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I should let it go. Someone more experienced, more confident and competent would know when to leave dangerous questions unasked. Instead, I stare as if I can burn holes through his skull to obtain the truth. “What brought on your darkness?” Maybe if I can understand why Agnar is like this, it will give me some insight into my own upbringing.

His parody of a smile displays too many teeth.

I am abruptly and viscerally grateful for the blindfold, because I don’t think I could stand to see his eyes right now.

“I was born.” The soft tone is at odds with the unspoken threat radiating from him. “The darkness was always there. Only once have I let myself taste it fully. Drank it down and allowed it to fill me up until nothing was left but the joy of what I was doing. You want to know my darkness, princess?” I retreat as he prowls toward me sightlessly. “You want to see what I keep leashed?”

My back hits a tree. I’ve no place left to run. Fear pours through me like water, transforming my knees to mush.

Agnar looms over me, exuding barely contained violence like heat from a forge.

I glance sideways, searching for the dire wolf. He’s sniffing the trail up ahead, apparently unconcerned with this conversation.

That should comfort me, except I’ve never experienced this kind of tension before. Maybe this combination of fear and fascination is what seduced me in the alley.

“I’ve killed more people than you’ve ever met. Not in battle and not cleanly. You know I’ve buried men alive, but did you know I felt them suffocate? I made the earth swallow them whole.” He pauses, giving me a moment to stop him, to end this all.

I remain frozen, my breath caught, my heart thundering against my rib cage.

“I do it because I like it. Because something in me sings when I feel them break.” His head tilts toward me, his terrible grin widening such that I expect to see blood ooze from his gums and the corners of his cracked lips. “You don’t want to know what I want to do to you.”

Part of me longs to remove the blindfold. Some small, masochistic impulse wants me to gaze into his eyes and discern if he’s telling the truth or trying to frighten me.

How can the same person who inspired laughter in children and carried me through a collapsing clearing also be this thing that enjoys suffering and admits so without shame?

Then his grin vanishes.

Agnar’s face smooths into the pleasant mask he wears around strangers and kids, and his tone returns to that warm lilt. “We should move. We’re losing light.”

He walks away as if nothing happened, following the dire wolf through the brush and navigating unerringly despite his blindness.

I shrink against the tree, shaking.

Was that a confession or a warning?

Both?

I hurry to catch up with him, desperate to cling to the illusion that I’m in charge, but I can’t pretend he didn’t rattle me. Agnar and I continue our journey in silence. Through the sparse pine trees and evergreen brush, crimson and gold streak the evening sky, painting the peaks in shades of blood and fire. Even though my chill has nothing to do with the weather, I huddle into my cloak.

I can’t stop watching Agnar as I replay his words in my mind.

I made the earth swallow them whole.

But I also remember the man who comforted Mal, killed the alicorn to save me, and gazed at me beside the fire while insisting I was worth saving.

How can both versions of him be true? How can he be a monster who enjoys killing and also someone who cares?

“Stop.”

I stumble as my feet rock to a halt. “What?”

Agnar’s still on the trail ahead. “Stop looking at me like I might be worth something. I need you to stop.”

My breathing hitches. What in the hells? He’s blindfolded, facing the opposite direction, and under the shadow of dusk. He can’t possibly see how I’ve been studying his broad shoulders or his unconscious grace.

“Th-that’s ridiculous.” The stammer gives me away.

“I agree, so stop doing it.” Agnar pivots, tilting his head toward me with unsettling accuracy. “We have a big day tomorrow, meeting your mysterious mentor and deciding what to do with me. Save your energy for whatever comes next instead of wasting it on trying to figure out if I’m salvageable.”