“I mean it! Dying is bad enough, but if I have to do it while knowing you are going to follow me or just be miserable for the rest of eternity, it will be monumentally worse.”
“As if you'd be happy with me moving on with another man,” he scoffed.
Holding his stare, I said, “I would rather that than you be unhappy. Besides, what will I care? I'll be dead.”
“No, you won't be, because you aren't dying. Never. I'm going to make sure of it. So, we don't have to discuss this.”
I snorted a laugh. “All right.” Snuggling in against his chest, I added, “I'm glad to be alive. I wasn't ready to die.”
“Hopefully, we'll go a few centuries before dealing with murderous Shanba again.”
I lifted my head. “That woman! She was a member of your kitchen staff.”
“Yes, I've heard. Juri came by earlier. He handled the investigation personally.”
“Elisa,” I whispered as I thought back to my time in the dungeon. The voice. The shadow. I was wrong. I thought it was Juri, then I assumed it was Alcha, but it was her. Elisa. The relic had deepened her voice, as it had Alcha's. “She was the one who whammied me. She must have been spying on us.”
Cyn nodded. “She probably saw you get taken to a cell and used the opportunity to make you one of her assassins.”
“She was here all along.” I shook my head. “Smart of her to use one of her fellow kitchen workers to poison you instead of doing it herself.”
“Juri looked into her after she accused the Chelli, but she seemed innocent.”
“That's right. He said she was fresh from Rercime. He didn't think she'd been here long enough to develop a hatred for you. Little did Juri know she had arrived with it.”
“With her hatred and Tareth's Triumph.”
“Fuck,” I muttered.
“Yes, it's disturbing.”
“No, I mean, fuck, this salve feels yucky.”
“It feelsyucky?” Cyn pressed his lips together. “First whammied and now yucky. I think I've mated a man-child.”
“Ha-ha. I need a shower.”
“How about a bath instead?”
“Oh, now you want to bathe your little man-child?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then no.”
“What?” Cyn's grin went slack.
“I'm hungry. A bath is going to take too long, especially the way you do it.”
“All right.” Cyn scooped me up and carried me to the bathroom. “A quick shower, then breakfast, then a visit with the physician, andthenwe'll go to the Forgotten.”
“Oh! I completely forgot about the Forgotten.”
He chuckled. “That's funny because it's the Forgotten and you forgot about it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Now who's the man-child?”
Chapter Forty-Three
