The feeling of a wooden handle brushed against my palm. A steel blade flashed in the corner of my eye. A voice whispered in my ear.
Murderer. Traitor. Coward.
Thaan watched me in silence, his thin lips stretched over his paper-dry face. I remembered how he’d avoided water on the beach and wondered when he’d last touched the sea.
Did Naiads dry out if they went too long without water?
My throat itched as if in answer.
“The contract ends when I say it ends.”
“No,” I said firmly, my breath hitting the table and warming my chin as I leaned forward. I gazed at Thaan, who met my eyes with a hint of challenge.
“No?” he said, a warning in his voice.
“I won’t be your little slave until youdecideto release me,” I spat. “I'd rather you kill me tomorrow than wait my whole life for you to deem my freedom is necessary.”
“This is not a negotiation—”
“Kill me, then.” I sat straight, my eyes hardening on the older man, who looked at me as though he was tired of the sight of me. “Three years,” I said. “I’ll kill prince whoever-he-is and you’ll let me go.”
I must have lost myMihauna-damned mind. I didn't know how to kill people.
Thaan scoffed at the wall. “My dear girl, your full training might take ten.”
“Five,” I compromised. He glared at me.
“Fifty.”
I balked at him. “I’ll be seventy-two when it’s done, and you’ll be dead.”
His smile grew wicked, but he didn’t answer.
“Ten,” I said, though it was past the amount I was willing to agree to.
“My dear, I need you for a war that might not be declared for another twenty.”
“That’syourproblem,” I said, knowing I stood on uneven ground. “Find someone else.”
Thaan tapped his fingers together. His eyes narrowed, and he didn't move. I wasn’t sure he was even breathing.
“What a shame,” he said slowly. “What a waste.” He stood, walking one step at a time to stand in front of the window, his arms crossed behind his back. “What will your father say, when he hears you’ve been burned as a witch? What will he say when he himself is arrested for witchcraft, tried, and burned as well?”
I glared at his back. He turned around, facing my heat, meeting me with his own cold flame. “Perhaps the problem is endemic to Leihani. Perhaps the entire island should be torched.”
I stood, hands braced along the edge of the table, refusing to be bullied into a contract with no ending. “Until the end of war, then.”
Thaan considered my suggestion. He tapped his fingertips together under his jaw, searching me with his eyes. I raised my chin, warning him with my entire bodily presence: this was my last offer.
He inhaled. Exhaled. Then strode forward and pointed at the corner of the contract, where the wordprincesswas written in black ink. “Until you are named queen.”
I stared at him in utter shock. “Youaremad. I can’t be a queen.”
“Why not?”
“I know nothing about running a kingdom. I can barelyread.”
“Your reading can be improved. As for running a country, it is ludicrous to believe you’d actually be doing so. The King doesn’t even run his country. He is merely a face and a voice for people to see and hear.”
