Page 91 of Once the Skies Fade

I immediately regretted bringing up Korben, even more so when understanding lit on Matthias’s face.

“Ah, yes. Thanks for your help with that, by the way.”

My pulsed picked up speed, and I lowered my brow slightly. “Help with what exactly?”

The corner of his eye twitched, and for a moment he seemed about to argue with me, to remind me that I’d attacked Korben. Instead, he offered a soft, conspiratorial smile along with a series of small nods. “Right, right. I forgot,” he said, and then lifted his fingers to his mouth to turn an imaginary key, which he pretended to drop into his glass, his lips pressed firmly together.

His eyes narrowed as his lips lifted into a lopsided, mischievous grin. “I suppose I don’t have to thank you for visiting me in the infirmary either then?”

Shit. He’d heard me speaking to him. I’d specifically gone when no one else was around, trusting the healers’ assessments that the poison had rendered him unresponsive. Still, this was easy enough to refute.

I wrinkled my nose at him. “What makes you think I visited you?”

“I heard your voice, felt your touch?—”

Scoffing, I rolled my eyes. “You were poisoned, general.”

“So you didn’t ask me not to die?” he asked, lifting a hand to his lips. I shook my head. “Well, this is embarrassing.”

Pressing my lips into a thin smile, I lifted a shoulder. “Could happen to anyone in your state.”

“Has to be pretty flattering to you, though,” he said. “My dreaming of you, that is.”

“Ah, yes, I do aim to be on the minds of every incapacitated male.”

Matthias leaned forward, dropping his arms to rest on his legs. As he spoke, he stared down at the near-empty glass cradled in his hands.

“Speaking of incapacitated. My friend, Oryn.”

“What about him?”

“First, thank you for getting him to the healers. Unfortunately, he’s not going to make it,” he said, his voice growing quiet yet still confident. “He should be sent back to his family so he can be surrounded by loved ones when he passes.”

I stilled, recalling the words I’d spoken to Ami.Anything he needs—it’s yours.Matthias wasn’t wrong, but his request conjured the memory of me clutching Brennan, begging him not to leave me.

Dropping my chin into my hand, I fought back the threatening tears. I pulled in a deep breath, hoping Matthias saw it as my buying time to think rather than needing a moment to rein in my traitorous emotions. Finally, I cleared my throat—a test to ensure my voice was prepared to answer him.

“I will speak with Isa tonight about it. We should be able to spare one carriage and a guard detail to escort him home.”

Matthias’s face brightened as he sat upright. “You’ll allow me to thank you for this, right? Or is this another secret I need to keep?”

Bitterness gripped my heart as I stared at this male. He didn’t know the first thing about keeping a stars-damned secret, of having to stay silent about something to the point that it threatened to strip you of the last remaining good things in your life.

“Why are you here, general?” The question was on my tongue before I could reconsider it. He opened his mouth, that mischief returning to his eyes, but I lifted a finger. “And I don’t mean here in this room right now. I mean here in my kingdom, competing in this tournament.”

His mouth snapped shut with a dull pop. Spinning the gold ring back and forth on his finger, he settled back in his chair and shifted his eyes to the wall of windows behind me. I followed his stare to the pristine view of the setting sun and didn’t turn back to him even when he finally responded.

“As I told your general when I registered, with the approval of my king, I stepped in as Engle’s representative.”

Isa had indeed said as much, though Matthias now kindly omitted the little point that no one from Engle wanted to vie for my hand, as if I’d take some kind of offense to that.

“Out of the goodness of your heart,” I said, slowly turning back to look at him and marveling at how different he seemed from the other competitors. Unlike Beck, he didn’t seem at allwary of me. And unlike the others, he didn’t act superior at all. He spoke to me as if I wasn’t a queen suspected of murder, but a simple female in need of a friend. It should have been a welcome comfort, but that was the last thing I wanted from him or any of them. The Assembly—and even Isa to some extent—may have hoped these forced encounters would help the efforts to select a king, but they certainly didn’t help me.

“Something like that,” he muttered, falling silent for a few breaths before he asked the last question I expected. “Why areyouhere?”

He stared at me with such compassionate curiosity, as if he actually cared about my answer—cared about me—which seemed far more worrisome than if he were here to kill me.

“And don’t say because the Assembly made you,” he added, barely a hint of humor present in his tone.

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