He stumbled back, blood seeping down his arm, a few drops falling in the mud.
I sheathed my weapon.
“You were warned,” Lyrena said with a mocking grin.
Barkke did not bother to bind his wound. He stared at me across the courtyard, the half-smile on his face shifting that infernal beard. I wiped my hands on my leather leggings, ready for a bath and supper. I opened my mouth to say something snide—
But the words died on my lips.
Even across the courtyard, it was unmistakable. Maybe it was the unusual green color or the falling dark that made them so bright. It was impossible to miss. His eyes were glowing.
28
VEYKA
Shit fucking Ancestors-damned hell.
I’d been looked at like that all my life. I couldn’t go anywhere in the goldstone palace without glowing eyes haunting my every step. When I came of age, when I escaped the water gardens, I’d deliberately dressed myself in provocative clothing. A taunt to all those who judged my body as less than ideal, twisting the knife by reminding them that their husbands and wives lusted after me anyway. I’d employed the same tactic in the great hall, in front of all those terrestrials.
This should not have been different.
But to see that ring of desire shining in eyes whose angle was so similar to Arran’s… the tendrils of hair that had fallen forward from Barkke’s bun around his face, just like Arran’s dark hair did… to be sweating and sparing and trading verbal snipes… it was too much.
It was just lust. Desire. It should not fucking matter.
But it didn’t have to make sense to be real.
The ice inside of me shattered.
I spun on my heel, desperate to get away before I shattered into a million tiny shards. I shoved past Lyrena, not knowing where I was going. Not caring.
Away.
My fault.
I stumbled on the stone stairs, scraping my knees through the leggings.
Arran.
My clothes kept catching on the walls. The corridors were so narrow. I wasn’t narrow. I didn’t belong here.
Home. Not my home. Not for me.
I had to get out. Get away. I was going to suffocate under the weight of it all. Expectation. Salvation. Separation.
Arran. I need you.
I threw myself into the void and did not care where I came out.
29
VEYKA
I was in freefall.
The void pulled at my tired muscles, my shattered soul, ripping them apart until I was nothing but stardust in the space between realms. I ceased to be a queen or a friend or a warrior.
I was the space between stars, the darkness that sucks everything into it, swallowing all light. In the void, there was no hope or fear. I did not even exist, not in a way that anyone could recognize. I was myself in my most distilled form.
