Eero takes two massive steps into the room, his eyes scanning the four of us. They widen at my sad state, narrow at Finn laying in the bed, furrow at Amaia's shock.

Then, they settle on Sam.

The noise has apparently roused the man, and he's staring at the prince with confused eyes, wild and delirious.

If I was able to cut Eero in half at that very moment and lay his brain out, I'm sure I would see the actual thoughts connecting. See the little fires spreading across his mind.

He blinks once, and confusion floods his face.

Another blink; suspicion takes over.

A third blink crosses his features, and this one is laced with concern.

But it's the fourth blink that worries me the most.

It's anger. Pure, unfiltered rage.

Before any of us can react, the prince storms across the room, standing to tower over Sam's bed. He props one knee on the edge of the bed, reaches for Sam with a trembling hand, almost makes contact. Time seems to slow to a crawl as what he's about to do dawns on me. There's no moving my feet, though. The shock coursing through my veins has stuck me to the spot.

He's going to hurt Sam. I know it, but I can't move.

The door behind Amaia and I slams open once more, and a larger-than-life figure fills it. Magnus, hair slick with moisture, clenches the frame and tries to catch his breath. His eyes flit over Amaia and land on me. They widen just a bit before he gives me a short nod and focuses on his prince.

Eero still hasn't moved. He's just as frozen as I am, body quivering with anger, shaking with the desire to hurt someone.

Magnus must know what he's about to do. He strides across the room in two large steps and grabs Eero by the shoulder. With a huff, he wrenches the man away from Sam, nearly toppling the two of them to the floor.

Eero's eyes seem to flash with anger as he regains his footing. "Don't do this, Magnus," he seethes. "Don't get in the middle of it."

"I'll get in the middle of whatever I want, your majesty," the guard whispers, respectful even when he's just laid hands on his charge. "Your head isn't in the right place. You're going to do something you'll regret."

Eero glances at me, and his eyes harden further. "He hurt her. He has to pay."

Then, before any of us can stop him, he turns and lunges out at Sam.

Amaia screams as chaos erupts in the infirmary.

Magnus slams his shoulder into Eero's back, catching him just before he reaches Sam. The prince hits the floor face first with Magnus collapsing on top of him. The force of their impact rattles the beds. Sam scuttles away—as much as he can without getting up.

The two men merge into a mess of fists and grunts, of blood and swears. Magnus flips Eero onto his back and yanks him to his feet, but the prince wrenches around and tries to grab at Sam again. Magnus throws his body between the two of them, takes a couple solid hits to the chest, then to the face, and then, he gets mad and starts hitting Eero back.

Before long, it's hard to tell the two of them apart as they back towards Amaia and me.

Magnus takes up the defensive whenever possible, but Eero is relentless.

No, Eero is terrifying.

I've only seen him this angry once—when his father came in and demanded he have dinner with Ursus. Eero's face twists; his eyebrows nearly touch as he tries to tear past his friend. A nasty, feral grimace knots his mouth. He's filthy, I notice, coated in mud from head to toe. His clothes are drenched from the storm.

There's even a leaf stuck in his hair.

In any other circumstance, that one leaf would be hilarious, but it definitely isn't right now. If this is the version of Eero that his enemies see, then I never want to be on that side of his sword.

Someone yelps, and the sound jerks me out of my musing. I glance up to find Eero pinned to the floor, his elbow pressed nearly flat against his spine as Magnus digs a knee into his behind. Beside me, Amaia shifts slightly, snapping out of her shocked trance.

"Let me go!" Eero screams. He thrashes against Magnus's hold like a bucking wave. How the other man manages to hold on is a mystery to me.

"Not until you calm down!"

"I won't calm down until he's dead," Eero hisses. "They can't have my father and her! I won't let them!"

Wait... Am I "her"? Who is "them"?

Magnus grunts as Eero tries to kick him. He looks up at me, pleading, and the look sends a jolt of magic through me—the first I've felt since the garden. I ball my fists, steel my resolve, and snap, "Stop it, Eero!"

