The commander nodded. “And those who refuse to leave?”

“I think you’ll find that they’ll be easily convinced,” said Audric darkly. Then he found Rielle; their eyes locked across the room. He moved past her, away from the doors.

“Come with me, please,” he said quietly, and then to his guards, “See that Lady Rielle and I are not disturbed.”

She hesitated only for a moment. Her instinct was to reach out to Ludivine or Corien, but she refrained, her stomach roiling from the memory of them fighting in her mind.

She followed Audric across the entrance hall, the crowd’s cries diminishing behind her and the clanking golden footsteps of her Sun Guard close on her heels.

• • •

He led her to the Hall of the Saints, and once their guards had stationed themselves outside and closed the doors behind them, silence fell across the vast room.

Rielle shivered. The cold inside the hall was different from that of her dream. This cold was sterile, marble-eyed. She glanced up at the statues of the saints, the weight of their hard gazes and massive bronze weapons pressing upon her shoulders.

Audric stood at the center of the room, facing the dais upon which his father’s throne stood. “I’ll need to be crowned king, and soon,” he said, his hollow voice echoing softly against the cold floor, the cold walls. “I’ve delayed it for as long as I could, but that’s finished now. Mother’s condition is too debilitating, and I don’t have hope that she’ll ever recover. The queen she was is dead.”

Rielle approached him slowly, watching his body sag under the weight of his own words.

“The people need to know the crown is strong,” he said quietly.

“Why have we come here?” she asked.

“Because the last time we were both in this room,” he replied, “our fathers were newly dead, and you were blessed by the Archon as the Sun Queen.” He turned to her, his expression unreadable. And this was the most troubling thing that had yet happened that night, for ordinarily his gaze was warm and open, his face soft with love for her.

“And you want to remind me of my duty, is that it?” She straightened, hardening herself against him. “As if it is ever far from me, even for a moment.”

“You know that I wish it could be otherwise for you.”

“And yet you bring me here to shame me.”

“Not to shame you. To understand you.” He clenched and unclenched his fists. “You said Corien forced you into his bed.”

As she remembered that dark room in the mountains, she felt cut in two between a wash of dread and a shiver of delight.

“He did,” she replied.

“You said he took hold of your thoughts and made them real, against your wishes.”

Suddenly Rielle understood the heart of this conversation. An ill sweep of cold rushed down her body.

Audric watched her, waiting, but she could not find her voice, so he said it for her. “He made your thoughts real. You were imagining the two of you together, in his bed, and he saw that and gave it to you, because he thought it was what you desired.”

Rielle shook her head, fresh tears blinding her. She hurried toward him and reached for his hands.

“Audric, please,” she said, “you don’t understand.”

“I think I understand quite well,” he said, his voice cracking, the unfeeling mask he wore slipping to reveal a terrible, naked sadness.

And then he seized her arms, drawing her roughly to him. He bent low over her, his breath hot against her face.

“Is this what you want?” He tightened his grip around her wrists. He nipped her bottom lip, a little too hard, and though Rielle hated the look on his face—as if he despised himself, as if he could hardly bear to touch her—she felt herself rising to meet his passion. Her body responded, her blood thrumming with need.

“Yes, this is what I want,” she whispered, trying to touch his face, but he wouldn’t let her. He kissed her, hard, and wrenched her arms down to her sides, locking her in place. She cried out into his mouth, squirming against him.

“Come here,” he said thickly, and then they were stumbling toward one of the broad, polished tables lining the side of the room, in the shadow of Saint Marzana’s shield. He yanked the dressing gown from her body, but when she tried to unbutton his own shirt, he jerked away from her.

He shoved her against the nearest table, turning her away from him. He fisted one of his hands in her hair; with the other, he reached around to tease her, and let out a harsh groan against her neck when he found her hot and ready for him.

“This is what you want, then,” he said, stroking hard between her legs. “To be handled like this. To be used as if you’re nothing, as if you can’t be hurt.”

She tried to twist back and look at him, but he choked out, “No, Rielle,” and pushed her down, pinning her against the table with his hand hard around her neck.

And, though she hated herself for it, though she knew it was just what he expected her to do, she came apart with a sharp cry, her thighs clamping shut around his hand. And he didn’t wait for her to recover before driving inside her.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he said as his hips slammed against hers. “Please, Rielle. Tell me you don’t want him.”

“I…” She shook her head, her body buzzing with pleasure even as her heart shattered. “I can’t.”

“I know you can’t.” He sobbed a little, somewhere above her. His hands gripped her hips hard enough that she knew she would wear the marks of his fingers for days—and yet his viciousness was what she wanted. She wanted to forget this horrible night. The black fortress in the mountains. Corien’s weight flattening her against his bed. If Audric took her hard enough, she would be scorched clean of all shadows, all confusion.

“He’ll use you,” Audric said. “I know what he offers you, and I understand why you want it. But he doesn’t love you, Rielle. He loves what you can do. He loves how you could help him achieve what he wants. That’s it. Nothing more.”

And he was wrong. Rielle knew it even as she listened to his voice break. Her connection with Corien was more than what Audric claimed. She knew Corien desired her power, and yet his hand had flinched around hers in that cold dreamscape, as if he could hardly believe his luck that she would deign to touch him. And yet he did not ever look at her with fear, even though he knew intimately every deep, dark corner of her mind.

Audric’s lips came down upon her neck, sweet and soft, and it was such a familiar touch, so like their usual lovemaking, that all thoughts of Corien flew from Rielle’s mind. She began to cry with relief and reached back to hold him, her arm bending awkwardly. She found his hand and squeezed it. She gasped out his name.