His body presses into mine, pinning me against the backseat. His hood, like twin curtains of shadow, blocks out everything except his face, his storm-colored eyes boring into mine.
My breath stutters. My heart slams against my ribs. I have never felt a man this close. Even with Ryker, when we dared to touch, it was always chaste, always careful under the observation of my duenna. Always safe.
This is dangerous. Charged.
Kaelzar’s unreadable gaze doesn’t leave mine. And my body tenses, resentment flaring at his nearness, yet a rogue, unwelcome thrill skitters down my spine. His scent, all leather and rain-soaked stone, curls around me, heightening everything.
His grip tightens on my fingers.
“Keep the ring on,” he says. “It steadies your control, and it alerts me if you’re losing it.” His breath brushes my skin. His voice drops lower. “If you call, I will come.”
Out of obligation, I remind myself.
“Fine,” I whisper, wondering why he first said it would help me control my magic, only to now claim it’s meant to alert him if I need help.
But the thought cuts off abruptly as the carriage door flies open.
The coachman starts to speak, then falters, taking in our position. Heat floods my face. I shove at Kaelzar but pushing him is like trying to move a mountain.
Mercifully, he withdraws, stepping out of the carriage without a word. I follow, hastily straightening my dress under the coachman’s scrutinizing gaze.
The man doesn’t meet my eyes as I thank him. Instead, he urges his horses into motion and flees through the palace gates like I am something unholy. I step through the gates, head held high. My Godbeast follows.
Or so I assume.
Because when I glance over my shoulder, Kaelzar is gone. And despite everything, despite his cruelty and his disdain, his absence leaves behind an unexpected, unwelcome hollowness.
Ipush open the door to my chambers, the weight of loneliness clinging to me like wet, heavy mud. It drags at my steps, coats my thoughts. I imagine myself collapsing the moment the door clicks shut behind me.
If this is how I feel after just the first Challenge—wrung dry, scraped hollow—how am I supposed to survive the next three?
How could I have been so reckless, so arrogant, to ever believe I would?
“Raylane!” Eva’s voice cuts through the spiral of my thoughts.
I freeze in the entryway of the receiving room, a space still too beautiful for what I’ve become—velvet drapes spilling down the tall windows, golden accents catching the flicker of firelight from the ornate fireplace. The glow casts everything in warmth except me.
Eva springs to her feet from a plush armchair that once belonged to Eleanor. A moment of concern for my duenna rises, then crumbles before it can take shape. My mind is already too full. Eva wears an elegant gray gown, her expression carved from worry.
Peonica paces near the window, her pale braid swinging like a metronome. I hesitate mid-step, caught off guard by the sight of her.
It’s not her first time in the Palace. I’ve brought her before under the guise of a card-reader—not the heretical, divine-predicting kind, but the sort of whimsical nonsense nobles indulge in when they’re bored enough to call it entertainment.
With her white hair and unmarked fingertips, there’s nothing toreveal she’s one of the Rust Hollow women. When asked, I simply said I was consulting her for amusement, and the guards, now used to her eccentric visits, stopped questioning it.
I gave her a deck of cards once, just to make the act more convincing, and she ran with it. Only a select few know the truth of who she really is—Ryker, Mael, Eva, and my former duenna.
But this time, she came with Eva. Not summoned by me. The thought wedges itself beneath my exhaustion and makes my heart swell.
Peonica’s wearing a black satin gown. Eva must have forced her to wear it before bringing her into my rooms. It’s fine, expensive, out of place on her thin frame. She would never choose it, could never afford it. The dark fabric makes the hollows of her cheeks seem deeper, and her sharp collarbones exposed by the neckline seem more pronounced than ever.
It instantly reminds me of the first time we met, when she wore another ill-fitting, patched-up dress and pretended to be an injured child, just so she could snatch my purse the moment I bent down to help her.
What she didn’t realize was that the purse was the only thing I had left of my mother, and I’d have sooner let her tear off my arm than take it.
We ended up wrestling for it in the mud until Eleanor’s vines came alive and dragged us apart, nearly choking Peonica in the process.
But instead of turning her in, I offered to buy her a honey bun. She accepted—graciously, of course—on the condition that I buy her ten. Then she wrapped them all in a dusty scrap of cloth like they were gold bars and took them back to Rust Hollow, not eating even one.