He jerks once more, and I repeat the stern command.

Slowly, like a storm mellowing out at sea, his body stills. Eero turns his head towards me and meets my eyes. The anger's still there, a hot fire ready to engulf the both of us, but the longer we hold each other's gaze, the fainter it burns. I take a deep breath, and his body mimics mine. I run my tongue over my dry, filthy lips; he traces the movement with his eyes.

Magnus lessens his hold, and the prince's attention shifts from me to him.

"Jävla," the guard hisses, rubbing his jaw. "You and that arm of yours. Ready to talk like a civilized person now?"

Eero grumbles a half-hearted agreement, and they help each other to their feet. I start to scold Eero, still reeling from the shock of it all, but Amaia cuts me off.

"Eero Matthias Eirikr!"

Her tone is so stern that even Eero falters for a moment. I step away from them, towards Sam. Even Magnus backs up.

The tornado that is Amaia storms over to us. She stands a good head shorter than the prince, but her face is filled with nearly the same fury as his in this moment.

Absolute outrage.

"What do you think you're doing?" she hisses, glaring up at him.

The rest of Eero's anger fades into shock. "What am I doing?" he asks in a whisper. "What are you doing, Amaia?" His eyes dart between the two of us, glaring but not nearly as wild as before. "The messenger you sent said the palace was under attack! I raced here, only to find out that she had been in the middle of it." He jabs a finger at me. "The maids said she was here with some stranger. That he was the one who brought all this carnage."

Eero keeps emphasizing words and pointing at the person he's talking about. I want to say something, correct him, but I can't find the words. All I'm able to do is clutch my aching side and pray he calms down.

"Nearly fifty of my men are dead, Amaia! He did it, didn't he? He's responsible!"

Amaia groans and rambles off a long string of Anjordian. When she finally takes a breath, her next words are in the common tongue. "Didn't you look around when you came in? The person you're blaming was lying, already torn to shreds, in a bed, you fool!"

Magnus steps forward then. "His mind's not... in the right state, Amaia," he says softly. "The king—His father's dead."

The air stiffens around us.

Amaia sucks in a breath. "And you thought they'd come for her," she says.

"Hun betyder for meget for mig," Eero replies. I've heard it before. The velvet texture of each word lovingly spoken sends fresh goosebumps down my arms.

Amaia's response is gentler. "He saved her life, you fool. And you would have killed him."

"Not killed him," Eero grumbles. "Just... hurt him." With a sigh, he turns his entire body towards me, giving me his full attention. "Is that true?"

With adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I snap, "Yes, but you would have known that if you didn't come barging in here like a maniac."

He narrows his eyes at me. "I was worried about you, Ari."

"I don't care if you were worried sick. That gives you no right!"

"I'm not sorry," he grumbles. "Who is he if not responsible for all this? Why is he in my infirmary, and why does he look like that?"

Amaia sits on Sam's bed, checking him over before she answers. "He's the one who told us Ari was in trouble. You should be thanking him, Eero."

"But how did he even know?" the prince asks.

"The answer to that explains why he looks so rough. I asked him to help me, and the people who did all this—" I wave my hand over my head. "They hurt him."

I lean on the bed frame, panting slightly. Sweat has broken out across my forehead. I can't show Eero how badly I'm hurt, either. He'll want to baby me, and that's the last thing I need.

"Who did do all this?" Eero grumbles, looking around the room. He points at Finn. "And who is that?"

"That's Finn, Ari's friend," Amaia says, stopping to glare at Eero again as she goes to check on the unconscious boy.

Eero shakes his head at her before turning his attention back to me. "What happened?"

"We were attacked," I say breathlessly. "That much is true. It just wasn't Sam."

"You need to tell me exactly..."

His words fade into the background as a wave of dizziness slams into me. My grip on the bed frame tightens, and I struggle to stay upright. I press my fingers to my forehead and close my eyes. Maybe it'll pass if I just don't move.

