We said nothing as we walked through the tunnel and climbed stairs together up to our bed chamber. Torrance hung her cloak by the fire instead of handing it to me to do it, and the cool independence in that gesture wounded me more than I wanted to admit. My wings pulsed as I watched her, her back to me, staring into the fire. Finally, her spine straightened, and she turned to face me.

Her face was pale and composed, smoothed of all the agony, all the need, I’d witnessed outside. She seemed a stranger to me now, like I had not just been deep inside her.

“It’s tradition not to spend the night before the wedding in the same room.”

“That’s convenient,” I snapped, irritation prickling. And not just irritation. Fear. Fear that she wouldn’t go through with this after all. That I could take everything away from her, leave no one and nothing else in her path but me, and that still she would not choose me. I was afraid she was lying, that there was no tradition, and that this was the first of many steps she’d take that would lead her away from me.

Don’t marry me, she’d said. She was looking for an out, masking cowardice as care for me, for my future.

“Convenient or not, it’s the truth,” Torrance said placidly. “I can go to another room if you want to sleep here.”

“No!” The word was a roar. It cracked her composure, making her flinch back. I smashed the distance between us with powerful strides, coming to a stop before her. I didn’t touch her with my hands, but my chest brushed hers on my wildly unsteady inhales. She’d mostly fixed her dress but hadn’t tied the laces all the way, revealing lush skin, skin I’d sucked and kissed and worshipped. She’d been so close! She’d given herself to me, and now, and now...

“I don’t believe you,” I hissed.

She turned her chin up, stared at me with those snow and honey eyes that got all the way inside me.

“I’m not a liar,” she said.

“That’s exactly what you are,” I reminded her viciously. “And like it or not, little bride, you’re my liar now.”

Her calm was torn asunder. She looked stricken, like I’d hit her, and I hated myself even while rejoicing in darkness that I’d finally broken back through to her.

“You’re right. I can’t even deny it, because you’re right,” she said quietly. She crossed her arms and turned around, putting her back to me again, staring at the firestone. “You’re supposed to marry someone who makes you better, but I swear that you’re making me worse.”

“And you make me weak!” I snarled. “So, I suppose, in this, we are even.”

Silence stretched between us until I finally could not stand it.

“Do you want me to leave?”

Say no. Call me Wylf again and say you want me.

She did not answer.

I turned around and left.

I thought about leaving the castle entirely but didn’t. I had something to finish before the wedding. It seemed a fool’s errand now. Something born out of ridiculous sentimentality. But I could not seem to abandon the task.

Torrance had told me once, the night we’d struck our bargain, that you did not tell someone to marry you, but that you gave them a ring and asked. The idea of asking her now was stupid. We would marry, it had already been decided. She’d agreed, and there was no going back now, no matter how she tried to pull away.

But the ring...

The ring had been something I could not get out of my head.

There had been nothing suitable in any of the Sionnachan villages I’d visited, so I’d resolved to make my own. I’d already crafted and discarded dozens of the things, none of them quite right. But the wedding was tomorrow, and if I was going to finish this, it had to be now.

I stormed down stairs and through the tunnel until I reached a small workshop in the servants’ area of the Day Tower. There was no one here now. Ashken and Shoshen were likely doing chores or completing last-minute wedding preparations while Aiko cooked the evening meal.

This room had an abundance of tools, none of which I used. I didn’t need to carve the crystal – I’d shape it with my own power. What I would use in this room, though, was the crystal itself. There were heaps of it, large shards and bricks in the corners, that I sorted through as I’d done so many times already, trying to find the perfect piece for her. It was probably futile – every ring I’d already made I’d discarded. If I hadn’t destroyed them all in exasperation, I could have brought them all up to her on a tray and let her choose. Brandished the rings before her as an offering when the other things I offered her no longer seemed enough.

But that would not have satisfied me, either. Because none of those rings had been right.

I found several pieces of silver and purple crystal that were admirably clear. I thought of making rings out of each, and seeing if either one of them suited.

But then it hit me – the reason the other rings had not appealed. It was because they were too simple. Each one crafted from only one tree, shining in only one colour.

If there was anything my bride wasn’t, it was simple. Winter and warmth, love and hate, fire and fury and softness and need. Weakness and strength. Lies and masks and truth. If I wanted to represent her and represent our union – Earth and Sionnach, human and stone sky – then I could not simply use a single shard.

Invigorated, I began again, drawing out piece after piece of crystal. I shattered them with my power, picking out tiny, shimmering shards until I had a glittering pile of purple, pink, silver, and green.

I worked all night, designing and moulding and refining. It felt good to throw myself into the task and let my mind go blank. Otherwise, I’d be left to my own thoughts. Thoughts about the vast and sprawling ecstasy of being inside her eclipsed only by how much I’d loved holding her, and then the striking pain of when she’d pulled away.

I was not supposed to feel pain when I thought of my fake bride.

I was supposed to feel nothing at all.

It occurred to me, as I held the ring up to the light, running my appraising gaze over it like a blade over a sharpening stone, that I had not felt grief about losing a chance with my real fated mate in quite some time. Torrance had taken over, fully invaded my life the way her people had invaded my world, so much so that even my pain was solely focused on her now. I thought of my fated mate, tried to imagine who she might be, and attempted to conjure the feelings I’d had when I’d first heard Rúnwebbe’s prophecy.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t reach back into that sorrow and rage. Couldn’t access it or make myself feel it. There was a numbing sort of dread, the feeling that my life had been knocked awfully off course, but I no longer mourned my real bride or my lost future with her. My fated mate was a faceless ghost to me now, but my false bride was here, real, beautiful and infuriating and mortal, so terrifyingly mortal that I wanted to hollow myself out and put her inside me if only it would protect her. I may have called her my liar, but this wasn’t a lie to me. Not anymore. At some point, my prisoner had become my partner, not just an ally but someone precious, someone beloved, Sionnach preserve me, save me, save me.

“My lord?”

I whirled, finding Aiko standing in the doorway. Late morning light I’d barely noticed seeped in through the room’s outer green wall.

“Yes?” I asked, my voice sounding harsh and croaking.

“Your wedding suit is ready.”

My spine straightened, my chin rising, as if I’d been called to battle. I curled the ring into my hand.

“Good. Let me see it.”

I followed Aiko out of the workshop and into the room where she completed the laundry and sewing. On a crystal table, laid flat, was the outfit she’d created for me. My Mistress of Affairs had seemed surprised, some days ago, when I’d asked her to find out from Torrance what human grooms wore to their weddings. I’d been a little surprised at myself, in all honesty. Surprised that I would stoop to the level of wearing what a pathetic human male might wear. But when I’d imagined Torrance’s face, her surprise and maybe even delight at the gesture, I’d found that my usual leather ensembles held no appeal.