Page 76

She bows. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Riven and I are silent as she shuts the door behind her. He flicks the lock with a wave of his hand, a subtle flexing of power I haven’t seen him use before.

“New trick?” I say, jutting my chin toward the lock.

He grins, and I’m grateful I’m already sitting because it makes my knees shake. “Old trick, but one I haven’t been able to flaunt with most of my magic being used to glamour the blight and power the wards to hide you.”

“Does that take a lot out of you? The wards?”

“It wouldn’t if I wasn’t already draining myself with the glamour.”

“Can fae burnout the way witches do?” I ask.

“They can,” he says, voice low. He draws closer to the bed. “Though we don’t enter a long sleep, we simply… return to the lands.”

“How poetic.”

He sits on the edge of the mattress. “I think that’s what happened to the Sovereign Sisters, and their power became Rosemarie’s, then Godrick’s, and now mine.”

“You think you wield the power of goddesses?” I whistle, fighting a smile. “It sure sounds like you might be trying to impress me, grandsire.” I gasp. “Wait… Is this our one-on-one courtship session that you promised to each of the brides?”

He prods at the back of his neck again, and I’ve seen that gesture too often not to ask, “Is that where she marked you?”

His gaze snaps up to meet mine. “What do you mean?”

“Your neck. Did your mother touch you there before she died?”

“I don’t— Sovereign Sisters.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “I think she might have.”

I crawl across the bed and kneel beside him. “May I? I might be able to help.”

He nods, giving me the permission I need to touch him. Gently, I press my fingers against the skin on the back of his neck. It’s kettle hot, and yet, it doesn’t burn me. I drag my fingertip across him, feeling the barest trace of magic woven deep into his flesh in one jagged shape.

A rune.

“Was your mother also able to weave runes?” I ask.

“You think…”

“I do,” I tell him, stretching out my legs, careful not to touch him.

“She wouldn’t. It wouldn’t⁠—”

“Your neck… what triggers the burning?”

“Indecent thoughts about non-fae females, and any non-platonic touch,” he says tightly.

I take stock of almost every encounter where I’ve seen him grasp the back of his neck—that afternoon at the swimming hole, the morning after sharing a tent, at Wynterhaven once he saved me from the frost wraith, last night in his bedroom when I offered him the tonic, in the hallway after he kissed me, and in the parlor when his gaze swept over me.

And again, just now.

Moment after moment, where he and I had some sort of exchange that teetered on the knife’s edge of desire.

“Your mother didn’t just make you swear a vow, Riven.” I worry my lower lip between my teeth. “She wove it into a rune, branding you with a control so complete that even the hint of desire or touch outside of her command gives you agony.”

“Black hell.” His head falls into his hands. “She must have concealed the mark from me.”

As if deathbed promises aren’t powerful enough… combine that with weaving and binding magic, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a curse.