“You wouldn’t.”
Determination glints behind his stare. “I would.”
“But I like this surcoat.” Nerves tighten in my throat as I brush my fingers against the soft fabric.
His mouth thins as he reaches for the dagger on his hip.
I throw up my hands. “Stop! I’ll do it.”
Quick breaths escape me as he folds his arms, and I grab the hem of my surcoat. Inch by inch, I lift the material until I have it bunched around my waist. My hands tremble as I shift to holding the linen with one hand and lower my undergarment on my hip enough for him to observe my small flame—the proof ofmymagic.
“Fuck!” His word echoes through the room as I hurriedly drop my surcoat, allowing the material to cover me again, to give me back my modesty.
Angry, brown eyes pin me to the wall, sear into my being, tear me apart piece by piece, then shatter me all over the marble.
“What is your name?” he asks, his tone like a chisel of ice, slamming into my chest and freezing me.
“M-my name?”
“You heard me.”
The gods help me!
“Ana,” I say, using the name of one of Asha’s maids.
I brace myself for Jasce’s anger or a lash of heated words. Instead, he grabs my hand and pulls me from the room. My heart pounds against my ribs as he leads me down corridor after corridor, his pace so fast I have to nearly run to keep up with him.
“Jasce,please,” I plead with him, not wanting to die.
I still have so much to live for, and my family needs me. Asha needs her river. Mother needs my calm and help. And Emerin and Tahira need my friendship.
Jasce keeps walking like I never spoke.
At the end of a dark corridor, he shoves open a thick door, and I suck in a quick breath. The room is sparse, with only a bed and a washing stand.
“J-jasce.” Fear seizes me as I stare up at him with wide, pleading eyes. “Don’t l-leave me in here.”
A muscle tics in his jaw as he speaks in a voice cold enough to freeze the sun. “You will stay here until I decide what I want to do with you.”
“I don’t understand.” I wring my hands together, needing to cleanse myself of this moment, of these words, of my truths, of my two flames.
No one else has two. At least, no one I have ever met.
So why me?
Why? Why? Why?
“You are not Lyra,” he announces, his tone still cold, still freezing this desert he has thrust me into.
“I didn’t ask for any of this.” The truth scorches my throat, my heart, the part of me that burned for him earlier, that wanted him.
Scorn flares in his eyes for several long, painful breaths before he leaves me alone, and the lock clicks.
This is it, the moment I have dreaded. The moment I no longer hold my secret close, and Jasce has discovered enough to condemn me.
It was written in his eyes—that condemnation—that hatred.
I have seen it enough in Grandfather to recognize it.
