Thirty-One. Rune

The words died on her lips.

She pulled in a sharp breath, her blood running a little hotter at the sight of his muscled shoulders and arms. She coiled her fingers into her palms, pressing the nails into the skin, trying to stop herself from tracing him with her eyes: the rigid lines of his collarbones, abdomen, hips. His skin turning honey-gold in the setting sun.

Rune tried to look away, but something on the right side of his chest dragged her eyes back: the symbol of a thorny rose encircled by a crescent moon. Rune knew it on sight. The Sister Queens had their casting signatures turned into crests, and these crests were sewn into their garments. The queens wore them embroidered on the cuffs of their shirtsleeves, impressed into their jewelry, or emblazoned across their riding cloaks.

The rose and crescent belonged to Cressida.

A tattoo?

The sound of Gideon’s pants dropping into the sand made the thought freeze in her head. She stared hard at that crest, knowing he stood almost naked before her, afraid to look anywhere else. The story he’d told still hummed through every fiber of her being. Rage and grief and shame—his voice had been full of it. And though Rune desperately wanted to believe there was another side to this story, that Gideon was twisting the truth, she couldn’t ignore that crest.

It’s not a tattoo,she realized, studying the red lines. It’s a brand.

The youngest witch queen had branded Gideon the way a farmer burns his name into an animal, so that when he lets the beast out to pasture, everyone knows it’s his and no one takes it home with them.

Cressida had permanently marked Gideon as her property.

The horror of it made Rune go cold.

“Gideon …”

Not seeing the realization dawning on her, he looped one finger into the seam of his underwear. “Last chance, Rune.”

He dropped them next.

“Oh. My. Stars.” Rune covered her eyes with her hands. “Gideon Sharpe!”

“Is that a blush coming up on your cheeks?”

The heat of his teasing chased out the cold.

“Why so bashful? Don’t tell me you’ve never taken advantage of all those suitors lining up at your door.”

Her skin burned hotter even as a smile crept across her lips. “You are the worst.”

Surprising them both, she laughed.

Rune wanted to drop her hands and look at him. Desperately. But she didn’t want to take advantage, the way another girl had. So she stayed where she was, keeping her eyes covered.

His footsteps hissed in the sand. Instead of heading for the sea, though, they moved toward her. Rune took a step back and nearly tripped over a log. Gideon’s hand grabbed her elbow, steadying her.

His breath hushed against her cheek. “Come with me.” He stood inches away. All six gorgeous feet of him. She pressed her hands harder against her face. “Don’t you want to feel the sea on your skin?”

“Absolutely not,” she said from behind her hands. “That water is freezing.”

“Suit yourself,” he said, letting her go.

The water splashed as he walked into the sea. At the sound, Rune gave in to temptation, lowered her hands, and watched him wade naked into the waves.

She tried to remember the part she was playing. But the protective mask she wore was slipping fast. Rune couldn’t pretend to be a shallow, gossipy girl after he’d bared his soul to her. She couldn’t tell herself there were two sides to this story, or that Cressida and her sisters were the actual victims.

None of what had happened to him excused what he was doing now, of course: hunting witches down, one by one; propping up a violent regime. But it helped her understand him.

“Come on, Rune. The water’s warm …”

Gideon had increased the stakes of their game tonight by telling her something deeply, painfully true. For Rune to match him, she needed to offer something equally so.

But she’d been living a lie for so long, she didn’t know if there was anything true still in her.

If I didn’t have to hide myself,she thought, who would I be?

Who was the real Rune Winters?

Not the socialite. Not the Crimson Moth. But the person deep down inside her.

Rune had been playing a part for so long, she couldn’t remember.

Once, she’d been a girl who liked to wear ribbons and silks, lace and pearls. Someone who enjoyed dancing with cute boys and gossiping with fashionable friends. A girl who took tea with Nan on the terrace and went to the opera.

But what made that girl Rune?

She thought of the portrait hanging in her bedroom. Of a wild child in a white dress trying desperately to hold in her laugh.

If that girl were all grown up, what would she be like?

What would she do?

She would accept a challenge to swim naked in a frigid sea,thought Rune. That, she knew.

Slowly, she let her shawl drop. Reaching behind her, she tugged at the laces of her dress until they loosened, then pulled the cotton fabric over her skin and dropped it in the sand.

The warm breeze kissed her bare stomach and legs.

She took off her bralette next, then her underwear. Knowing all the while that he watched from the waves.

Standing naked beneath the dying sunlight, her hair whispered across her bare shoulders. Feeling mushy compared to Gideon’s lean, muscled form, she fought the urge to cross her arms over herself as she walked down the sand toward the surf.

She wanted him to look. To search her body for scars so he could find none. Rune had plenty of ordinary scars. Everyday cuts and scrapes collected over the years. But none were the silvery kind he’d be looking for.

As she stepped into the sea, the water sent a shocking jolt of cold through her.

“You are such a liar.” She hugged herself to fend off the chill. “I think a glacier melted in here.”

Gideon laughed, splashing water in her direction. She flinched as the icy droplets scattered across her body. But she continued to wade in, taking sharp breaths as the cold crept to her knees, her thighs, her waist.

What is he thinking? she wondered, hugging her chest tighter. Is he comparing me to other girls he’s seen undressed?

