I turn to leave, only for a thud near the rafters to stop me in my tracks. Nerves prickle through me, though thankfully, it sounded too heavy to be a bird. The last thing I wish to see is a raven’s black eyes watching me as I leave. My father always warned us to never turn our backs on a raven. That they will whisper your secrets to Mortidem if they think you’re weak, so he knows the best way to trap you. The last thing I want is for the God of Death to think I’ve entered the Retterheld solely to make his acquaintance.

I twist my head upwards, my gaze sharp, jaw clenched, and ears listening keenly. Surely no one could have thought to enter through one of the clerestory windows? A skilled climber might have found it possible to reach the top, but it’s a fifty-foot drop from there to the cold marble of the temple floor. Yet the creak of metal echoes around me. Someone is opening the window.

I’m simultaneously impressed and racked with nerves. If this is the strength the other Rettlings are showing without using magic, then winning this gifting won’t be easy. Not that I ever thought it would be. Still, there’s no guarantee that their presence here will grant them a place in the tournament. Regardless of how impressive their entry is, their tears may yet be insufficient for Etta.

A shadow moves at the window’s edge. Even from a distance, I can see it’s a man from the broadness of his back and the strength of his limbs. As I watch him, he turns his body so that he faces the wall, all while balancing on the thin window ledge. Then … nothing. He stays there, fixed in the same position.

He’s realising he made a mistake, I think as I watch. That’s why he’s hesitating; he knows there is no safe way down. He is going to fall and meet Mortidem. Either that or stay there until morning when the priestesses arrive and rescue him. As I stand there, contemplating whether I should tell someone about his predicament, a dark shadow plummets to the floor. I cover my mouth, stifling a gasp as it smacks against the marble with an audible thud.

He’s dead. He has to be. No one could survive that fall. My chest tightens as I stand there, unable to move. This is a temple to the Goddess of Life. To have a dead body here, even one who was willing to offer his soul to her, desecrates her space. The life Etta granted my parents and my brother may have been riddled with pain and betrayal, and cut short by bitter anger, but she still gave them life. Just as she gave Kay and me life. I will not leave a body here, violating her most sacred temple in Morathka. I have to move it.

My breath skitters as I step towards the crumpled pile that was a living, breathing person only a heartbeat ago. Whoever he was, likely some lord or duke, I doubt he’d want to be buried out in the slums, so I’ll give his body to the knights so they can return him to his loved ones.

The shadows shift above me as I take another step towards the corpse, and my eyes snap up, confusion grabbing hold.

The man is still there – still alive – and now he’s moving, lowering himself down the slick rock face, one step at a time.

What. The. Fuck.

His muscles glisten with sweat, which must weaken his grip, yet his hands and feet find impossible holds that are invisible to me from this distance. I’m an excellent climber, but the way he moves bowls me over.

I momentarily tear my gaze away from him and take another step towards the mound on the floor. It’s revealed to be nothing more than a rich fur coat.

Embarrassment courses through me at the thought that I was preparing to aid a mound of cloth. Clearly this man has no need of my help, and with my offering to Etta given, I have no reason to remain in the temple. Yet I stand rooted to the ground, watching his descent. The olive skin of his back is rippled with muscles and ghosted by scars. Every single fibre is taut as he stretches and bends, reaching out with nimble fingers. Where has he come from? All men in Morathka can fight, but to climb like this? He must surely be a knighted guard or a noble from one of the other cities. Most of the others who have come from afar have already made their submissions, but like me, he is cutting it fine.

I don’t know what the Eastern Isles are like, but maybe the cliff faces there are even more jagged than those beyond our walls. Or perhaps he comes from Dorain or Rowell? I’ve heard the further north you get, the rockier and harsher the terrain is. Coming from one of those places could surely explain such skill.

More than once, his footing slips slightly, causing my breath to stutter, but every time he manages to find his place again, and from what I can hear, not so much as a gasp leaves his lips. When he’s about six feet from the ground, he looks down, twists his body, and jumps. He lands silently, knees bent, and I watch as his shoulders drop in relief. So he was tense. That’s something, at least.

As I stand there, the fur still by my feet, I consider whether I should make him aware of my presence. Unless he saw me when he first entered through the clerestory window, he’ll have no idea I have been here all this while. Watching him.

I said my prayer aloud to the Goddess and would loathe for someone to have heard my private words. I owe him the same privacy. I prepare to clear my throat, but he turns just then, and his eyes snap to mine.

The colour alone is enough to steal my breath. Every shade of crystal blue shines within his gaze.

My pulse skips and my throat tightens as he brushes his thumb against his bottom lip, but beyond that subtle motion, neither of us moves. He is about my age – twenty-three, perhaps a couple of years older – but I was wrong in thinking he came from outside Wrohelm. Black ink marks his skin in six perfectly concentric circles that cross from his shoulder onto his chest. The six circles of our city. He is Wrohelm-born, meaning that perhaps I knew him growing up. He would not have looked like this all those years ago, of course, but I’d have remembered him.

Silence swells between us as his gaze shifts down, first to my charcoal-coated fingers, then to my body. He goes slowly, as if taking in every part of it. Of course he is. I’m wearing rags, whereas I suspect every other woman who’s made it this far has been in full fighting leathers. Or at least had shoes without holes. Then again, it’s not like he’s fully dressed either. If he were, my eyes wouldn’t keep absentmindedly drifting to that place where a thin line of hair disappears into his waistband.

His lips tip up into a smirk, and when he speaks, it’s with a velvety baritone that makes my knees weak. ‘That’s not the kind of wet I normally like my women to be, but I guess it’s a starting place.’

My gaze pings up to meet his, indignation flooding me, and it takes a split second for me to realise he’s referring to my clothes.

‘Wading through icy water was undoubtedly more enjoyable than any weak attempt at foreplay you could possibly offer,’ I shoot back.

‘If icy water is the best you’ve had, sweetheart, then you’ve been tragically undereducated. I could always help rectify that.’

A ripple of static spreads across my skin, tingling in the most inappropriate places considering I’m standing in a holy temple. Fuck.

I scramble for a retort, anything to cut him down, but those piercing eyes pin me in place. My gaze slips instead to the puddle of heavy fur still lying at my feet.

His eyes must have followed mine, because contemptuous amusement is lighting their azure depths when I look back to him. ‘You believed that to be a body,’ he says. ‘Oh, sweetheart. I don’t fall. I can stay up all night if you need me to.’

I ignore his asinine comment in favour of studying him further. There’s something achingly familiar about him. The shape of his jawline, that slight frown line crinkling the skin between his brows, and that blue shade of his eyes … it stirs something in my memory. I’ve seen that shade of blue before, but in the eyes of a woman instead. I cannot remember exactly where or when, and he speaks again before I can chase the memory further, sending my thoughts skittering away.