“Good morning,” I murmur.
“It is now.”
We lie there for a while, tangled in sheets that are half-frozen and half-scorched, not talking. His fingers trace idle patterns on my hip. My hand rests against his chest, feeling the slow beat of his heart beneath my palm. The silence is comfortable in a way I didn’t expect—no need to fill it with words, no pressure to perform or explain.
I find myself studying his face in the morning light. The sharp angles of his jaw. The pale gold of his hair against the darker pillows. The way his lashes cast shadows on his cheeks when he blinks. He’s beautiful, in a cold, carved sort of way. The kind of beauty that makes you want to see if you can make it crack.
Last night, I made it crack. Made him lose control, made that ice shatter into something burning. The memory sends heat pooling low in my belly.
“You’re staring,” he says, without opening his eyes.
“Admiring.”
His eyes open, and the softness in them makes my breath catch. “The feeling is mutual.”
Morrigan is dead.
The thought surfaces unbidden, and some of the warmth drains from the moment. I killed my sister yesterday. Burned her from the inside out with power she spent her whole life trying to steal. And then I came here, to Auren’s bed, and let him make me forget for a few hours.
“Stop.” His voice cuts through the spiral of my thoughts. When I look at him, his gaze has sharpened again—reading me with that uncanny accuracy. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop.”
“I killed her.”
“You stopped her.” His hand cups my jaw, tilting my face toward his. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. No comfort wrapped in pretty lies. Just certainty, cold and absolute. “Morrigan made her choices. Every single one of them led to that ritual chamber. You didn’t kill your sister, Tamsin. She died decades ago, when she decided that power mattered more than family.”
I want to argue. Want to cling to the guilt, because guilt feels safer than the emptiness that’s trying to take its place. But Auren’s gaze holds mine, steady and unflinching, and I find myself believing him.
Or at least wanting to.
“How are you so certain?” I ask.
“Because I spent decades blaming myself for Lyric.” His thumb traces my cheekbone, the touch almost tender. “For not being there. For not seeing through Morrigan’s deception. For every choice that might have changed the outcome. It nearly destroyed me.” He pauses, something shifting in his expression. “I won’t watch you walk that same path.”
The protectiveness in his voice undoes something in my chest. This man who built walls of ice to keep the world out—he’s trying to protect me from myself. From my own guilt. It’s such an unexpected kindness that I don’t know how to respond.
I press my forehead against his, breathing him in. Cold and clean, with an undertone of something sharper—magic, maybe. Or just him.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer with words. Just kisses me again, slow and thorough, and for another few minutes I let myself forget that the world exists beyond this bed.
TWENTY-FOUR
TAMSIN
The knock on Auren’s door comes just as I’m pulling on my borrowed shift from last night.
“Auren.” Drayke’s voice is tight with something that sounds like urgency. “War council. Now.”
Auren is already moving, pulling on clothes with the efficient speed of someone who’s dressed for battle a thousand times. I stay where I am, suddenly aware that Drayke almost certainly knows I’m here. The Fire-Bringer quarters are on the other side of the fortress. There’s no innocent explanation for my presence in Auren’s chambers at this hour.
“Give us five minutes,” Auren calls through the door.
A pause. Then: “Make it three.”
