I make my way up, a little aimlessly, to the spot where one of Mrath’s contacts is meant to meet me for a debriefing. They are meant to have also attended the wedding as a guest, and I anticipate some sort of lord or lady.
Glyni has been talking about their relationship the entire journey—this man she’s working with has been able to worm his way into the good graces of the king, and his family ties put him in close proximity to the king’s consort and help ensure her safety until she can be taken by Vann. Why I am the best for the task is still unclear, but I won’t shirk an opportunity to advocate for my people to the elves.
After so long reading crystals, lost to the mundane existence of survival, having a real mission makes me feel free. Even if my main purpose is to be a hub of communication, a source of non-elven magic that cannot be tracked.
When I reach the street with blackened houses, I keep an eye out for any signs of being followed and grasp the crystal in my pocket.
When I see the home with a singular candle lit in the window, I try the door. It opens without resistance, and I slip inside.
I push back my hood, letting whoever I meet see my face. Several troll features could not be covered with a simple skin-tone change—my wider nose and full lips—but the contact shouldn’t care, regardless.
There is a shift on one end of the room.
Then I see him.
At first, I think it’s a trick of light. A shadow that moves against the direction of the other meager candles scattered about. But then he fully materializes, and the world narrows around me.
The air leaves my lungs. His name burns through my throat before I can stop it:“Castien.”
He doesn’t flinch. He only tilts his head, eyes gleaming the same cold black I remember, and steps forward.
Something clicks in me. After the visions, the thoughts, the dreams—none of them soften the blow ofseeinghim.
All thoughts of my mission here slip away in some foreign heat that takes hold of my body. I can’t think. Can’t process.
A part of me knew this would happen here—that if I came back, we would meet each other again. I’m supposed to get information, but right now…all I can think about is revenge.
“What have you done to your face?” he says softly.
“That’s all you have to say after all those years?” The words come out like a snarl.
He sighs, as if he’s tired. “Liana?—”
That one syllable skitters down my spine like pebbles over ice.
“Don’tsay my name.” The dagger is in my hand before I realize it. The obsidian edge catches the light as I cross the space between us.
My hand moves. The dagger flashes upward in a clean arcmeant for his throat. He catches my wrist. The impact rattles through me, and I grit my teeth.
“Luckily, I brought back your gift. The same one you almost killed me with,” I growl.
He moves with that same impossible grace I’ve seen many times before. The two of us circle each other in the narrow room, shadows stretching long across the walls.
“You don’t want to do this,” he murmurs.
I lunge again. He steps in, turns, and catches me by the shoulders, spinning me so that my back hits his chest. The blade is still in my grip, my arm pinned in his.
“Let go,” I hiss.
He doesn’t. Instead, he moves. Slowly, almost tenderly. It takes me a heartbeat to realize he’sdancing. Guiding my movements like we’re back in the wooden halls of his home instead of standing in a ruin. He hums an old song. My dagger cuts the air between us in sharp, deliberate arcs, and every time it’s about to meet flesh, he turns me away.
“You’re still beautiful when you’re furious.”
“And you’re still arrogant when you should be bleeding out,” I quip back. Then I twist out of his grip. “You crossed me once, Castien. You’ll do it again, and it will cost us both dearly.”
He grits his teeth as the shadow tightens—but instead of fighting it, he lets it consume the light around us. The candles dim to nothing. His voice comes from within the dark.
“Liana, we both know that I once helped you more than hurt you. Would I stand here if I meant to hurt you again? I came with news.”
