The tether violently wrenched, prepared to rip my ribcage from my body. Air vanished. I clutched my sternum.
Edric’s brow arched. “Have I hurt your precious feelings?”
I gasped. “It is—the tether?—”
“Ah, yes. I have a solution for that,” he said mildly, turning as a tall figure entered. “Lord Zachariah, if you please.”
A nobleman I recognized from dinner. He avoided my gaze and clapped his hands together. Golden light ignited between his palms, knitting itself into a gleaming blade. Zachariah advanced, chanting in Old Avandrian. The tether materialized into a visible ribbon of golden, stretched to its breaking point.
“No,” I whispered, stumbling back.
Zachariah raised the sword of light high above his head.
“Please! Don’t!”
The blade fell, slicing through the tether.
My scream did not feel like my own. It clawed itself from marrow and memory, from every place where his presence had lived in me.
Somewhere below, Mav screamed too. I crumbled to the floor, clawing at my chest as if I could seize what had been severed. Pain crashed over me in a dark tidal wave, devouring breath, devouring thought. My chest imploded around the sudden void. The room tilted off its axis. The world slipped its mooring.
The tether was gone.
I could no longer feel Mav’s presence.
“No,” I sobbed, curling into myself. “No, please, please?—”
Edric chuckled. “Now that’s better,” he said with the casualness of straightening an off-center painting of himself. “Much better.”
His words hardly reached my ears. I rocked, arms wrapped tight over my chest. My tears came unchecked, hot and salt-slick, sliding into my mouth as my entire body shook.
“All of you, out,” Edric commanded the remaining guards. When they hesitated, he spoke again. “I said out!”
They retreated in a hurried patter. The door thudded closed, sealing the chamber in a foreboding silence.
Edric turned to face me. False tenderness arranged itself upon his features in an ill-fitting mask.
“I had my suspicions,” he murmured. “I wanted to trust you, Quinnie. I told myself you would never humiliate me so.”
He advanced a step. I trembled, still on the floor.
“But I didn’t see what had…blossomed.” He sneered. “As your betrothed and your king, you understand I can’t allow such disrespect to stand.”
I flinched as he crouched beside me. Gloved fingers grippedmy chin, forcing my gaze to his. His scent overwhelmed me—the bitter, medicinal tang of wormwood overlaying the rancid scent of rotting pears.
“Seeing as I found the bastardhere,” he said, the softness in his voice worse than shouting. “Did you permit him to defile you?”
I went utterly still, as he waited for a shame that would not rise. Instead, what surfaced within me was a cold, cleansing rage.
“Defile?” I echoed, voice sharp as broken glass. “As though my virtue is a trinket held beneath your thumb?”
His brows leaped, shock flashing in his widened eyes.
“I defiledhim,” I said, my tone sweet as poisoned wine. “Every inch, and he relished every moment?—”
Crack.
Spots danced in my vision as pain rushed along my cheekbone. Blood salted my tongue. I lifted my head until my eyes met his. I was shaking, but remained unbroken and unbowed.
