“Bastard.”
Ilys laughed softly, then let her head tip against Rowenna’s shoulder.
“I’m not what I was,” she said, barely audible.
Rowenna didn’t move. “No,” she replied, “you’re not.”
They sat like that until the fire died, and the walls no longer held any heat.
The sound of fists on flesh echoed through the guard’s training yard.
A crowd had gathered of soldiers, servants, and even a few robed acolytes pretending not to watch. Two men circled each other in the dust, blood already bright at one’s temple. The other grinned through a cracked lip, eyes gleaming with violence, hungry to prove themselves with pain.
Ilys stood at the edge of the cloister, half-shadowed beneath an arch. She hadn’t meant to stop. But her feet had paused on their own.
The first blow landed hard. Wet. A cheer went up. Someone laughed.
Her stomach twisted. The stone beneath her boots felt unsteady, as though the ground itself might tip sideways and spill her into the Hollow Hall again, into blood and breath and twitching limbs. She turned sharply—and ran into Jorrin.
He caught her by the shoulders before she stumbled. “Easy,” he said, low and warm.
Flesh struck flesh in the yard below.
The men circled like dogs, fists raised, teeth bared. One laughed through bloodied lips, eager. The other swung wide, missed, and caught a blow to the ribs.
She looked up at Jorrin, tilting her head.
“I was looking for you,” she said, pretending easy confidence. She pushed the memories down further. “Come.”
His brows lifted slightly, but he followed. She guided him up the stairwell, her pace unhurried and her posture clean. When she opened the door to her chambers, she didn’t wait. She stepped inside, turned to face him, and pressed her mouth to his through the veil before he had time to speak. His hands rose instinctively, catching her hips. She pushed him backward until his legs met the edge of the bed.
“I’ve thought about this all day,” she said into the linen between them, her breath warming his lips. “You?”
He nodded. Breathless.
Her fingers lingered at the edge of her veil. For a heartbeat, she faltered, then slipped it back, letting the cloth fall loose.
When she kissed him again, skin to skin, it grew fiercer. He reached for her like he couldn’t help himself; his palms traced over her sides, her ribs, the dip of her spine. She guided him to sit, then climbed into his lap. She kissed him like she had something to prove. No tremble in her hands. No falter in her grip. She unfastened his belt with deft fingers, her touch bold and smooth.
When she eased herself onto him, her body resisted—a flash of tight, new pain. She masked it with a slow exhale and pushed down harder, refusing to waver. He shifted under her, trying to help her find a rhythm and she copied the movement, rigid at first, then smoother once her body found its place. Jorrin’s eyes fluttered shut and his hands gripped her thighs, whispering her name with the inflection of the sacred.
But Ilys didn’t close her eyes. She rode him with a kind of devotion utterly removed from love. He watched her with awe. She watched the shadows instead of his face until a sudden, unmistakably new ache pulled her back into her body.
This is mine,she thought.This, at least, is mine.
The memory came suddenly and sharp—
Bodies crumpled on the ground.
She ground down harder, silencing it.
Jorrin kissed her chest. Her neck. She let him.
Keep going. Keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t think.
She gripped the back of his hair. Pulled his mouth to hers. Bit his lower lip just enough to make him feel it.
He came with a groan, spine arching, hands desperate at her waist.
