I started. “What?”
“Before you even arrived here, he’d done nothing but spit on my orders. It’s endangering all of us. He kidnapped the Gods-Chosen, for gods’ sake! If he were anyone else, he’d have already been dealt with. Brother or no, I will deal with him now.” Rade’s eyes glinted with rage.
Keir had tried to kill me. I should be happy he would be sent away.
But the Shroud? That dark place that turned one’s mind against itself, that brimmed with Shaya’s malevolence? That twisted a person into a soulless ghul? That seemed like a punishment too great—especially when Keir wasright. Every question, every doubt, everysuspicion he had about me was right. He was trying to keep his king and his people safe, he had done what he was meant to do as Rade’s First, and he was going to be left to go mad, to be twisted and warped into one of those ghuls, because of it.
My stomach clenched.
Rade took my chin with his forefinger and thumb and tilted it up, looking deeply into my eyes. “I’m sorry for all of it, Amunet,” he said thickly. “Your abduction, forcing you into this union—and that stupid dinner.”
I tried to smile around the nauseous guilt swirling through me. “It’s all right.”
His face was so close, I could feel his breath against my lips, fanning over my cheeks. Those kind eyes of his dipped down to my lips, and my throat went dry. That night in the White Horns rose up sharply in my mind. The low-spiraling heat when his runes had touched mine, the brush of his fingers in my hair.
The conflicting emotions that followed.
Rade looked at me now like he’d looked at me then, those brown eyes dark with want. I could not decide if I felt that same want. If it was desire that made me want to lean in or curiosity. Or guilt.
Maybe he felt me freeze, because he cleared his throat and pulled away, cheeks faintly pink. “You can sleep here tonight. My room is not marked, which means the other Shifters will be able to reach you should anything happen. You can have the bed. I’ll take the sofa.”
It was definitely guilt that curdled inside me then. We’d slept side by side for the last few days on the mountain, yet it felt different here. More intimate. But with only a few hours—minutes—before they discovered I had stolen a month from them, the least I could do was not steal his bed, too. Propriety, timidity, none of that mattered now anyway. “You don’t have to sleep on the sofa,” I said. “If you don’t want to.”
His eyes cut to mine.
I tucked my hair behind my ear. “The last part of the Merging is tomorrow. There’s no sense in you being exhausted from a night spent tossing and turning.”
Rade’s gaze darted to the bed. “You’re sure?”
I nodded, and limbs shaky, I padded over to the bed and slipped under the covers.
Appearing a little dazed himself, Rade blew out the lanterns, easing the room into darkness, before he rounded the bed and settled against the pillows.
The bed was large—larger than the one in my cabin—but with him lying beside me, it felt very, very small.
“Good night, Amunet,” he whispered.
“Good night, Rade.”
The silence crackled with tension. I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for, but my muscles were tensed, braced.
Eventually, Rade rolled over, giving me his back, and my heart rate slowed enough for me to sink into the mattress.
In a way, it was a relief that Keir finally knew, that the trick was over. I let my eyes drift shut as I savored the softness of the mattress, the pillow, the blankets. If this comforting place was the last thing I would experience before the end, I was grateful for it.
Soft morning light filtered in from under the door. No one had come for me.
Maybe—maybe they still didn’t know. Maybe Keir hadn’t told them yet. Which meant…
The final ceremony. I’d complete the Merging today, on Amunet’s birthday, and my normal human blood would leak out of my body until I was nothing but an empty husk.
I’d done it. Whatever happened, I’d bought Amunet all the time I could offer.
I hoped it wouldn’t hurt. I hoped they’d give me something torender me unconscious before slitting my wrists. Then I could simply close my eyes in Frostguard and not wake up.
Unless Rade spoke to Keir first. Maybe that was what Keir was waiting for, a chance to speak to the king. If Rade checked on his First before the ceremony, if Keir told him what he’d uncovered last night, there would be no peaceful easing into death. It would be violent and—
Rade’s arm tightened around my waist, pulling me flush against him, and my thoughts scattered. His breaths tickled the back of my neck, his nose buried in my hair, and I stiffened.
