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Battlefields. Blood. Death.

“I thought,” I grit out through the haze, “you didn’t know how to ride.”

She laughs breathlessly. “Horses. Not males.”

As if to emphasize this claim, she slams her hips down, grinding against me, harder, faster, lost in her rhythm. Her control unravels as she tips toward release, every motion more desperate than the last. When she comes, she clenches around me with a cry, thighs trembling, her body folding forward until her chest meets mine.

I wrap my arms around her waist, thrusting up into her as I finally let go, spilling into her with a groan that sounds like it’s been dragged from the depths of my soul. Her name is a gasp on my lips, a vow I don’t even realize I’m making.

And for a moment, the world narrows to just this—her sweat-slick skin against mine, the tangle of our limbs, and something unfamiliar threading itself between us.

A single knock on the door pulls me back to reality.

Gwyn jolts upright, the sheet clutched hastily to her chest as she climbs off me. “Were you expecting company?”

“No,” I pant, trying and failing to catch my breath.

“Well, are you going to answer the door?”

“Also no.” I turn onto my side to face her. “They’ll come back.”

“It could be important.”

“It could,” I agree. “But I doubt⁠—”

Another knock.

“You were saying?” She flicks her wrist toward the door. “Go answer it.”

“I think you enjoy telling me what to do far too much, little witch.”

Her already flushed cheeks darken as I slide out of bed and pad into the tepidarium, where I retrieve a warm washcloth and a soft towel.

Gwyn’s lips part when I approach the bed. “Is that⁠—”

“Let me clean you up,” I say, dragging the wet cloth against the stickiest parts of her—her thighs, the space between them—and then the rest of her flushed skin. I take my time, thoroughly exploring her, as the knocking becomes more and more aggressive.

Only one person has the nerve to show up to my chamber like this.

Fucking Arkyn.

“I appreciate the help, but go save your door. I can clean myself up,” she says, taking the towel from me.

“Ark can wait.” I reach for the cloth, but she swats me away with it.

“So can I.”

“Fine.”

I roughly pull on a pair of trousers, not bothering with lacing them entirely, as I cross to the door and wrench it open with a clipped, “What?”

“We need to talk,” Arkyn says. “It’s the blight.”

My skin ices over.

“Has it progressed within the castle walls?” I ask, stomach swirling with dread.

“On the contrary.” His eyes brighten. “I was in the gardens with Lettie, and I watched it regress. I did a perimeter sweep, and it’s no longer within the castle walls or Eleutheria at all. I even portaled north to Aureleth and Selisryn to see if there were any changes, and the air smelled pure.”