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Anger flared weakly beneath her exhaustion. She wished to strike him, to remind him that beneath the practiced smiles and veiled words lay a blade thirsting for his blood.

But the room was already fading.

“At least sit down.”

“No! Get away from me!”

Elarian pressed herself closer to the cool stone wall at her back, relishing the small relief it brought. Blackness crept into her vision, winnowing the world to only a pinpoint of light. She felt herself stumbling but did not know if she still stood.

The last thing Elarian remembered was Lucan calling her name as the floor rushed to greet her.

Consciousness returned like a lost sailor caught in a maelstrom.

Elarian surfaced only to be dragged beneath again, caught between feverish dreams and the unbearable weight of her own skin. The world came and went in shattered fragments. The taste of her blood lingered upon her tongue. Her eyes lifted briefly to the blurred witchlights overhead, their faint crackle her only tether to the world. Fabric whispered against skin as she shifted.

Blackness swallowed her whole.

A starless night swirled around her broken form, calling her home—a place beyond the gods where even light did not dare trespass.

Return to us where the stars no longer burn.

A strangled breath tore from her throat.

Even gods cannot grasp what is already doomed.

Elarian surfaced violently, choking as the world slowly dragged itself into focus. She curled inward, searching for something—anything—to anchor herself to. Warmth greeted her first. A quiet sound escaped her throat as she tried to move. Her limbs refused to obey. The fever had turned her muscles into stone, every joint heavy and aching. Nearly lost in the fog clouding her mind, she faintly remembered collapsing even as she shrank from Lucan’s offering hand.

Lucan.

A game.

This had to be some sick, twisted game of his.

Strangely tender as a warden in private, ensuring the prisoner did not break too soon; yet beyond the confines of his room lined with warm wooden panels boasting an understated refinement, he returned to casual indifference and prodding until he found her cracks. It maddened Elarian that she almost found herself amused by his duality. How many others might understand the woman she longed to be?

Why did it always have to be him?

Groaning, Elarian strained to wrap her fingers around the soft warmth holding her close like a cocoon. Her fingers twitched weakly against a thick blanket instead of the cold marble floor she expected. Elarian blinked, forcing herself to focus on the world around her. The chamber was dark, though she did not know whether the sky had darkened as the sun retreated, or simply her fever swallowing her vision. Shivering, she leaned into the softness at her face.

Only then did she realize she was not alone.

Lucan’s hand rested on her back, cool fingers spread wide as his palm covered her exposed flesh.

A hallucination, surely.

One finger gently shifted against her spine. Blessed relief. Elarian breathed out, cursing herself for feeling grateful for his touch. The discovery should have sent terror through her—should have awakened every instinct sharpened by a century of hunting monsters. Two days ago, the assassin would have turned away, reached for a blade, and finished the kill.

Instead, she lay perfectly still.

Chained like an animal.

Grateful for her enemy’s touch.

As much as she wished to bleed Lucan dry and dance beneath a shower of his blackened blood until she collapsed, another part of her begged to keep him here in this moment. Never before had anyone offered to ease her pain when her blood demanded release. Many had looked at her with pity, or asked Melistra to spare the woman every Blade envied. Their empty gestures only hardened her heart to the world. No one had ever simply held her.

But now she once again lay in Lucan Valmere’s bed, curled into herself like a newborn babe as his hand rested carefully against her back.

For one horrid moment, Elarian forgot how to breathe.