Page 119 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Enora cast me a look full of unease, her back tense under my hand, and I could tell she was on the brink of leaving.

“I wanted to take you to the place I go when I need a distraction or to clear my head,” I said and, with a knowing look, added, “Or, when my mind feels like too hostile a place.”

Her eyebrows drew together, and she sighed. “I will not make good company today, Max,” she said softly. “Don’t let me ruin somewhere special for you.”

Max.

A small win—I’d gladly take it over her insistent use of my full name, even if I wished she’d said it with any amount of happiness.

“I’m not looking for good company.” That much was simple. “But I recall explicitly being told there was a sliver of your heart I was responsible for caring for. Was I not?”

Now, she hadn’t said those exact words when we’d gone toe to toe at our last dinner, but her meaning had been clear. As her husband, I had expectations laid on me she clearly thought I’d never meet, and I looked forward to proving her wrong.

When Enora glanced up at me, confusion graced her devastated features.

“Your words have value here, Enora, whether you think they do or not.” The last thing she likely wanted to hear about was anything related to the mage who’d rattled her day, but I had to add, “You’ll notice something the longer you are here at the Keep. Most of us had no say in the hands we were dealt, but we play with what we have and make the most of it. Together.”

My sentiment clearly landed, because her mouth twisted and her throat bobbed, but she nodded. I knew that would be the best acknowledgment I’d get.

Enora treated me to a hefty dose of silence and a hesitant expression as I offered her my hand for the second time. She took it, though, and trailed beside me as I grabbed a filled basket from the drawing desk.

I led her through the exterior door and a set of stone steps dusted with drying puddles from that afternoon’s rain.

Just below the overhang of the terrace, another door—unlocked simply by my presence, and now hers—led us down one further set of stairs into a roughly hewn stone passage beneath the Keep. Enora tried to slip her hand out of mine twice, but I kept a tight grasp on purpose.

We had one potential hurdle to overcome before we reached our destination, and I did not plan on giving her a chance to bolt.

“What…is that?”

That being the curtain of shimmering aether a dozen feet down the passage, throwing off an otherworldly iridescence that was rightfully earned.

While still moving, I tossed her a cautious smile. “A tear in the planes. Eilir built it for me.”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Enora planted her heels as I pulled her, vehemently shaking her head. “I will never—MAKSYM!”

I yanked her forward, quickly dropping her hand to band an arm around her shoulders, sending us forward together.

27

A WELL-INTENDED DISTRACTION

MAKSYM

We moved through the barrier on a string of Enora’s curses, and she pushed clean away from me when our feet touched solid ground again, the air thick with the briny scent of saltwater.

I braced myself for a deluge of snide comments, but they never came.

Silence overtook Enora as she walked farther out of the stone corridor and into the nytefire-lit cavern before us. “Oh,” was all I heard her whisper.

The subterranean cove I called my sanctuary was a sprawling, circular space, rimmed by sets of natural flagstone steps into a pool of deep, indigo water. Crystalized stalactites dripped from the domed roof, throwing out reflections of the sparse nytefire lanterns in every direction. Soothing in every way for an Umbrite like myself, but its impact on an Odessan was an unknown guess at best.

I found out soon enough, though. Enora finally turned back to face me, and I could’ve sworn there was a ghost of a smile lifting her cheeks, a hint of warmth finally tinting them. “Can I put my feet in, or will something eat me?”

“Of course you can. You won’t find creatures in this water.”

That wasn’t on the list of things I thought she’d say to me, but I’d gladly take it. Before she changed her mind, I ushered her to one of the lower steps, and while she worked off her boots, I hurried to set out the contents of the basket.

My efforts amounted to a modest blanket spread over the rough stone outcropping with a few hastily unwrapped portions of fruit, bread, and meat. A lukewarm bottle of mead, too, with—fuck. No cups. Just my luck.