Page 71 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

I didn’t remember letting go of him. But I did remember the sound of Cam’s ragged wheezing, his watering eyes, how pale his face was afterward. And I’d always remember how close I’d come to becoming someone she—and I—would’ve despised.

There was no doubt. I was losing control, and experience had taught me exactly how dangerous that made me.

Cam tried to pretend it hadn’t happened after that. As if I hadn’t threatened to kill the only man who knew who I truly was under the crown and deference to protocol. He’d laughed my boorish behavior off as if it were normal. Expected, even.

But there was a flicker of caution in his eyes, and he talked with Nisien more than me. He didn’t bring up Lunette again. Didn’t ask about the book I kept looking at without daring to open.

The trip back to the Tir was quick yet felt like an eternity. The only fanfare we received when we arrived was for Nisien. And surprisingly, the only thing falling on my head was more icy rain and the court’s utter indifference. I thanked the gods for that because it meant the only person who saw the blood soaking through my tunic, and how I’d nearly collapsed while dismounting at the steps, was Cam.

It took me far too long to find out that Berian hadn’t told anyone other than the contingent of soldiers assigned to the caravan that their crown prince had been on a diplomatic mission of utmost importance to Tir Gelida.

Berian’s lie had preserved his honor—and mine. Yet it had also erased any chance the kingdom would know that I’d been sent to gain the peace they needed. Whether their ignorance of that was a good thing or bad, only time would tell.

I dozed in my oversized, comfortable apartment for days, forgetting to eat while trays appeared and vanished at my bedside. I ignored callers, rejected every missive slipped beneath my door, and watched servants silently clear away evidence that the world still expected an answer from me.

The tunic Luna had given me to wear in Selmont became caked with my blood, pus, and sweat. Yet I couldn’t find it within myself to have it cleaned. I knew it wasn’t healthy. I didn’t care. I put it back on and refused to bathe properly because it still smelled faintly of her.

She would’ve turned up her nose at me and my behavior without a second of hesitation. I’d imagined it countless times. Her red curls pinned back, arms crossed, standing in my apartment doorway with a look of utter disappointment on her face. She’d say something cutting, yet entirely accurate, about what I was doing to myself. Then walk over and yank the sheets off me.

I barely endured the healers Camrick eventually forced into my room. Their hands were neither soft nor gentle as they tended to my pus-filled wound. Not like she would’ve been.

For the first time within the castle walls, I raised my voice in anger. I wanted them away. I even threatened execution if they didn’t cease their ministrations, empty threats born of grief rather than true intent. Yet Camrick still stood by my side—half for comfort, half to protect them when they came to change my bandages. All the while, Nisien drew the court’s attention away from my downward spiral.

I should’ve thanked them both for preventing me from earning my demonic reputation in truth. But I didn’t, because I was a sad excuse for a friend, still struggling with lacing up my own boots.

Cam eventually wore me down by refusing to be driven off. He showed up even when the healers weren’t in my rooms to sit by my hearth, eat my untouched breakfast, and blather on about troop rotations, weapons budgets, and other very important things I should’ve been listening closely to. I should’ve taken a dozen opportunities to tell him or Reina about the ring I’d taken from the mercenaries. About the fact that the Assembly apparently wanted to capture me alive, but I didn’t.

Then late one afternoon, he and Nisien stomped in, both tipsy on ale at such an early hour and merry as could be.

I muttered, “Bathe. You smell like a tavern’s gutter,” while struggling to free myself from the tangled sheets. Having a keen sense of smell occasionally had its downsides. Having two grown men walk in on me in my nightclothes was too awkward to bear.

“You first,” Nisien replied, his habitual smirk in place. “You’re far worse.”

Cam was humming a bawdy sea shanty while casually downing the last of the wine from my forgotten dinner tray. Then he looked at me with unfocused eyes and said, “Miss my friend.”

Cursed gods. Those three unpolished—albeit slightly slurred—words hit me harder than anything Cam had said in a week of trying because there was no accusation in it.

I looked away before either of them could see what it did to my face.

I’d been such an arse to both of them. Cam, repeatedly and with violence. But also Nisien, my guest, who was working my court so I could heal and sulk—not that he didn’t enjoy being the center of the universe.

“I’m… I apologize for my absence.” I dragged my body to the edge of my bed. At least I was fully clothed for once.

I was tying a warm robe around myself when Reina’s shadows crept under my door like a nest of vipers to announce her arrival. I didn’t rise to greet my aunt when she sauntered in on heeled slippers, only groaned as more torchlight flooded into the room from the hallway.

“Now it’s a party,” I grumbled.

She sniffed the air as she walked by Camrick and Nisien, both now sitting at my breakfasting table. Her disapproving glare in their direction almost made me smile.

Without a word, she strolled up to me and, open-palmed, smacked me across the cheek—hard. “Your brother is confined to his bed, Wain. So get out of yours.”

“What the… Reina!” I yelped, face stinging from the fresh bruise blossoming there. I was aghast. She’d never struck me before, only verbally eviscerated me.

Her words hadn’t sunk in yet. I cupped my face and groaned.

Without warning, ribbons of shadow snaked up from the floor to push me to move.

“Get dressed… No, first get clean. Right now, before I make you. You smell like shit.”