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“You make my point for me.” Lucan stepped closer, placing the goblet into her hand. “You are my weapon. A blade left to rust is nothing more than scrap metal.”

The words should have tasted like another humiliation.

But beneath her flare of disdain lurked something far more dangerous: understanding.

Because Elarian had always said the same of herself. She had spent centuries honing her skills, maintaining her body as carefully as the silver blade hidden beneath her cloak. Every injury mattered. Every weakness was a flaw waiting to be exploited.

Lucan knew that, too.

Elarian looked away, unable to bear seeing her fingers wrap around the crystal Lucan pressed into her palm.

“I do not need your concern.”

“Good.”

Her gaze snapped back, but Lucan had already turned away.

“Because I did not offer any.”

The day passed by with little else to distract Elarian from the fever slowly burning her to ash. Lucan and Lord Ataen spoke for hours in the parlor room adjacent to his bedchambers, their soft voices lulling Elarian back to sleep. Though she fought for some time to stay awake, she was grateful for the chance to rest without watchful eyes.

Finding her silver again could come later. Lucan was right about one thing: rusted blades were useless.

When evening settled once more over the Blooded Palace, Lucan returned and dressed her in silence. Pale gray silks hugged her curves, stomach left exposed by the thin cloth barely covering her breasts. Gold once again replaced iron, and soon, she trailed behind Lucan—a dutiful pet to the Blooded Prince.

Elarian expected the walk to the throne room to become another one of Lucan’s punishments. She prepared herself for the weight of every gaze, every whispered insult, every reminder that the Ashen Blade had fallen from the heavens into the hands of the creatures she had sworn to destroy.

She expected Lucan to make a spectacle of her.

Instead, he simply walked.

The chain between them swung loosely from side to side, the golden collar cold against her throat. Lucan offered no cruel proclamation. No mocking smile. No reminder that the elf assassin who had hunted him for almost a century now followed at his command.

Somehow, that was worse.

The moment the great wooden doors inlaid with a flaming sun burst open, the conversation died. Hundreds of crimson eyes once again turned toward her, sharper than any blade she had felt at her throat.

Elarian took a breath, stilling herself beneath their scrutiny. She had walked through battlefields covered in the dead. Watched enemies beg for mercy as their blackened blood stained her hands. Bruised every inch of her body beneath her silver armor as she reclaimed Castle Brythaeg last year.

If she did not lower her gaze then, she would not now.

Lucan started into the throne room before pausing. He looked back at Elarian with that same penetrating gaze that curdled her stomach while coaxing the traitorous voice growing louder within her.

More, it whispered. More.

His wicked eyes traveled slowly over her as though she were some priceless treasure he could not bear to part with for even a single breath. The chain clattered over the marble floor as he closed the distance between them. Only dimly aware of the courtiers still gawking at the spectacle—once again—Elarian lifted her chin higher in defiance.

“You still appear to be far too clothed, pet.” Lucan’s fingernails grazed over her exposed stomach. “Have you forgotten your place already?”

Gods, it would feel like a breath of fresh air to be rid of the silks trapping the fever against her skin. Already sweat had gathered at her lower back, and her cheeks flushed with heat. She tried desperately to ignore the other, sweeter warmth gathering low between her legs.

“You know, I think I will rather enjoy slowly killing you,” she hissed quietly.

“Would you?”

A gelid shadow wound around Elarian’s wrists, another around her ankles holding her place. Though she knew better, everything in her screamed to hurl another insult, to fight back, to do anything other than let Lucan humiliate her and make her enjoy it at the same time.

She closed her eyes.