? In public? At a wedding?

I shiver, then come to my feet. It takes me a few attempts to fumble in the darkness for a match and to light the lantern, but I get there. Lilias makes a sleepy moan of protest, and I almost lose every last bit of my resolve when she sits up and the blanket slides off her shoulders to pool at her waist.

“Is it morning?” she asks, rubbing her eyes.

I shake my head. “We should get going,” I say.

She frowns.

“The innkeeper thinks we’re here for the big wedding,” I say. “We should leave before we have to explain otherwise.”

Lilias pouts, but she climbs out of bed. We pull our wet clothes on in silence, and something in my heart breaks when we climb down the ladder and leave the hayloft.

But that’s ridiculous, surely. We’re riding to the hunting lodge to meet her brother and suggest an alliance with Ethiria, and possibly Lisal. Prince Elrick knows who I am. Hells, Lilias’s servant, Anura, insisted on giving me my own room the last time we were there. And I can fuck my wife on that bed just as well as I fucked her on a pile of hay covered with blankets, right?

Still, my chest feels tight as we saddle the horses and lead them out of the barn and into the thin, gray light that comes before dawn. I remember the guard telling me not to look back when I left Dungal for the last time.

But I look back anyway.

We left the lantern burning on the little table in the hayloft. Somehow, that tiny lamp is bright enough to cast a thin golden halo of light across the muddy road behind us.

And when the road turns, blocking my view of the barn and its hayloft, I can’t help feeling like I’ve just lost something I might never be able to capture again.

Chapter 14

Lilias

THANK THE GODS

The sun is setting.

I’ve tried to ignore that reality for as long as I could, but there’s no denying it now. The fiery ball of the sun balances on the far horizon for a heartbeat, and then begins to sink behind the jagged teeth of the mountains. And we’re close to the hunting lodge. But not quite close enough to make it before dark.

“Damn it,” I mutter, gritting my teeth against the stab of pain from the blister on my right foot.

My brave little mare from Dungal started limping this afternoon, as we dropped down from the Tanic Pass. After all she’s been through, it just didn’t seem fair. So I’ve been walking next to her for hours, trying to ignore the growing burn on my heel from the boots I’d thought fit me perfectly.

I glance at Zarek. He insisted on walking too, although his gelding is still sound. He said he wanted a break from horses, but honestly, I think he’s doing it just so I’ll have some company for my misery.

Zarek turns to me, like he can sense my gaze on his shoulders. “Do you want me to have a look at your foot?” he asks.

I stand up straighter and try not to limp so obviously.

“I’m fine,” I lie. “I’m sure it’s nothing a hot bath can’t solve.”

“As long as the tub can fit both of us,” Zarek replies with a grin.

It takes me a moment to catch his meaning, and when I do, I gasp. He laughs softly, and the stabbing pain in my heel briefly vanishes as I imagine sharing a bath with Zarek, hot, perfumed water running down his chest, wrapping my legs around his waist as he⁠—

A horse calls from the woods ahead of us, a long, sharp whinny, and my fantasy evaporates. Beside me, Zarek pulls his dagger from its sheath.

“Get on my horse,” he growls, waving his hand at his gelding without taking his eyes off the road.

“I’m not leaving you,” I say.

“Just do it,” he says through gritted teeth. “Please.”