Lord Renvar coughed and sputtered, his feet sliding and stumbling for purchase, trying to stretch to the ground in order to take the pressure off his throat.
“Stop!” I pleaded.
Aleks went perfectly still. The light—both around him and all throughout the room—dimmed. But his grip remained fixed. And thepowerthat emanated from him didn’t feel dimmed atall. It felt like it could have swallowed us whole, burned us up into nothing but dust.
“Aleks.Please.”
Slowly, he removed his hand and took a step back.
Lord Renvar dropped to his knees, glaring up at us in hatred and rage. He took a moment, seemingly gathering what remained of his dignity, before slowly rising to his feet and leaving without another word.
Once he was out of the room, Aleks tilted his face toward me. “Are you okay?”
I stared, heart pounding, unsure of how to answer.
I’d missed having him here to fight for me, yes. But the look in his eyes a moment ago had been…frightening.
And that powerstillradiating off him…
A thought crawled through my mind, raising a chill along my spine.
This isn’t the same Aleksander I lost.
I brushed it off. Because of course he’d come back different. How could he not? He’d said it himself: Lorien took pieces of him when he left. It would take time to fill in those empty spaces, to fully come back to his normal self, his normal control.
“I’m fine,” I said. “But Lord Renvar isn’t worth such violent energy—oranyenergy, for that matter.”
Aleks looked to the doorway, as though he was still thinking about chasing that foreign diplomat down and making him pay a higher price for touching me.
Another shiver crawled down my spine.
“Come on,” I said, hastily taking hold of his arm. “We have bigger things to worry about.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he relented, allowing me to steer him out of the study and toward my room. He seemed to relax quickly once my hand was against him, though his magic continued to throb in the space around us.
Dangerous.
It felt dangerous.
“You were supposed to be resting,” I reminded him, trying to force a calmness into my voice that I didn’t truly feel.
“Your magic felt anxious. I couldn’t ignore it, so I came to find you.”
My cheeks warmed as I wondered, again, at the depth of our magic and connection.
“And the moment I saw that man touching you…” He trailed off, shaking his head and slipping his hand into mine, his thumb tracing my palm as we walked. Then he abruptly pulled me to a stop, his grip on my hand tightening as he brought us face-to-face.
“…I’m fine,” I repeated. “It’s all fine, and I… I’m glad you were there.” I stared into his eyes, trying to reassure myself, to convince myself that nothing about them had changed.
I couldn’t stop replaying what had happened in my head, thinking of how disastrous it would have been if he’d actually harmed Lord Renvar. Or worse.
Iwasn’tfine.
None of this was, really.
But I couldn’t dwell on it along with everything else. Eager to change the subject, I instead recounted the meeting I’d had with my brother and all the plans we’d made.
“We need to pack for Midna,” I told Aleks. “I can’t say I’m thrilled at the thought of going back there already, but...”
