Page 61 of Court of Treachery

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I cannot leave my friends. I cannot abandon what we must do.”

His hand slipped from her waist, his gaze searching her eyes—but whatever he found made him step back. “Please leave, or at least warn the dwarves. I cannot be any clearer. To continue spells disaster.”

“Harper?” Brand’s voice rang out through the woods—closer this time.

Dimitri cursed violently under his breath—and she felt the same wave of frustration at the interruption, but it did not sway her. “We cannot be found like this—go. Please. I will pass on your warning. That is all I can promise.”

“Be safe,” he pleaded.

She could not promise that either. Harper swallowed and turned away, before she lost the will to leave. He faded into the shadows as the glow of a burning torch through the trees grew closer. Harper stared at him for a moment, before moving toward the light, gratefully gulping down painfully freezing breaths to cool the heat bubbling inside her.

50

DIMITRI

Dimitri reeled. He had kissed Harper.Kissed her. And she had let him—more than that, she had unleashed a furious passion so equal to his, it shocked him. One kiss would not suffice. He knew it deep in his bones.

From the first moment he had met her that day in the woods—a half-starved young woman with no idea who he was, with no preconceptions about him, who had without a second thought drawn a bow and shot an arrow straight at him—he had been curious about her. She had been so refreshing in his world—one that was otherwise filled with treacherous liars and danger in every shadow.

At what point had that curiosity turned into attraction? He could not pinpoint it. The way she had pulled his own knife on him had excited him—that was without question—but had he wanted her then? No, he decided. Still, she had been too novel, too unknown. He had cared more than he ought to when her death approached in the vaults—and he had credited his intervening action to uncharacteristic nobility at the time. But, no, not then.

He had known—without realising, because he had been locked with such denial then and after the fact, he now sawwith hindsight—it had been that moment on the parapet. When Harper had pushed past the protection the Aerian warrior offered her to stand before him to demand answers, that fierce challenge in her gaze, he had cared then. Enough to send her away. But enough to want her back. He was never supposed to have seen her again. That was safe. That was for the best. And yet, he had been foolish and desperate enough to seek her.

On the bridge, he had known for certain. He—Dimitri, spymaster,fool—was attracted to her. Heart, body, and mind. This woman was no mere curiosity, no casual plaything—but a force to be reckoned with who would not let the small matter of her youth and inexperience hold her back. He was in awe of her, he realised. All the power he held—and yet he was such a coward, skulking in the shadows. Her—practically defenceless, and still, she threw herself into what was right regardless of the odds stacked against her favour.

Now, that weakness in him was even more desperate for her—and she was more determined than ever to place herself into harm’s way. He despaired at it. At the boldness that both made her so special and yet endangered her so much. The time approached when he did not know if he could pluck the strings of fate enough to see her safely through the other side of what lay ahead.

Dimitri watched Harper leave, though every fibre of his being wanted to go to her. To continue what they had just started. To spirit her somewhere safe—far away from the hellhole this army advanced upon. But he did not move. She had told him what she wanted, and he would not take that choice away from her, even though he thought it beyond folly.

He stared until she had long disappeared between the trees. The icy chill froze him now, all that raging desire cooled to ashes. Now he had a moment free of her intoxicating presence muddying his thoughts for it to sink in.She is Saradon’s kin. Hecould not begin to fathom what that meant, only that it spelled disaster if Saradon obtained her. Now he had all the more reason to keep her away from him, to keep her safe. He hoped she would heed his words, but he did not hold out much conviction. He disappeared to run back to his unwittingly acquired master. It would not do for him to be discovered helping the enemy.

But Dimitri knew with certainty. One kiss would not be enough. She would be his ruin—and he would go to it willingly. For her. Because though he had decided to allow her the power of her own choice, he would not allow her naivety to be the death of her. No. One kiss wouldneverbe enough—but it had to be. He could not allow it to happen again—for himself to lose control like that again—for he would only endanger her all the more.

The force of how much he needed her threatened to drive the breath from his lungs and the reason from his mind. He could not make her choices for her. But he could make his own. And the greatest gift he could give her was safety when the jaws of darkness threatened to tear them apart. He would put himself in her place before he allowed that to happen. It would never make amends for what he had done—but it was one good deed to end with.

51

HARPER

“What’s wrong?” Brand asked when he saw Harper’s frown and her distraction. “You were gone a while.”

She looked up at him but did not answer. Her chest caved in as that desire evaporated into the cold dread of reality that stole her breath for an entirely different reason. They marched to battle—to death. And she did not want to die. She wanted tolive. She wanted her friends to be safe. She could not bear to see any more of the death and destruction they had witnessed already in Afnirheim. And she wanted time to explore whatever this thing blooming between her and Dimitrius was, without the threat of such dark tidings hanging over them.

“Harper?” Brand’s expression became more guarded, and his stance shifted defensively as he scanned the woodlands around them.

“Dimitrius just appeared,” she whispered.

“What?” Brand growled, his hand falling to the handle of his dagger.

“He came with a warning.” It was the only truth she could give, because the rest of it felt like it would damn her.

“Where is he?”

“Gone.” That was the truth too, she hoped.

He stopped. “Come. Tell us all.”

“Away from the dwarves,” she urged. They did not need to hear of it—at least yet. He nodded. She staggered after him, her legs jelly after what had just happened—and with the threat that Dimitrius had warned of sending her molten with fear. With every step the cold air seared her lungs and cleared her mind. She forced herself to steel—she had to compose herself. She could not admit what she had just done. Her cheeks burned with the shame of them discovering it. No matter her own murky feelings on the matter, their’s would be quite clear, and she did not need the complication.

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