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And for what? A taste of freedom?
It will not happen again. Not with Gwyn. Not with any of the brides during the marriage mart. I will keep my distance. No touching. Not until the curse is broken, and I’m truly free.
I groan, kick off the sheets, and slide out of bed.
If sleep won’t claim me, I might as well do something productive. I splash some water on my face in the bathing chamber and pull on clean clothes.
Night drenches the castle in shadows, and flickering fae light casts shapes against the marble walls as I head to my study.
Footsteps fall into place beside me.
“What’s got you out of bed, Riv?” Arkyn asks.
His shirt and trousers are improperly laced, his sword belt misbuttoned around his waist.
“Just couldn’t sleep.”
He stifles a yawn. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
He doesn’t push me on it even though I’m pretty sure he knows I’m not fine at all.
I’m bothered, undone by a witch with silver eyes and moonlit hair.
I need to stop thinking about her, but the only way I know how to get someone out of my mind is by getting someone else into my bed.
My stomach churns at the thought.
You are not some lovesick little youngling after a single kiss, Riven Thaelon.
“Any updates on the blight?” I ask, desperate for a distraction.
“Aureleth, Selisryn, and the Viretree remain the same. However, patches have shown up as far south as Morra, Wynwillow, and Lichenmere,” he says. “I portaled to each isle as soon as I heard and placed some channeling stones to help extend your glamour.”
The news banks any fire Gwyn might’ve lit within me.
Morra, Wynwillow, and Lichenmere are our southeastern islands where Lords Thomasin, Emerly, and Datura reign over their estates from their gilded little villages, which they pretend are kingdoms of their own.
For the blight to have spread so far away from the Viretree…
We turn down another hallway.
“I didn’t see signs of the blight reaching any of the lord’s estates when I surveyed them,” Ark adds.
“What about further north?” I ask. “Did you check if the blight spread there?”
“Yes. Noxfen has had a few more outbreaks, and Feyndor isn’t faring much better, but the glamour has held beautifully. No one knows.”
We’re a single turn away from the hall that leads directly to my study when movement through the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the gardens catches my eye.
As if I’ve dreamt her up, Gwyn is there in nothing but her nightgown. A gauzy thing, sheer in all the places it shouldn’t be. She’s leaning back on her hands, fingers splayed against the grass, gaze fixed on the sky above her.
The moonlight halos her in silver, and my breath… it fucking hitches at the sight of her.
Every fiber in my body urges me to climb through the window and go to her, to take her right there in the garden, pain be damned. This feral desperation, this simmering need, is unlike anything I’ve ever felt, and it burns through me hotter than the searing along the back of my neck. I reach for the skin there, massage the aching away as I watch my witch study the stars.
“Riven,” Arkyn says gently. “You know you can’t—”
