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"I'm taking the treatment."
"I know." His voice was calm, but tighter than before. "It was never meant to hold the poison back forever. Only to slow it."
"Perhaps Axar will find the antidote. Or one of your people. Or one of Colsar's."
Perhaps. But each day the poison reached a little farther.
"Perhaps." He held her gaze. "But until then, you need to stop spending what little strength you have left."
She gave him a look.
He gave her one back. She looked away first, which he also privately found entertaining, and said nothing more about it.
He pulled the second chair closer to the hearth and sat. The fire was doing what he had spent the better part of an hour making it do — throwing heat without smoke, burning steady without crackle, the kind of fire that was useful rather than simply decorative.
"How long before I feel it?" she said.
"Not long. Rest while you can."
She tilted her head against the back of the chair and looked at the ceiling. He looked at the fire.
"Eravic."
"Mm."
"Why are you angry?"
He kept his eyes on the fire. "I am not angry."
"You have been angry since I took the cloak off."
"I have been focused."
"You have been angry," she said simply. "I have known you long enough to tell the difference."
He said nothing.
"Is it the dress?" The corner of her mouth moved.
"The dress," he said, "is a separate issue."
She laughed. Soft and tired. He felt it somewhere he was not going to examine right now.
"I had to see them," she said. Quieter. "I know what you said about exhaustion. I know. But I had to."
"I know you did."
"Then why are you angry?"
He looked at her. She was watching him with those gold eyes that had been catching him off guard since before he even knew they were gold. Even when they were glamoured into a warm brown and he had seen her that first time across a tavern and even then had wanted her more than he cared to admit.
"I am not angry at you," he said. "I am angry at the situation."
"That is a very diplomatic answer."
"I am a very diplomatic man."
She snorted. He almost smiled.
