Beneath the table Roa elbowed her new husband hard in the ribs. Surprised by the movement, Essie flexed her wings to stay balanced on her shoulder. Dax jolted awake, eyes widening as he let out a softoof!But instead of sitting up and paying attention, instead of showing any sign of remorse, he yawned loudly, then stretched—drawing full attention to the fact that he’d fallen asleep.
As if he wanted everyone to know how little he cared.
More men and women around the table glanced at Roa. When she looked from one face to the next, each and every one of them averted their gaze. As if humiliated on Roa’s behalf.
These were the same people who’d put their trust in her when she asked for an army to help Dax dethrone his father. And here they were, watching her now with shame in their eyes.
Daughter of Song,she could hear them all thinking,what have you done?
Their stares scorched her. Roa’s fists clenched in her linen dress. She desperately wanted this meeting to be over. But the treaty scroll was still collecting signatures.
Roa looked to Dax, who was yawning again.
“Do we bore you, my king?” She didn’t even try to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
“Not at all,” he drawled, his attention snagging on something across the table. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”
Essie shifted restlessly from claw to claw as Roa looked where Dax did: to the young woman who’d just entered the pavilion. It was Roa’s cousin, Sara, a tray balanced on her hip.Her brown curls were tucked in a bun and held in place with an ivory comb. On her wrists were three bracelets made of shiny white nerita shells.
As Sara collected cups of cold tea from the table, she smiled brightly beneath the king’s gaze.
Roa reluctantly remembered the night previous. After a round of drinking games with her brother and cousins, Dax had openly flirted with the women of her household, Sara among them. It was something she’d had to get used to: Dax’s flirting.
Roa was pretty sure he’d flirt with a dragon if he were drunk enough.
She looked away from the king and her cousin. She didn’t want to see the smiles passing between them. Didn’t want to know how far the game had gone.
But there were only two other places to look: the embarrassed faces of the house representatives or that empty chair.
It was an unbearable choice.
In the end, Roa chose the consequence of her broken promise. She stared at Theo’s chair as if he were in it, staring back at her.
Sometimes she let herself wonder what her life would be like if she’d kept her promise to him. There would certainly be no king in her father’s house flirting with Roa’s cousins and humiliating her in front of the people she loved most.
And there would be no one keeping the scrublands safe.Essie’s voice rang through her mind. Those talons squeezed Roa’s shoulder affectionately.Dax’s father would have bled us dry.
Essie was right, of course.
You did what you needed to do, Essie told her, brushing the top of her feathered head against Roa’s cheek.They all know that.
Truly, Roa had done it for every scrublander, Theo included. She would not allow another Firgaardian king to take whatever he wanted from them. He’d already taken enough.
Roa looked to Dax as she stroked Essie’s soft feathers. When the scroll came to the king, he signed it, then took a pinch of sand from the bowl in front of them and sprinkled it across the wet ink. After it dried, he blew off the sand, rolled up the scroll, and gave it to Roa.
The relief in the room was palpable. The king was now bound to his promises. They would finally be free of Firgaard’s tyranny.
Voices rose, talking and laughing easily now that it was done.
When a jug of wine was brought in, Roa frowned. It had been years since her father served wine to his guests. Few people in the scrublands could afford it anymore. She wondered what her family would give up this month in order to compensate for the indulgence.
Oblivious, Dax poured the wine into two red clay cups, then looped his arm lazily around the back of Roa’s chair. Startled at his closeness, Essie flew off Roa’s shoulder.
Roa, who was more used to the weight of her sister’s imprisoned form than the absence of it—whose shoulders bore eight years of tiny scars from Essie’s claws—went immediately cold at the loss of her.
Dax bent toward Roa, holding out a full cup.
“To peace,” he said softly, the peppermint smell of him enveloping her.