Hands grip my shoulders and shake me. If it was gentle, my body took it as a full-on assault. I yelp and try to scuttle away from whoever is touching me.

"Ari, what's wrong?" Eero snaps. His voice sounds like it's a mile away, though. It's also full of panic and worry. How many times has he asked me that question?

I squint up at him, but his frame dances in and out of my vision. All I can do is clutch my side and try to breathe.

Try is the keyword.

The shaky shape of Eero moves away, only to come back moments later with a flash of silver in his hand. He kneels before me and grabs the front of the men's uniform shirt. In one swift movement, the prince cuts the shirt open. I gasp in pain and my body tilts dangerously forward.

"Eero!" Amaia snaps. "What are you—"

The sight must cut her off, because her question ends with a strangled intake of breath. I look down and am shocked by the size of the red stain on my dress. The make-shift tourniquet is soaked through with blood. I touch it, softly, and my fingers come back tipped in pink.

Have I been bleeding this whole time?

No wonder I'm so dizzy.

Eero looks up at me, fire flaring in his eyes. "Who did this to you?" he growls.

"Ursus," I admit. There's no point in keeping it from him.

A muscle in his jaw tenses, and before I can stop him, Eero drops his knife and sweeps me up, one hand under my knees and the other behind my back. Just like he did the night he carried me to the palace after William tried to strangle me.

Amaia rushes over. "Eero! Put her down! She needs the physician."

"I'll take care of her myself," he whispers, heading straight for the door.

"I don't need anyone to take care of me," I choke out. "I need to be here. With Finn."

Ignoring me, Eero continues towards the exit. Amaia rambles angrily behind us, but he's oblivious. When we get there, Eero kicks the door open.

"Your majesty!" Magnus calls. "What would you like me to do?"

The prince looks over his shoulder. "Get the physician to look at your face and fill Amaia in on what happened in Epsjerg. No matter what you do, do not let either of those two men leave your sight."

"Yes, sir," Magnus says. He rushes forward to close the door behind us, muffling Amaia's yelling.

"I'm fine, Eero," I say as he starts walking towards the staircase. "Let me down."

But he doesn't respond. In heavy silence, we weave through the dim palace halls. We pass through the dining room, where plates are still laid out for Zula's breakfast. Through the entryway, where the glass door sits open and the garden stretches out in all its tattered glory. Up the stairs, where two grim-faced guards stand statuesque. Straight past Eero's study, where his books sit collecting moonlight and mysteries.

With every step, my breathing becomes more shallow.

Maybe it's finally settling over me, or maybe the adrenaline rush is ending, but suddenly, it's hard to hold my own head up. Against my better judgment, I let it fall against his chest.

Maybe this is it.

Maybe I'll die here, like my mother did.

Would that really be so bad?

Eero pushes his bedroom door open with his foot and strides across the room. I want to argue, to push his hands away and make him stop, to storm back to the infirmary where Finn is... but I don't have the energy.

I can't even fight back as he lays me down on his bed.

"Take it off," he orders. Before he can elaborate, he goes to the chest of drawers on the other side of the room. On the top sits a basin of water, freshly filled. I know that because it's one of my daily tasks. He slides open a drawer and pulls out a clean towel. I stay incredibly still, even as he turns back around. In the dim evening light, the swelling along his cheekbones and lip from his fight with Magnus is visible.

Both of us will be bruised tomorrow, but somehow, even with a puffy eye and blood seeping from a cut across his cheek, Eero still looks gorgeous. Frightening, but gorgeous.

"I said take it off, Arielle."

"You know," I whisper, cheeks turning red. "I like it when you use my full name."

He scoffs. "Don't change the subject. Take it off."

"Take what off?" I ask.

"The dress."

I tug at the front of my ruined uniform. "This dress?"

"Rød fisk—" My beloved nickname comes out as a growl, a frustrated rumble from deep in his chest. It warms up recesses in my brain that I didn't know were frozen.

