“Of course, Uncle.” Catriona steps down from the front row of the entourage, dressed in a purple, long-sleeved gown that shows her elegant figure to its best advantage. I’d thought she was beautiful from a distance, but up close, her features are truly so flawless that she’s completely, utterly…devastating.

Suddenly, I understand exactly why Xaden’s been here too many times to keep count.

“I didn’t expect you to be here,” Xaden says to Cat in that clipped, cold tone he uses when annoyed as they lead us down another hallway two stories above where we entered.

“Where did you think I’d be after dark wielders destroyed Zolya and took up residence at Cliffsbane?” Cat questions, pausing in front of one of the dozen doors in this wing.

Mira shoots me a look, lifting her eyebrows as we stop in the middle of the hallway, Brennan only a few feet behind.

Later, I mouth at her.

Cat reaches for the golden handle. “Why don’t you take Aisereigh to dress for dinner while these two wash up?” She gives Xaden a longing look, and my eyebrows rise. Is she seriously eyeing him up in front of me? “We kept your room exactly how you left it, of course.” She opens the door, revealing a sizable bedchamber with two large beds and a matching gold brocade sofa between them, then walks inside, leaving Mira and me to follow.

Wait. He has a room here?

What else has he not told me? Or what haven’t I asked might be the better question.

“Why don’t you come get dressed in my room?” Xaden asks, and it doesn’t sound like a suggestion.

“Your room? I think I’d like a little space.” Heat simmers beneath my skin, and I breathe deeply to keep the power caged. Now is not the time to lose control, not that I have it to begin with.

“Violet.”

I turn in the doorway to face Xaden and grasp the door handle, lifting my brows at him as Mira edges around me into the chamber.

“I’m the next door down,” he assures me, then glances over my shoulder. “Close enough to hear you scream.”

“Good to know.” I force a smile and his eyes narrow.

“Surely you can’t be worried that she’s in any danger from me?”

I roll my eyes at the incredulity in Cat’s tone.

“Violet can—” Xaden starts.

“Violet can handle herself,” I interrupt, startling Xaden.

“I never wanted you to have to. Not here.” He lowers his head and his voice, narrowing the conversation to the two of us, anger and all. “Tecarus might want to keep you, but every other flier in this palace will happily slit your throat—and Mira’s—in the name of revenge against your mother. Brennan’s anonymity is all that saves him here. You have no idea how much danger you’re in, the lengths I’ve gone to in order to keep you safe—”

“Stop keeping me safe!” I immediately regret raising my voice with Cat in the room and try to steady my ire with a deep breath. “You never would have pulled this bullshit last year. You never held me back, never caged me in the name of protecting me. You were the one telling me to find another way on the Gauntlet, watching me fight off other cadets at Threshing—”

“I wasn’t in love with you then.” His hand grasps the nape of my neck, and his thumb skates over the pulse in my throat. “During Gauntlet, Threshing…I had no idea what you would become to me.” And he couldn’t kill me thanks to the deal he made with Mom—the deal he still hasn’t trusted me with. “I sure as hell hadn’t sat by your bedside for three days, knowing my life—if it even existed beyond yours—would mean nothing without you in it.” The gold flecks in his eyes catch the light, and I can’t help but blink at what I see there.

“You’re…scared, aren’t you?” I grasp the door’s edge to keep from reaching for him.

“Of losing you? More like terrified. And when Sgaeyl told me Tairn was headed this direction I nearly lost my fucking mind.”

Shit. What do I say to that? “My plan to raise the wards failed, and you need the luminary. I’m not going to sit tucked away in Aretia just because you’re worried something will happen to me. If I did, I wouldn’t be the woman you fell in love with.”

“Your first attempt at translation fails, so you sneak off with your siblings into enemy territory?” His anger is palpable, matching mine as he lifts his head. “Make no mistake—this is enemy territory.”

“We both know we need the luminary, and I wouldn’t have had to sneak if you’d been remotely reasonable. We could have had it months ago.” I take a step back into the room, leaving him in the hallway. Months ago would have prevented the attacks on the outposts and so many deaths.

“Reasonable?” His voice drops to that icy-calm timbre. “For looking for another way before serving you up to Tecarus? Let’s get one thing straight. If I ever see a way to keep you safe? I’ll take it.”

The fuck he will. “Do you know who you sound like right now?”

“Please, enlighten me.” He folds his arms across his chest.

“Dain.” I shut the door in his face.

“Thank you,” I tell Zara, the lady’s maid we’ve been assigned, as I smooth the lines of my waist, awestruck she was able to find multiple gowns in my size on such short notice. Even the lightweight black slippers on my feet fit. “You’re sure this is how everyone dresses for dinner?”

“With the viscount? Every night.”

How…impractically beautiful.

“Done.” Zara motions to the opening, and I step out from behind the dressing screen.

Mira chose the black velvet gown with the square neckline and sheer, gauzy sleeves, but I know it was the deep pockets that sold her. I can’t help but grin as I see her tuck two of her daggers into the folds.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you out of uniform in years.”

“Well, it’s black, so close enough.” She grins as I move to peek in the mirror. “You look gorgeous.”

“The dress is spectacular.” I’ve never worn anything like it, and it suits my mood perfectly. The bodice, which plummets in a deep V to the base of my ribs, is made of woven, black leaves, never bigger than the size of my palm, narrowing above the swells of my breasts to single vines that drape tiny leaves over my shoulders and down the sides of my back, leaving the majority of my spine and all of my relic exposed. “What kind of material is this?” I ask Zara, fingering the sheer black fabric that falls from my waist to the floor in a multitude of layers. Were it just the one, the gown would be see-through.

“It’s Deverelli silk,” Zara says. “So fine it’s nearly transparent.”

“From the isle?” It’s softer than any fabric I’ve ever touched. “You still trade with them?” Navarre hasn’t in centuries.

She nods. “We did until the last few years, but the merchants think it’s too dangerous to come here now. Anyway, the viscount likes to keep the most exquisite of objects for himself.”

“So, it’s true the viscount collects rare objects?” Mira asks, coming to stand behind me.

“He does.”