Until he saw my face.
I shut the door behind me. The lock clicked, sealing us inside.
“You’re alive,” I said, projecting a calm I didn’t feel. “Do you know why?”
Maddox’s mouth twisted. “Because you need me to fight the Skathe.”
I stepped closer, my shadow dragging across the floor to his boots. “The only reason you’re breathing is because she wouldn’t let me kill you.”
The words landed as I’d intended.
His smirk faltered, confusion knitting his brow before he looked away.
“You poisoned her.” The heat of my magic hung thick enough in the air I could taste it. “Then you sat there and watched her falter. You wanted to torture her.”
His jaw tightened. “It was a joke.”
“A joke,” I growled, moving until my boots ground against the front of his. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, he raised his eyes.
“I want you to understand something, Maddox.” My voice dropped until it scraped across the room. “You’ve been spared this once. It will never happen again. If you so much as look at her with anything but respect, I’ll know. And I’ll end you before you take another breath.”
The air pressed inward, my magic curling around him in invisible claws. His breathing quickened, the tendons in his neck standing out as I compressed his windpipe.
“Do we understand each other?” My voice was a coffin lid sealing shut.
He could not swallow. It was all he could do to squeak out a word. “Yes.”
I stepped back, loosening my hold on his throat enough for him to draw in a breath. “Good.”
With a jerk of my magic, I yanked him off the bunk and flung him against the wall. He hit hard, though I wished he’d hit harder, and toppled to the ground, groaning.
Pivoting, I opened the door and left without a backward glance.
Striding through the halls, I went to my chambers and bathed quickly, dressing in a clean tunic and pants. I returned to the healer’s ward, pushing through the doorway and taking the hall to the open room, only to find Isi’s bed vacant and made up with pristine white linens.
The space where she should be felt colder than any wasteland wind. My magic snarled in my veins, a beast scenting blood.
“Ah, there you are.” Meren looked me up and down, a twinkle in her eyes. “You’re looking marginally improved.”
“I don’t have time for that.”
“So much for trying to carry on a pleasant conversation with my king.”
“Where. Is. She?” I snapped.
“I could tell you she was bathing, but she insisted she could handle that herself.”
I peered around. “Where is your bathing chamber?”
Her hand lifted. “Through there, but you won’t find her in one of our tubs. She was doing well enough to leave. Actually, she was doing well enough sheinsistedon leaving. I believe she went to her own chambers.”
“Her own chambers,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Alone?” I roared.