"Eero, I... I can't."

He sets the basin on the floor and kneels beside the bed. "Let me help you," he says softly. He sounds so... tired. So worried. Still, I shake my head. "Do you not trust me? After all this time?"

"Amaia can help me," I say. "This is too much to ask of you."

Eero shakes his head. "I won't let anyone else touch you, Ari." His hand lifts to cup my cheek. "Never again. I promise. Can you trust me now?"

As much as my brain tells me not to—to run for the hills instead, to bury myself in the servant's yard or throw myself over a cliff into the sea rather than expose my body to him like this—the softness in his eyes is heartbreaking.

No one's ever looked at me like that.

I don't want him to worry about me, but a small part of me does enjoy being looked at like I'm a precious artifact. Like I'm a brilliant orange and pink sunset, the last one he might ever see. He's watching me like I might fall apart in front of him, and Divine, what a sin that would be to witness. Like he would give everything he has to be the one that holds me together.

This is how I want to be looked at for the rest of my life.

I put my hand over his hand and slip into the depths of his ocean blues. "Yes," I whisper.

"Good," he says softly. "That's all I need from you, Arielle. Trust."

When I don't move, Eero takes over. He slips his hand out from under mine and starts to untie the shirt I used as a tourniquet. His movements are slow and deliberate, always gentle. When the pressure releases, I heave a massive breath and wince as the hot pain begins anew.

Eero expertly unbuttons the front of my dress. His fingers never once graze my skin, even as I gasp in pain when he pulls the fabric off my raw and sticky skin. I throw my head back into his pillow and bite back a moan of agony as a slight breeze trickles through the window, igniting a searing pain.

"Don't move," he whispers, pushing off the bed. I crack one eye and watch him reach into the basin. He withdraws the towel, wrings it out, and then brings it back to me. With steady hands, he pats and wipes at the gaping wound. If I so much as twitch, he draws back and looks at my face. I have to verbally give him permission to continue cleaning me.

Never once does he look at my chest.

His hands never slip upwards.

Instead, one slides down into mine, giving me an anchor to squeeze as I fight the pain. I interlace our fingers and squeeze. Maybe if I focus on the calluses across his palm contrasting the smooth places between his fingers, the way our skin is plastered together, holding each other in place, I won't feel the fire in my stomach.

Eero's eyes are either on my stomach or my face, giving me the perfect amount of attention. How he can be so terrifying and so gentle in the same day is a mystery to me, but I won't complain.

After what feels like an eternity, he drops the blood-soaked towel back into the basin and draws a small wooden box out from under his bed. Inside is ointment and cloth.

It's a little medical kit.

"Do I want to know why you keep that under there?" I tease, letting go of his hand so that he can open the box.

Eero laughs. "Surely you know me well enough to make an assumption."

Oh, I do. It's probably so he can patch himself up before Amaia catches him.

With saint-like caution, Eero rubs the ointment on my clean wound and then lays strips of the soft fabric over it. When that's done, he takes a longer swath of fabric and wraps it around my waist several times.

"Thank you," I say as he puts his things away. He slides the box back under his bed and hands me a clean shirt. One of his, of course. It's softer than my uniform. Bigger, too. I hurriedly pull it on, inhaling the embedded scent of wood stain and salt.

"Don't," he says. "I don't deserve that. I should have been here."

"Trust me, nothing could have stopped Zula."

He glances at me as he walks over to his window to pour out the soiled water. "Who? I thought you said it was Ursus who hurt you."

I nod. "It was Ursus, but it was also Zula." His face twists in confusion. "Sit, and I'll explain."

Eero does as he's told, and I launch into a lengthy explanation of what happened in the garden. How Ursus is really Zula, my dark magic wielding uncle, and how he intended to kill both me and Eero before the day was over. How I managed to fight him off but couldn't save William or the other guards. How Josef helped me to the castle after Sam warned them all that I was in trouble.

How I'm sure Zula will be coming back.

This fight isn't over. I'm afraid it's just beginning.