She wished she could wipe the questions from her mind. Because who cared what he was thinking? Not her.

When she finally reached him, the sea was as high as her throat and her feet arched to keep her toes on the bottom of the sandy bed.

“My grandmother used to bring me here as a child,” she said, glancing at the silhouetted island in the distance, and the causeway connecting it to the shore. “She would stand on the sand and shout at me not to swim too far. She was always afraid the current would sweep me away.”

Now would be the perfect moment to bare her soul. To tell him what being raised by a witch was like. After the secrets he’d entrusted her with, though, Rune didn’t have the stomach to lie, or fake a hatred she didn’t feel. But neither could she tell him the truth.

Like a true predator, Gideon sensed her weakness.

“Turning her in must have been very hard.”

Not at all,she would have announced if they were in an opera box or a ballroom or surrounded by her friends.

But they weren’t. They were alone, and playing a new game. One that was far more dangerous for Rune than for him.

Turning Nan in wasn’t hard,she thought. It was unbearable.

Rune drew in a deep breath and risked one small, true thing.

“Nan was my best friend.” Rune glanced away from him. “She was … the person I most aspired to be like.”

The day the Republic killed her, a part of Rune died, too.

She remembered donning her finest dress that morning. Remembered brushing her hair until it shone like midsummer wheat. Nan had taught her to always look her best, no matter the occasion, and Rune had a feeling she didn’t make exceptions for public executions. Not even her own.

After pushing to the front of the angry crowd, Rune had nearly buckled at the sight of Kestrel atop the purging platform. Her hair—normally coiffed and held in place by a jeweled pin—fell in untidy strands down her face. They’d bruised her regal cheek and snuffed the bright gleam from her eyes. Someone had even ripped the sleeves off her shirt so everyone could see her casting scars.

Kestrel’s gaze was hawkish as she looked out over the sea of faces, as if she didn’t notice the way they spit at her, didn’t hear the vicious names they called her.

The moment her eyes found her granddaughter, the attention of the crowd followed.

Did you know?Rune could still hear them murmuring. She informed on the old hag. Brave little thing.

She’d schooled her features into exactly the girl they wanted to see: a young heiress so loyal to the Republic, she handed her beloved grandmother over to be executed. It was the role she needed to play now. Rune knew this was just the beginning.

But beneath the mask, her grief had cracked her heart in half.

As their gazes locked, Nan’s parched lips moved, whispering three small words. Words Rune didn’t deserve.

I love you.

The shriek of metal scraping metal had filled the air as the chains raised her grandmother skyward, by the ankles. There she dangled, upside down, with her hands enclosed in witch restraints, hair swinging.

One of the Blood Guard stepped forward with a knife and sliced her grandmother’s throat. The blood splattered and gushed. Nan choked, gasping for a breath she couldn’t take, her body writhing like a worm on a hook. All trace of poise and elegance vanished as she struggled against her fate. Rune dug her teeth into her lower lip, forcing herself not to scream. Not to weep. Telling herself to be stoic and still as the blood dripped like ribbons, thick and red, and Nan finally fell still.

Afterward, Rune watched them throw her corpse into a mass grave on the edge of the city. She couldn’t take Nan home and bury her beneath the apple tree in the garden, where the blossoms would fall on her in the spring. She couldn’t afford to show that kind of tenderness, in case someone suspected the truth rooted in her heart.

She told only the first part to Gideon. The part about watching Nan die.

He studied her as the sun slipped past the horizon, turning the sky dark purple and washing him in tones of blue and gold. As the waves lapped around them, a kittiwake called in the distance.

You told him too much,she thought, looking sharply away, afraid he’d see the tears in her eyes. Now he has even more reason to suspect you.

Her throat swelled and her eyes burned. She’d stripped off her mask, and without it, she was fumbling.

Suddenly, Gideon was moving through the water toward her. Before she could kick back through the waves and swim away, he reached her. Cradling her jaw in one hand, he tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear with the other.

“It’s not a crime to have loved a witch, Rune.” He bent toward her until their foreheads touched and his breath tangled with hers. “If it were, you wouldn’t be the only guilty one.”

His gentleness snuck past her defenses, unlocking the deadbolts inside her.

Letting the enemy in.

She looked up as the tears fell down her cheeks. The sea hid their bodies, but it was clear on Gideon’s face that he hadn’t for a second forgotten what was under the waves. He seemed reluctant to close the distance between them, though, unsure if she would welcome it.

Rune tried to tell herself she wouldn’t welcome it. Gideon had probably been in the crowd that day, cheering on Kestrel’s death. She absolutely shouldn’t want him any closer.

He was a witch hunter. He suspected her. He was closing in on her even now.

And yet.

She remembered him on top of her, down in the mine. How solid and heavy he was. She remembered him later, dragging her out of the water. The strength in his arms. The heat of him pouring into her.

What would it feel like to have his body flush against hers?

It was perverse, the way she wanted to find out.

Seeing the thoughts in her eyes, Gideon trembled with restraint. His throat swallowed and his pulse beat hungrily through the hand cupping her jaw.

So, this horrible wanting afflicted him, too.

This is a game,she told herself, nuzzling her face into his palm. It’s only pretend.

It’s how she justified dragging her fingers through his hair and pulling his mouth down to hers.