Chapter 92

Mara's POV

A wall stood between Ronan's bed and mine. By midnight I hated it.

The refuge was built of mountain granite, but the wall carried sound with humiliating ease. A chair scraped across his floor. His boots fell one after the other. He crossed the room twice and swore so softly I might have imagined it. I listened for the familiar creak of his mattress. It never came.

I had spent the day aware of everything we could no longer do without thought: his hand at my waist on a stair, his knee finding mine beneath a table, the way he used to lean against me while reading over my shoulder. The memory of his warmth was more precise than any diagram we had made of the Crown. I rolled over. My sheets rustled. If I could hear him, he could probably hear me.

“Ronan?”

The chair stopped movi