“I keep talking about surviving,” I said.
He made a soft, impatient sound.
“You ask for a divorce,” he murmured. “You throw yourself into training. You stand up to elders. You dress like this, and then you stand here tempting every i***t with eyes—”
“I’m not doing this for ‘every i***t with eyes,’” I cut in.
“No?” he asked. “Then who?”
I turned my head just enough to look at him over my shoulder.
His face was closer than I’d realized.
His eyes, in the lantern light, were darker honey, flecked with something sharp. His jaw was tight, his mouth a hard line.
“I’m doing it for me,” I said. “To remind myself I’m not just a pawn on someone else’s board anymore.”
“A pawn?” he echoed. “Is that all you see yourself as?”
“That’s all anyone has ever used me as,” I said. “Except maybe the wi
