Chapter 134
Kross
The door groaned faintly as I pushed it open, careful to ease it back on its hinges. Three nights now—no, every night since she’d woken—this had become my routine. I told myself it was just to make sure she was recovering, to confirm she was safe, that no shadow of Rufina or the Fate lingered around her. But truth gnawed deeper than that.
She haunted me. Even in the council chambers, even with the eyes of the kingdom pressing down on me, she bled into my thoughts. Her laugh. Her lies.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I wasn’t supposed to be drawn like a starving man to the only place that could undo me. But there was no denying it anymore: I came because I couldn’t stay away. Because no matter how cold I acted in daylight, no matter how harsh the words I threw her
