Not when the knight I still love and the brother I’m afraid I’ve lost are made into captives, bloody and restrained. Marcus glances up, and his face falls with relief to see me. But Owen is unreadable. Footsteps crunch on the dry snow behind me. Slow, heavy. “Darling, for someone whose fate might change that of the world, you certainly act carelessly.” The Black Knight appears in my periphery. He dusts fallen snow or leftover glass from the forearm of a sleeve as I turn. The green in his iris brightens in the moonlight, and I cannot look away. I’m bound to him, and perhaps I’ll never be free again. He stops within steps of me and glares. “The coordinates.” I shake my head. “I’ll never tell you.” His full lips turn up in a smirk, and he takes a careful step closer. The snow under his feet softens, like he’s docile, safe. His green eye seems all the more childlike the longer he stares at me, as though trying to trick me by appearing as innocent as a dagger-wielding lamb.
