“I understand, and I sympathize.” He turned to her, and though he hadn’t touched her, once his urgent gaze met hers, Eliana felt his nearness as keenly as if he had cupped her face in his hands. “But you can’t do it again. Please, don’t do it again. Don’t leave, don’t run. The world needs you.” Hesitant, he reached for her arm, and then stopped and set his jaw. “I need you, Eliana. Without you, I’m the only true child of Celdaria still living. My life since leaving home that night has been a lonely one. Now that I’ve known a life with you by my side, I’m not sure I could bear that kind of loneliness again.”

His words held her rapt, motionless with surprise. Her mind hardly knew what to make of him like this. She hadn’t thought him capable of such softness.

She tried to reorder her thoughts, gestured helplessly with her bandaged hands. “I don’t know how to be like her. I’ve told you as much. That hasn’t changed.”

“You made it safely in and out of the Nest,” Simon pointed out. “You defended yourself and Harkan with your power.”

“But what I had to do to get to that point! I barely ate, I barely slept. I can’t fight a war like that, and you can’t base a military strategy on a girl who has to starve herself to be of any use, and whose power then erupts uncontrollably.”

“We’ll work on it, together. I promised you that before, and I’ll keep promising you until you trust me.”

She shook her head. “You believe in someone who doesn’t exist, Simon. Whatever you’ve been waiting for all these years, whatever savior you’ve created in your mind, I’m not her.”

“No,” he agreed. “In fact, you’re better than what I had imagined.”

She laughed, turning away from him. She was so tired that even thinking was painful, and he was bewildering her. “You flatter me.”

He moved closer. “Do I strike you as the sort of man who flatters people?”

“If it gets you what you want, yes.”

“And what is it,” Simon murmured, “that you think I want?”

The sound of his voice pulled her back to him. When she met his eyes, a sharpness came over her, a sweeping stillness. Suddenly she was scorchingly aware of his closeness, the size of his body compared to hers, the bright focus of his gaze.

“I don’t think I know what you want,” she replied softly. “I know it.”

And then, her heartbeat coursing fast up her throat, she touched his cheek with the backs of her bandaged fingers. His scars entranced her, silvered etchings across his unshaven cheeks. One crowned his left eye; another bisected his right temple. Once she started touching him, she could not stop. She traced every scar she could find, following the lines of his face that had long been imprinted in her mind.

He closed his eyes, brow furrowed. His left hand gently cupped hers, and when her thumb touched his lips, he opened his mouth slightly, pressed his tongue against it.

“Eliana,” he mumbled against her fingers.

The hoarse quality of his voice left her dizzy, impatient. “Yes?”

He opened his eyes, and the frustrating fondness she felt for his stern visage, his battered cheeks, snatched all the air from her lungs. She swayed a little, leaning into him.

At once, his hands dropped to cup her waist. His fingers curled gently in her tunic and his eyes held a question.

She answered by moving closer to him. His body towered over hers, all sinew and heat and murderous grace. He bowed his head to nuzzle his cheek against her jaw, and then moved lower to her neck. His lips brushed her collarbone; his tongue marked the hollow of her throat.

She closed her eyes, tilting her head back. Ignoring the tender state of her hands, she threaded her fingers through his hair. It was finer than she’d expected. She hummed with pleasure.

He mumbled a question against her neck.

Dazed, she found it difficult to answer.

Simon touched his forehead to hers. His hands remained steady at her hips.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked roughly.

Eliana shook her head. “No. I want you to keep going, but faster.” She felt drunk on his nearness, on the impossible reality of this moment. Simon was kissing her—Simon—his fingers drawing tender circles on the small of her back. Something raw and vulnerable threatened to split open inside her. The feeling frightened her, but she could not turn away from it. “I want you to kiss me until I forget how angry I am with you.”

He smiled, but his gaze was grave and earnest in a way that embarrassed her. He lowered his mouth once more to her neck. “Yes, my queen,” he murmured against her skin. “Anything to please you.”

A knock on the door, sharp and efficient, made Eliana jump.

Simon cursed robustly under his breath. “I will kill whoever is standing on the other side of that door.”

She laughed a little, shaky, blood roaring in her ears. She placed her hands against his chest, steadying herself.

“Yes, what is it?” she called out, her voice only somewhat shrill.

“Begging your pardon, my lady,” came the voice of her guard, Meli, “but I’ve come with a message from Princess Navana’s healers. They request your presence in her rooms at once.”

Eliana glanced at Simon, uncertain how to leave him. Her body ached for more of him—and yet, now that they were separated, she started to feel foolish for allowing him to kiss her. The press of his mouth on her skin had pushed her into a land that was strange to her, dangerous and wild.

A quick smile passed over his face. “Go.”

She hesitated for only a moment longer, then hurried out of the room.

• • •

As she sped through the halls of Dyrefal, Eliana’s mind filled with worries. It hadn’t been long enough for the antidote to take effect. The message was only a summons and had carried no news. They would have told her if Navi were well and awake. They were waiting to break her heart until she was there in person, standing beside Navi’s empty bed.

By the time she reached Navi’s rooms, Eliana’s body was a flurry of panic. She pushed open the door and flew inside.

“Navi?” She hurried through the anteroom—plush blue carpets, cheerful paintings of stars and gilded night-clouds. “Are you all right? Is she all right?”

She emerged into the bedroom and saw Navi sitting up in bed, propped against a pale mountain of pillows and being spoon-fed broth by a beaming nurse.

One of the healers hurried over and dropped to his knees before Eliana. He kissed her hands and then, pink from his collar to his hairline, stumbled back to his feet. Another healer stood by the window, hands clasped at her neck, grinning tearfully.