I wanted her.

She was just two floors away from me here in my castle.

And some piece of her—naïve and inexperienced—wanted me.

The man who was doomed to die at her hand.

I could mostly ignore that fact, now that I was used to her presence, and my intermittent lust. But I wondered if not telling her about it was a bigger betrayal than not telling her about my arrangement with her father. If she did manage her Ascension—and when she found out what that meant—then she would know the truth.

That there hadn’t been a moment, ever since we met, that I didn’t see my death inside her eyes.

I could only hope that the shame of her learning that would be absolved by a second realization: that I had loved her anyway.