Even as that thought floated through my mind, I realized I no longer wished to die. Despite the fact that I was being forced to bind myself to a man I didn’t love, my life now held so much promise . . . so much potential that I couldn’t bear to part myself from it. Gone was the scared and reclusive Runa raised to walk in her brother’s shadow. Now, I was a serpent in my own right, coiling, waiting for the right time to strike. The right time to help change the outcome of the war.
For the Seid.
It was chilling, to stand in a room with the two men I cared for, one holding a knife to my throat, the other calculating how to get us out of the war neither of us asked for.
“Can I . . .” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Can I change?” I motioned to my bloody shift.
Leif paused, but the knife didn’t leave my throat. “Bring Friar, and have her bring a dress for Runa.”
Otho’s gaze flickered to the door—he was hesitant to leave me. But I knew Friar couldn’t be far. Appearing to realize thesame thing, he walked the few steps to the doorway, calling down the hall for his sister.
It didn’t take long for her to appear, her face immediately twisting in horror at the sight before her. Before she could say anything, toppling the carefully crafted lie Otho and I were weaving, he spoke.
“Fetch a binding dress for Runa. Leif wishes to bind her right now. Askel is fetching Signa. In return, he will leave peacefully.”
I watched Friar’s face empty of blood in the same way Otho’s had as the gravity of the situation sunk in. She nodded, then she was gone.
Time crawled, Leif maintaining the knife at my throat, despite Otho’s pleading gaze.
Then, Friar was back, a red dress gripped in her hands. “I’ll take her to change.”
“No,” Leif snapped as she took a step forward. “You will help her change right here.”
It was my turn to pale. Though everyone in this room had seen me at least partially in the nude, it wasn’t easy to overcome the desire to hide my body in an instant.
Friar looked to Otho. “But it’s hardly appropriate?—”
“I don’t care,” Leif snapped, and in that instant, I knew he knew more about Otho and I than he was letting on. “You’ll dress her right here, with my knife at her throat. One wrong move, and she’s dead.”
I don’t know if it was just a delayed reaction to everything that had happened in the last few moments, or the venom in his voice, but my limbs commenced trembling.
“Okay,” Friar agreed, stepping forward to hold out the dress. “I’ll need to remove her shift?—”
“Cut it off of her.” Leif’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion.
“Me? But I don’t have?—”
“Not you,” the man who was about to become the magical equivalent of my husband, snapped. “Him.” He inclined his head to Otho.
And in that moment, I knew. I knew that Leif had somehow found out what Otho meant to me, and he was going to do everything in his power to humiliate me before forcing me to become his bound.
Otho, to his credit, did his best to hide his feelings as he approached, his knife clutched in his fist. But I could see the hint of moisture gathering in his eyes, feel his pain as if it were my own.
He really was my weighted.
“It’s fine,” I whispered as he kneeled on the floor at my feet in the same way he had a season before, to help me when I was beaten. “I want this.” It wasn’t a lie, not really. I wanted Otho to see me, all of me. This wasn’t the ideal situation, but I knew we would overcome this. We had to.
In slow movements, he dug the knife into the fabric, careful to pull the shift away from my body before the knife slipped through it. He kept his eyes on mine the entire time, and we had another one of the silent conversations that came with ease between us.
He wasn’t going to look. He would wait—wait until this was just between the two of us.
The cold air prickling my skin was the only indication that I was naked, and Friar was already there, pulling underpants up my legs, then helping me step into the dress. There was no way for her to add a slip, so I went without, and she moved as quickly as possible to lace up the stays at my back.
“Tighter,” Leif hissed.
“No.” Friar’s response made me flinch. “She nearly drowned a few days ago, her lungs and ribs are still healing.”
“Fine.”
