He sighed as he lay back on the pillows. I nestled in beside him, absorbing the warmth from his body. “That’s what I tell myself every night. And every morning I wake up just as confused as I was the night before.”

“There must be something you’re sure of,” I said, smoothing his hair back from his temples. In the candlelight, his skin glowed, my bronze sculpture come to life.

He looked up at me, his eyebrows furrowed. “I want to be,” he whispered.

Talin was going to do what his mother thought was best, and Zadie was right: I couldn’t expect him to choose between us. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t make a choice of my own.

I leaned over him, my hair forming a curtain around us, and kissed him softly. “I love you,” I said. “Whatever happens in the days to come, don’t ever doubt that.”

* * *

Zoi arrived the next day. She came with the other two thousand troops Talin had promised, riding a white pony who looked like a miniature version of her mother’s horse.

Zoi looked like her mother, too. She was small for her age, with her mother’s olive skin and her father’s lighter hair. Her face lit up when she saw Talin, who picked her up and spun her around as soon as she dismounted. It was such a purely happy moment that I felt my heart swell at the sight.

“It’s like they were never apart, isn’t it?” Talia stood beside me, watching the siblings’ reunion. “For the past four years, this is all I have wanted.”

“I’m very happy for you. For Talin and Zoi, too.”

She nodded. “Thank you. My son has grown into a fine young man since I was left for dead by my stepson. I don’t know that I could have improved him had I been there.”

“You should be proud,” I said, glancing at her from the corner of my eye. “Without a solid foundation, a house isn’t strong enough to withstand a storm.”

She was silent for a moment, watching Talin lift Zoi onto Xander’s back, then mount behind her. The child was fearless on the massive stallion. Or perhaps it was simply that she trusted her brother.

“You’re not like the Varenian girls I grew up with,” she said finally.

“I’m not like the girls I grew up with, either.”

She laughed throatily. “No, I imagine you’re not. I can see why my son likes you. He was never interested in the young ladies at court, though they were trying to catch his eye from the time he was twelve. He knew he could never trust their motives. But you were engaged to his brother, and still you risked everything to be with him.”

“Talin was one of very few people I could trust in New Castle.”

She turned toward me. “But you didn’t know that when you first got there. And something tells me you don’t just like him for his handsome face.”

“Maybe I’m good at reading people,” I said. “Or maybe, after I was scarred, the people around me stopped pretending to be anything other than what they were. I wasn’t someone worthy of impressing anymore in Varenia.”

Talia reached toward my face, and I flinched back. She ran her fingers over my scar anyway. “Talin told me it was from a blood coral. That you can heal from any wound.”

For a moment, I was angry that Talin had told her my most privately guarded secret, but I reminded myself that Ceren wouldn’t be what he was if it weren’t for my blood. I nodded. “Yes. As can Ceren.”

“Is there any way to undo the magic?” she asked.

“Not that I’ve found. But Adriel, the woman who came with us from Galeth, is trying to help me find a way.”

She arched a brow. “She’s a witch?”

“A healer.”

Zoi was running toward her mother, and Talia bent down to scoop her up in her arms without hesitation. She held the child tightly to her chest, kissed the top of her head, and set her gently back on her feet.

“Zoi, I’d like you to meet your brother’s friend, Nor.”

“She’s more than a friend,” Talin said with a glance at his mother.

But Zoi was staring at her brother, her voice full of awe when she spoke. “Are you going to marry her?”

Talin looked at me, something I couldn’t read passing over his features, before turning back to Zoi. “Aren’t you a bit young to be talking about marriage?” he said, avoiding the question and ruffling Zoi’s hair. “Nor came on a Galethian warhorse.”

Zoi reached for my free hand, fearless. “Does she perform tricks?”

I wondered what Roan would say if someone asked him if Duster performed tricks. Probably nothing kind. “Titania is very well trained,” I said. “Would you like to meet her?”

Before Zoi could respond, Talia took the child’s outstretched hand. “That sounds delightful, but this little girl needs to take her nap.” She turned to Talin. “And I need your help in the war tent, if that’s all right.”

Zoi’s lower lip began to tremble, but it stopped when her nursemaid appeared and scooped her up. Talin kissed Zoi goodbye and turned to me.

“Come find me later?” I asked.

He nodded and kissed my cheek before following his mother. I watched him go, oddly unsettled by his response to Zoi’s question. I knew I had made it clear I couldn’t make any promises yet, but his certainty about us had been a reassurance I now realized I’d taken for granted.

Shaking my head to clear it, I headed back toward my tent. Adriel was on her pallet, reading the spell book. We’d passed it around the camp at night on the road, hoping someone might be able to decipher the most confusing passages, but it had proved futile.

“Find anything useful?” I asked, sitting down next to her.

She stretched and yawned, as languorous as Fox after a nap. “Possibly? There’s a page that seems to be talking about a blood bond, but the ink is smeared and I’m not quite sure I’m reading it correctly.”

She passed me the book and pointed to the verse she was referring to. “It either says, ‘Bonds of blood will not be broken, ’less the blood spell...’” She chewed on her lip for a moment. “That could say ‘spill,’ though.”

“What’s the rest of the line?” I asked, squinting at the slanted writing.

“I’m not sure. Something about ‘twice is spoken.’”

“It must be ‘spell,’ then. You can’t speak a spill.” I handed the book back to her. “But we don’t know what the blood spell is, do we?”

“There are a dozen blood spells in this book,” Adriel said. “I’ve only done a very simple one, a long time ago, and I wouldn’t do it again.”