Rivin sighed. “Azur, I really don’t think there’s a spy here. Zaale vetted everyone himself, and you know how thorough he is.”

“Still, I want that list,” I said. “And having to request anything from him will be punishment enough for you, for disturbing me in the middle of my work.”

“Vaan,” Rivin breathed, “what did you do to your wife? And can you undo it so that you won’t be so damn unpleasant all the time?”

I growled.

But hadn’t Kalia said something similar? My sister had come storming in here two days ago, with her lips pressed in displeasure, an expression that reminded me eerily of our mother.

“What did you do to Gemma?” she’d demanded, her wings twitching in agitation. When I hadn’t answered, Kalia had continued with, “She’s upset about something but won’t tell me what. I know you had something to do with it. She’s quiet. It’s strange.”

“What happens between us is none of your business, Kalia,” I’d told her, much to her annoyance, even though my chest had squeezed in discomfort at my sister’s announcement. “Besides, I thought you were going to stay far away from her. Instead, you two spend practically every moment together out on the terrace.”

Even Kalia had detected the jealousy in my voice because I’d watched as she’d gaped at me.

Then a smug look had entered her expression. A look that had made my own lips press together.

“Fix it,” Kalia had ordered me. “I don’t like seeing her upset.”

It should’ve worried me that Kalia was getting attached to Gemma. It should’ve worried me that they were bonding more and more every day. That the whole damn keep was getting attached to her. Even Zaale, who had begun to look at me with shadowed disapproval. No doubt he’d heard the rumors circulating among the keepers that my wife was freezing me out.

Not that I could blame her.

You’ll always look for the worst in me, won’t you?

I gritted my back teeth as Rivin watched me.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do with her yet?” he asked me. “Or how much longer you’re planning to stay married to her? I’m sure Mr. Cross can find her another husband.”

The breath practically squeezed itself out of my lungs. Rivin had said it so casually, perhaps intentionally so.

My wings were already flaring, and the last strength I had from the feeding with Gemma began to burn, my pupils constricting, my muscles contracting, rebuilding themselves.

“Raazos’s blood, Azur,” Rivin said quietly, slowly beginning to back away. “Don’t. You’ll bring down the whole fucking keep. I only meant it in jest.”

I backed away from my desk, turning my own back on Rivin to get myself under control.

“You’re a bastard, you know that?” I breathed, leaning my forehead on the cool glass. I didn’t know if I was speaking to Rivin or to myself.

“I know,” Rivin replied, his voice still hesitant. “Then again, I don’t have a kyrana. I shouldn’t have said that. Forgive me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, dragging in a deep breath. I could still taste Gemma in here. The scent of her floated over my tongue with every breath. It didn’t help that I could still smell her arousal on my desk too. Right where I had to sit, every single day. I could barely concentrate.

All I thought about anymore was her.

Frustration, unlike I’d ever felt before, had been riding me for days.

I felt ashamed. I felt guilty. I felt angry.

I felt like I was a trigger away from a full-blown rage, as Rivin had just discovered.

I couldn’t go on like this.

We couldn’t go on like this.

So I either had to continue making both of us miserable…or I’d have to give in to my wife and try to make her happy.

All she’d wanted was to call her family, came that nagging voice in my mind.

If our situations were reversed, I thought I would handle it a whole lot worse than Gemma. The thought of being cut off from my brothers, my sister, my entire life… Frankly, I didn’t know how she did it. How she had even had the strength to come to Krynn. To accept my proposal without knowing what her future would hold. To hold her head as high as she had.

She did it for her family. She would do anything for her family, and you tried to use that against her, I knew.

I slammed my fist against the window, pushing the last of my rage down, before opening my eyes.

Gemma was down on the terrace. With Kalia and Ludayn. I even saw Zaale, hovering nearby, no doubt frowning as he monitored what they were plucking away from the banisters as he swept up the decaying debris. They’d made a lot of progress in the last few days, now working their way down the eastern wall, toward our mother’s old garden.

My gaze lingered on my wife. Her hair was down today, gleaming in the setting sun, and my hands twitched, wanting to thread my fingers into it, to feel the silky strands pass through them like water.

Then I turned my attention skyward. Dark clouds were gathering in the north, drifting toward Laras with the wind. The storm would be here at nightfall, followed by the moon winds.

There was a calm hush in the air outside, as if Laras was readying itself. The weather would turn cold and biting soon, the late evenings turning dark.

“Are you going to fly tonight?” Rivin asked behind me, softly. Quietly. “It might take the edge off. I think you need it.”

Gemma liked it when we flew over the sea, I thought.

Maybe as way of an apology, I could help her experience the moon winds tonight. Surely that would make her happy.

I was rotten at this. I’d had lovers in the past, not relationships. Now I had a wife. A wife who knotted me up with a thousand different threads of ever-changing emotions. Most of the time, I didn’t know whether to punish her for her sharp tongue or kiss her until she was clinging to me, soft and breathless.

“Maybe I will,” I told Rivin.

Something needed to change—and Gemma had already adapted to Krynn.

This time, I knew it would have to be me.

Chapter 26

Gemma

That night, a storm hit.

It was a full moon, a bright silvery orb hanging low in the sky. It would have been a perfect night—until the windows began to rattle. Until the wind began to howl like a lowing wolf outside, setting my teeth on edge, my breaths coming quicker as I paced the floors of my bedroom.

Ludayn was long gone for the evening. She’d had a hollow look in her eyes for most of the day, distracted and quiet. Truthfully, the whole keep seemed to be on edge, but the energy held excitement. Anticipation.

For the storm? I wondered, grinding my teeth together, squeezing my hands tight when I heard another strong gust tunneling right toward the keep from across the sea. I’d never experienced winds like this before. I could hear them coming, like a wave about to crash.

My rooms were in the northeast wing, ones that looked right out over the Silver Sea. The view was breathtaking and thrilling normally…but not tonight. Tonight there was an edge of malice, of dread, of clenching grief that I couldn’t escape from.

The library, I remembered.

The library was in the south wing. The winds were traveling toward the keep from the north, but in the south wing, it might offer a reprieve. Perhaps I could seek safety from the worst of the storm, bury myself in the stacks and towers of books in the library until it was over.

Caught on the idea, I left my rooms, navigating the familiar route down a series of hallways and staircases, cutting through a passage Ludayn had shown me, to reach the south wing more quickly. There wasn’t a single soul in sight, which only made my breaths come quicker. Not to mention there was a chill on the back of my neck like a touch, something I couldn’t shake.