Something in me surges, but I force all of it down.
“I don’t have room for the past right now. Not for you. Not for any of it.”
Silence holds.
"I won't promise forgiveness," I add. "I can promise you're not on my list to kill."
A small pause.
"Right now."
Something moves through his expression.
"I never said I wanted your forgiveness," he says. His voice lowers. "Of the things I planned to apologize for, wanting you near me has never been one of them."
I laugh. It comes out bitter before I can do anything about it.
"Do not talk to me about wanting me near you," I say, "when the woman who almost had me killed not only breathed air but roamed this palace freely before I arrived."
He does not flinch from it.
"Yvara is in the dungeons now," he says.
"Yes," I reply. "She is, because I put her there."
A pause.
"I promise you, the day you arrived was the first time she was brought out of the dungeons,” he says. “The Yorali princess requested it. I allowed it because I wasn’t done using the arrangement.” His voice does not change. "It will not happen again."
“That is the thing with you, Sevrin,” I say. “There is always some politically practical reason you use to justify fucking people over, isn’t there?”
“I wasn’t finished.”
“I don’t need you to be.”
“It is never political,” he says.
That stops me.
His voice lowers. “It is always for you.”
“The Princess of Yorali is a means to an end,” he continues. “One that will always end with you.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “And I don’t even want to.”
“She is in the dungeons,” he repeats.
“And if I decide to kill her?”
A small pause.
“She still has use,” he says.
I smile slightly. “As do you.”
He stiffens. Then?—
“I won’t stop you.”
