“He tried to help me escape Driftspire,” she says, each word measured. “For that alone, he has saved himself from a death sentence.”
I shake my head, waiting for the punchline, for the fire I know lurks beneath her steady voice. “Amara. After all he’s done? After Arax?”
I regret saying his name the moment it leaves my mouth.
She wavers, like a candle caught in a draft, like a flower wilting beneath the weight of winter. And I see it, the memories flashing behind her eyes, shadows of the past curling their fingers around her. I can only imagine the depth of the pain lurking beneath her skin, the agony she keeps pressed beneath the surface.
But Amara is nothing if not unbreakable. She squares her shoulders, forces herself to breathe, and comes back to me, just like she always does.
“I said it saved him from death, not from punishment,” she says, her voice iron.
My jaw tightens, and I drag my gaze back to him, to the blood dripping from his mouth, to the smug twist of his lips that makes my hands itch to rip his head clean from his shoulders.
But then Amara cups my face, her fingers a whisper of warmth against my skin, and gods, I have dreamed of this. Of her touch, of her scent, of the quiet way she soothes the rage inside me.
“You will not kill him on this ship, husband.” Her voice is gentle, but there is no room for argument. “His fate will be decided when we reach the Sundered Kingdoms.”
I inhale her scent and nod into her touch. “Yes, wife. If that is what you wish.”
Then I flick a sharp glance to Reon and Orios. “Put him below deck.”
They nod, their grip tightening around his arms, hauling him toward the heavy door that leads to the ship’s underbelly. To the cages. To the dark. The Golden Son does not fight. He moves at his own pace, his head held high, smirking despite the blood smeared across his teeth.
And as he passes, he does not look at me.
No. His eyes, bright blue, gleaming, knowing… find her.
And she looks away.
But I see it.
The flicker of something.
A memory. A secret. A shard ofhimburied somewhere insideher.
It takes everything in me not to crush his skull beneath my hands, to pry open his mind and pick that memory free piece by bloody piece.
But then he is gone, dragged below by Reon and Orios, and my pulse is still roaring, pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
Amara tightens her grasp on my cheek, her touch pulling me back.
I place my hand over hers. “He cannot be trusted, Amara.”
Her gaze sharpens. “Some would say the same about you.”
The words crack against my ribs. My head jerks up, but she presses on.
“When Ronin discovered what Anethesis intended for me, he came to my cage, risked everything, to set me free. If not for his warning, I might already be dead.”
There are a hundred things in her words that should seize my attention, but only one lodges itself in my skull. A name. One I have never heard before. A sound foreign to me, bitter on my tongue.
Through clenched teeth, I ask, “Is that what he is called? Ronin?”
Her eyes widen, startled. Then, a slow swallow, her lips parting as if to take it back, but it’s too late.
“I’m sorry,” she mutters, as if she knows she has lodged a knife in my heart. “I don’t know why I called him that.”
Something close to a smile pulls at my mouth, but it is a razor-thin thing. I force the words past my teeth, my mouth working hard to keep them soft. “You call him by his name now? This man who saved you when I could not. Tell me more of the bond you two share.”
