The wind whipped Alydia’s hair against her face and wrapped her robe around her knees as she leaned over her balcony railing. Even at the height of summer, the air at the top of the tower held a chill, but Alydia didn’t mind it. She loved to feel the wind all around her, its force, its power. Sometimes she felt that if she spread her arms and leaped, it would carry her up and away.

Easy to feel alone out here in the wind. To feel free. So high above the world, everything fell away. People on the ground below were the barest specks — hardly real at all. Her closest companions were the clouds above her head, the birds that circled beneath….

And the Guardsman singing loud and off-key in her shower.

Alydia sighed and went back inside. As she moved towards the bedroom, she slammed her fist against the bathroom door. Genoff stopped singing. She felt his mind reaching for hers, but she pushed a shield between them, blocking him out. If he wanted to talk, he could come out and do it face-to-face, where there was at least a chance they’d be the only two people in the room.

Genoff didn’t sing in the shower. He didn’t drink his coffee black. He didn’t adjust his clothes in the closet so every hangar was perfectly parallel with the last. Except now he did—those things plus a dozen other subtle changes, tiny little quirks that no one would notice who wasn’t close to him. Alydia was very close. Or had been, before the changes. Before the mindshare.

Zairr sang in the shower. Zairr drank his coffee black. Zairr now lived inside Genoff’s head. The mindshare had merged them, changed them. The mindshare had taken what was hers.

In her bedroom, she wandered back and forth between her two expansive closets. Pathetic to just be waiting in here for Genoff to come out, but she had nothing to do. Even with the palace in chaos at Bastyen’s pending arrival and everyone else running around like their clothes were on fire, Alydia had no responsibilities or obligations. Other than to be a warm body, a line item in the treaty, a box to be checked off.

All she was—all she’d ever been. No exceptional talents: not Lorrel’s political insight nor Guelida’s gift for tactics. Not a seer like Elinas or her father. She was valuable to her mother as a princess-shapped object, but never useful enough to be interesting.

In the bathroom, the water stopped. Genoff emerged, one towel wrapped loose around his waist. He scrubbed at his hair with another, and Alydia let herself be distracted by his solid chest, his broad shoulders, the muscles rippling beneath his dark skin. He didn’t look any different than before the mindshare. The hard body of a soldier and the soft eyes of an artist. Those eyes—they were the first thing she’d noticed about him.

She moved in close, ran her hands over his damp skin. He didn’t feel any different. But he was. Different.

She hit his arm, making a satisfying slap. He grabbed her wrists before she could pull away. “Hey.” The towel slipped off his head and those dark, soft eyes caught hers. “Can we talk like civilized people?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Alydia twisted her hands and Genoff released her. “There’s nothing to say.”

“There’s plenty to say.” His soft, soothing voice hadn’t changed since the mindshare. Nor had that quirk of his lips that wasn’t quite a smile, but made her breath catch all the same. “I’ll start you out.” He took her hands again. This time, she didn’t pull away. “Repeat after me. Sweetheart, I’m upset—“

“I’m not upset.”

“And I’m taking it out on you.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Despite the fact you haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

Alydia leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed his lips to silence him. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty,” she whispered against his cheek, “because you’re not half as funny as you think you are.”

Genoff dropped his hands to her waist and pulled her against him. What’s wrong, Alie?

Alydia answered out loud. She refused to touch his mind. “If you can’t figure out the answer to that on your own, then there’s nothing I can say that will explain it.”

Which was unfair of her. Genoff would just assume she was out of sorts over Bastyen’s arrival, about the marriage that would follow, about the fact she’d be leaving her home and her friends and her family to go live as only slightly more than a political hostage in Kardenel. Which was plenty to be upset about.

But right now, today, this second, what she hated most was that Chandra and Jephan and the rest of the Guard hadn’t waited just a few more weeks—when she was going to lose everything anyway—to start taking people away from her.

Genoff stroked his fingers through her hair, studying her face. “If there were anything I could do, you know I’d do it.”

Trapped by duty, both of them. But Genoff had signed up for his, and Alydia never had.

Genoff’s eyes unfocused again. “Zairr says Guelida’s on her way.”

“Then you should probably get dressed.”

He leaned down to kiss her forehead, then let go. “We can talk about this later.”

All the things that were wrong that Alydia couldn’t change. That neither of them couldn’t change. “Yes, please, let’s talk about this as much as possible. Let’s talk about this till our heads explode.”

She retreated back into her closet and he took the hint and shut up.