Page 36 of Of Masks and Fury

Our eyes met.

Everything we couldn’t say hung between us. All the fury and fear and desperate need to touch, hold, and confirm the other was real and still theirs.

“Goodnight, Your Highness,” he rasped.

“Goodnight.”

I stepped inside, and the door closed between us.

Through the barrier, I heard his ragged breath, the sound of a man drowning in everything left unsaid.

I pressed my palm against the door. The barrier hummed with his and my magic meeting in the middle, seeking connection despite the separation. Heat bloomed beneath my hand, and I could swear he was pressing his palm against the same area, though he wouldn’t. It would be too dangerous.

Burn down castle,Pherin said.Tear them apart. Rip out father’s heart.

Her fierce loyalty reminded me so much of Trew that tears burned my eyes.

I leaned my forehead against the door, my breath fogging the polished wood. So little separated us, yet we might as well have stood on opposite sides of an ocean.

“I’m here,” I said, hoping he’d hear me. “I’m still here.”

On the other side, I swore I heard his breath catch. The wood between us warmed, our magic intertwining where we could not. “I know, Minx. I feel you.” His voice came out soft, though scraped raw. “Every second. Every breath. They touched what’s mine today.”

“I felt you watching. Felt you burning.”

“Tomorrow,” he said, the single word carrying the weight of everything he wanted to do, everything he wanted to destroy to keep me safe. “Tomorrow.”

CHAPTER TEN

TREW

Istood against the wall of Isi’s sitting room, watching morning light crawl across the floor while her ladies fluttered around her in the bedroom beyond. The muted sounds of their chatter grated on my nerves, meaningless conversation about the weather, fashion, or nothing that mattered.

Through the cracked-open door, I caught glimpses of Isi. A flash of pale pink silk. Her profile as she turned. The tension in her shoulders that her ladies were too oblivious to notice.

She was dreading this morning’s meeting with her father. I swore I could feel it, a knot of anxiety that matched my own.

My fingers flexed on my sword hilt. I’d spent half the night walking up and down the hall, fighting the urge to go to her. The other half I’d spent sleeping while Victor relieved me. I woke early, planning exits, mapping guard rotations, and calculating exactly how many men I’d have to kill to get her out of this castle if everything fell apart.

The answer was too many.

Pherin perched on the back of a chair near the window, her tiny head swiveling to track me pacing like a caged beast.

The bedroom door opened wider, and Isi emerged in a gown with a high neckline and capped sleeves. It made her look younger, more vulnerable, and exactly what her father would want to see. The dutiful daughter, innocent and compliant. Every layer of silk and every carefully constructed detail was designed to make her appealing to the men from last night.

Our eyes met.

I saw her fear there, carefully hidden beneath her composure. Saw the exhaustion from a sleepless night. Saw the longing that matched the misery in my heart.

She looked away, and the moment shattered. The ghost of our connection lingered, leaving an ache that no blade had ever matched.

I forced myself to resume the stoic façade required of a royal guard, though my heart thundered in my chest with enough fury to break ribs.

Her ladies continued their work, making final adjustments to her hair, smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from her skirt. Mae lifted a delicate pearl necklace that went well with the gown, fastening it around Isi’s throat. The beads caught the light as she breathed, the milky spheres rising and falling. I clenched my jaw as I remembered pressing my lips to that hollow, of feeling her heartbeat quicken beneath my touch. Now I stood sentinel, watching other hands touch what had once been mine.

A knock at the outer door made everyone pause.

I moved to answer it, my hand on the hilt of my sword.