Only then did I exhale.
And in the quiet that followed, the ache settled in like an old friend.
I made my way to the washroom and closed the door.
The basin water was blessedly cold.
I cupped it in my trembling hands and splashed it over my face, the sting of it grounding me more than I wanted to admit. The coolness dripped down my cheeks, clung to my lashes, and soaked into the collar of my shirt, but I didn’t care. I welcomed the chill.
Finally,I could breathe.
The fire in my ribs had dulled to an ache, and no longer devoured me with every inhale. I braced both hands on the edge of the basin, staring into the warped reflection in the rippling water.
My eyes were ringed with fatigue. My skin blotched with magic-sick bruising. And my heart?
A battlefield. Still smoldering.
I let out a shaky breath, one that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with themenin my life.
One who wanted me back now that I was broken in places he hadn’t seen before. Who held me like I was still his, and whispered the kind of things I used to ache to hear, only now, it felt too late.
And the other?
The one Iwanted… who still had a damned fiancée, even if he claimed he didn’t want her. Even if his eyes only ever seemed to findmein a room full of nobles and obligations. He hadn’t chosen Inderia. I knew that. But he hadn’t cast her aside either. Not officially. Not publicly.
So where did that leave me?
Not a lover. Not a soldier. Not yet a rider in full. Just a girl with a dragon that would eventually let her die.
I wiped the water from my face with the edge of a towel and stared hard at my reflection.
“I don’t belong to either of you,” I whispered to the girl in the glass.
She blinked back at me like she was trying to believe it.
The door creaked softly as I stepped out of the washroom, still toweling the water from my face.
I barely heard it, just the faint shuffle of boots against stone. Too light for a guard. Too precise to be casual.
Instinct surged. I ducked.
A blade screamed past my cheek, slicing the air where my throat had been a breath ago.
I dropped the towel and spun, already reaching for the dagger hidden in the seam of my boot. My fingers closed aroundthe hilt just as the would-be assassin lunged from the shadowed corner of my room.
He wasn’t in armor. He wore a faded travel cloak, dark and tight against his lean frame. His face was hidden beneath a half-mask, but I saw the glint of hunger in his eyes. Cold. Unapologetic. Trained.
He came at me with another strike, a short sword flashing in the dim light. I parried with my dagger. The clash of steel sparking so close it lit the lines of his face.
Not a soldier. Too fast.
A killer.
He didn’t speak, didn’t grunt. He fought in silence. The kind born of purpose, not desperation. The tip of his sword caught my cheek when he swung again. I blocked out the sting as I evaded the death blow, but I was a little too slow. Too exhausted from my duel with Perin.
I couldn’t hold this pace long. He knew it too.
I backed toward the bed, trying to angle him, trying to?—