"I knew my father made a mistake in trusting him," Eero mumbles tiredly when I'm finished.

"Then I guess that's something King Soren and I have in common," I say grimly. "My father tried to warn me, but I wasn't thinking." Apparently, that's something I don't do enough of here lately.

"I made it to Epsjerg," Eero says, "but I was too late. Father fell ill early yesterday morning and was dead before I could reach him." He rubs the bridge of his nose and adds, "Not that I could have saved him. It was the same sort of illness that took my mother. But I thought whoever had killed both of them was going to come after you, even if I didn't know who 'they' were."

"It had to be Zula."

He shrugs. "There's no way to know for sure, but more than likely, yes."

I chew on the inside of my cheek. "I'm sorry, Eero."

"Don't be. I lost my father a long time ago. This Soren was just a shell of the man who raised me. I barely knew him." He pushes off the bed and goes to stand by the window again. "I should have been here. I knew something was going on with Ursus, and I still left." He hits the window frame with an open palm, and the crack makes me jump.

"I'm so sorry, Ari," he says, hanging his head dejectedly.

"If you had been here, Zula would have killed you," I tell him.

"But he nearly killed you," Eero whispers, his hands clenching into fists at his side, "and I would rather die protecting you than ever have to live a day without."

My heart swells. "Don't say that. Your kingdom needs you." I take a deep breath and brace myself for what I know I need to admit. "I need you, Eero."

He turns his body halfway, and our eyes meet. I wait for the familiar golden warmth that his gaze always brings, and after a second, I feel it bubbling in the base of my stomach. It creeps up my body, settling into my cheeks. For a moment, I think Eero will come back to the bed and shake some sense into me, but he doesn't. His face just twists in unspoken conflict.

"I'll go," he says suddenly. "You need your rest."

I open my mouth to argue but snap it shut quickly.

My brain is telling me to stop. To think for half a second. It's warning me that I'll regret what I'm about to do, that it'll be a huge mistake.

I know it's wrong of me. I'm well aware that I shouldn't.

But the heat in my stomach and heart tells me otherwise. That miniscule flare of Divination calls to him, reaches out towards him with hungry, lonely fingers. It grows with every passing second and multiplies when he cuts his eyes towards me again. That stupid muscle in his jaw tenses, and I nearly lose it.

What did Zula mean when he said that it wasn't the Divine that stopped me from killing Eero? Is there something else between us?

There has to be, and that possibility terrifies me.

Do I want to figure it out? Do I want to explore this?

Eero will either be my undoing or my becoming, and I'm not sure which one will be worse.

"Wait," I say as he reaches the door. His hand drops off the handle, and he turns towards me again. I swallow. "Stay." A single breath gives me enough energy to add, "Please."

His relief shows on his shoulders as they relax. He didn't want to leave.

"Of course, Arielle."

The way my name rolls off his tongue sends happy shivers down my spine. He walks back to the bed and settles in beside me. One of his arms goes around my shoulders and tugs me into the crevice of his side. Every inch of me relaxes, molding into him. I can't help but burrow my head into his chest and breathe in the smell of sweat and fish, the faint scent of horses.

He's warm, like a sun-heated beach. Firm, like the stone walls of Hygge palace. Comforting, like the soft rocking of the ocean currents. I close my eyes and feel the way he holds me, how I fit perfectly into the space he's made for me, how he leans into me, resting his head on mine. He holds me in place with the arm that's around me and uses the other hand to hold mine, interlacing our fingers gently.

I listen to the sound of his heart falling into a relaxed rhythm, to his breathing as it washes over me, to the slight rattle in his chest.

I feel his shirt under my cheek, his hair feather-brushing my forehead, his thumb rubbing circles on the back of my hand, the crater his body makes in the bed and how it seems to be sucking me in.

Everything about him pulls me towards sleep. His body is a lullaby comparable only to the sea's serenity.

It's no ocean, but his arms might be the second best place I've ever fallen asleep.