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She looks at him. "You are improving. Not fast enough."

"No."

She is quiet. Her pale gold eyes move over him with what was either disgust or boredom, he could not tell which.

Her eyes almost reminded him of Asharin's. But they were cold and light, whereas Asharin's were warm and gold, sometimes a molten gold under candlelight.

Asharin's were better, he thinks to himself.

"I know why," she says.

He says nothing.

"You are obsessed with her," she says. "And you fear you will forget her." She does not look away. "That is why you let yourself get weak to begin with. You wish for the strength Bloodhaven would given you, yet you do not want what it costs.”

He looks at her. Her cheeks are pink. Clearly she had been to the Bloodhaven herself, likely today.

She shrugs. "I cannot miss what I cannot remember." A pause. "And I do not seem to miss important things."

He looks at the window.

"You obsess over a woman you will never have," she says.

"Yes," he says. "I do." He pauses. "Although I do not believe in never."

She waits.

"But it is not hope that fuels it," he says.

"What is it then?"

He considers that. "I do not know what it is. Only that I cannot stop wanting her."

Nox studies him. "You are strange and twisted," she says. "But I cannot say it bothers me. At least you are honest about it."

He says nothing.

"Nonetheless," she says. "You will not be able to protect her if you are weak."

The word protect lands before he is ready for it.

She was there.

The realization arrives all at once, complete and already certain of itself. The dinner. The Great Hall. Asharin in that room before Avaneer came.

He starts to sit up.

The wound pulls hard across his chest and his vision goes white at the edges and he grips the edge of the bed and pushes through it anyway. His legs hold for approximately two seconds before Nox puts her hand flat against his sternum and pushes him back down without effort.

He lets her. That tells him more than he wants to know about his current state.

"She was in that room," he says. "When Avaneer came. She was there." His jaw tightens. "If he touched her⁠—"

"She is likely fine."

"You do not know that."

"No," Nox says. "I do not know that." She holds his eyes. "But if she was not fine there would be a war by now. Even Morrath would have heard it." A pause. "You are not the only one obsessed with her. You know that. They would not let her die."