Celeste
I knelt at the water’s edge and brought handfuls of it up over my arms. Tyler’s blood dissolved into the lake in dark ribbons. I scrubbed at my face, at my hair, at the creases of my palms where it had dried into the lines of my skin.
Footsteps behind me. Quiet. Deliberate.
Darien sat down behind me and pulled me into his chest. I didn’t resist. I pulled my knees up and leaned into him and let the exhaustion take me.
I had killed my childhood friend. I had fought with Darien this morning. I had run away from the castle on a broken foot. I had found a village burning with Braum’s fingerprints on it. And the day wasn’t over.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Darien asked, very quietly.
I told him. All of it. Tyler’s confession. The raiding. The lie about the earldom. The plan to
