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“It’s the room he gave me, yes.”

“He gives you a lot of things.” I watched him wince as if I had slapped him.

I didn’t want the threads I was tying together to be true.

“He does, yes. He has also taken much from me.” Soap was lathered onto the rag, and he began gingerly dabbing at the wound.

“What has he taken from you?”

“I’ve already told you what happened to my court. That was his doing. Every man, woman, child, daor, and beast alike. All put to the sword.”

The flatness of his tone was deadly. I knew it just as I knew that, when the tone drained from mine, I was just a hair away from striking. And yet . . . I did not fear him. Not even a little.

“Why did you do it?”

This was the one thing in all my brooding I couldn’t understand. Was he violent? Was he a bit deranged? Yes. All those things and more, but I had seen in him what he hid from others was the tenderness that was within him. He never spoke nor acted against others for the thrill of it. He had treated me well, even when there was nothing in it for him. Even human men would not treat someone they weren’t fucking as well as he treated me. Not that that was a high bar to set.

He sighed, his entire body collapsing in resignation. “In all this time, do you know not a single Fae has asked me that? Not once. Not my closest friends, those who grew up with me, not my lover, not even the Bandrui has asked me that. None of them have asked me why I led my troops into the destruction of the House of Magic. They have all written their own reasons and committed themselves wholly to the story they pieced together. And yet, even after all these years, my excuses and my justifications feel flimsy and paper thin.”

Rule #12 was true, even in Fae, it seemed. No one cares about the truth if it is inconvenient to them.

“So, tell me them.”

I wanted to hear from his own lips if he would be next to Daróg when I burned this place to the ground.

He drenched the rag and wrung it out. I barely felt the hot press of the wet cloth to my skin as I focused solely on him and what came next.

“I was young, Sóna. I was young, and I was foolish. I loved someone very dearly and believed all their lies, and all their causes were just and righteous. So, when I received my orders from them to raise the House of Magic to the ground, I followed them without thought. I didn’t consider what that would mean. I didn’t think about how it would affect the world around me or how it would even affect me. I didn’t think about anything other than my loyalty and my indignation that the House of Magic would stand against my love. All I thought about was defeating their enemy. Perhaps I did it as an act of love. Perhaps I did it as an act of loyalty. But honestly, Sóna? It felt good. It probably shouldn’t have. I probably should regret this most of all, but it felt so good to be able to unleash myself and test the limits of my strength. I was invigorated by the adrenaline of it all. I was blinded by it. Blinded by all of it.”

“So, you were just following orders?”

I wanted the acrid taste of those words to bite him more than they bit me.

“No, I wasn’t just following orders. I had choice. I had thought and reason. I did what I did because I wanted to at the time. And I regret every single swing of my sword. Not simply because it was the death of my family. Not because it has hit this realm like a meteor. But because what I did wasn’t who I wanted to be. It was who I thought I had to be to be with someone.” He chuckled softly at himself, at the ridiculousness of youth. “I am ashamed of what I did, Sóna. I live every day with the consequences of my actions, and sometimes, I rebel against them, but mostly, I just feel deep shame. I wish you didn’t know this about me.”

“Who was your lover?”

I hadn’t looked at him since he started talking. Visions of her hand on his chest in the throne room. How familiar they were with each other. I already knew the answer. I already knew whose bed he was avoiding while he made me come for him. I needed to hear it from him so that I could purge him from my heart once and for all. So that I could scratch his name out of my blood and never hear it again. No matter what he said or did, the moment he admitted The Oaken Rose was his lover, that would be the last time he touched me.

He took a deep breath and sat back. The dark forest of his eyes found mine. There was a silent plea there. Don’t make me say this, they whispered to me. His brows furrowed as I watched him, unyielding. The benefit of a shattered heart was that you didn’t need to harden it against the hammer strikes of truth. He fidgeted with the rag, creamy with my blood. It was an unusual sight, to see such a behemoth of a man sitting with his ankles crossed under him on the floor of his own apartments, next to the bathtub of a simple slip of a girl begging her silently not to make him do something he didn’t want to do.

I let the echo of emptiness draw out between us. I would not fill it. I would not allow him to escape this any more than I would allow myself to escape this truth.

Finally, he exhaled a great puff of a dejected sigh. “I’m sorry, Sóna.”

His voice, once a stable baritone mountain beneath me that I could count on to ease my fears and bring a small measure of comfort, was soft, beaten, and as wounded as I was.

“Who,” I demanded again.

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands as if he could pull the yoke of what I required of him from his shoulders. When his eyes met mine again, they were wounded, and I could see plainly the knowledge that what he said next would shatter us forever. If there had ever even been an “us” to begin with.

“The Ard Rí,” he whispered to the ice-cold rag in his hand.

I fought the urge to blink. That was not what I expected. I had not expected to hear that vile man had been or still was his lover. My mind warred against the veracity of his confession. The small little glances, the ease they had with each other, the excuses for his behavior, the fact Daróg had killed every one of his family members, and he still served him. All these facts rattled around in my brain as I strained to keep them from falling into place.

“When I came to the Night Market, I had hoped to purchase a daor that the two of us could . . . well, that I could use, to get into his good graces again. When I saw you, I knew that you were something different. But I had promised him that I would be returning with a gift. You.” He was twisting the rag as he was twisting me. “You must believe me when I say that it has been decades since he and I . . . were close.”

“He killed your entire family, Raven.”