When I looked down at her, I only wanted to kiss her. I had to remind myself that she would never be mine.
Her magic would be the greatest secret she would keep. The human realm didn’t desire magic—they didn’t understand it at all.
Sir Edward approached me as I pushed back the door to my chamber. “Lord Fyn, I must speak with you in private.”
“Certainly, come in.” My draped tunics lay across the chairs. I probably should have put them in the wardrobe.
Edward shoved one aside as he peered around the mess I had made of the room. “They’ve altered the next shipment of ore.”
“Altered it how?” I already had enough to contend with. I didn’t need this too.
“A full cartload less for the same amount of coin.”
“We won’t pay the same for a cartload less.” There was nothing I could think of that would justify this. “Have they mentioned why it was adjusted?”
“Lord Remus claims resources are scarcer than they once were,” Edward said. “But I saw another cartload prepped after we were informed.”
“Where is it going?” Lioran let them off easily in the negotiations. They were our primary source of what he currently coveted most. Now we would pay for it.
“I can’t confirm what I suspect, but the timing coincides with the arrival of Bailoc’s emissary.”
It could have been a coincidence that they’d send someone when Ashlyn was here. I had far too much experience to believe it was one. “And the nature of their arrival?”
“One of the men overheard they’ve formed an alliance with them. It makes the timing?—”
“Highly suspect. Find out whatever you can.” My throat tightened. Lioran’s interest in the ore would spark Agan’s. He would go for whatever we wanted.
I couldn’t care less about the ore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ASHLYN
Alack of sleep tormented me until the sun rose.
Every dream I momentarily slipped into replayed fragments of our conversation and memories of the bed we never should have shared.
If only I had listened and not drunk the fae wine.
When the night grew too silent, I thought only about the look in his eyes, the way something in me responded to it. No matter where I directed my thoughts, they kept returning to him.
A cruel and lingering hope nagged at me—that humanity could still fill the void that had formed within me.
I closed my eyes, desperate for sleep to take me, so I didn’t have to think on any of it any longer.
Maybe I was more like my mother than I thought.
When Eva came in the next morning, I pretended to be asleep only so I could give myself another hour with my eyes shut. They burned too greatly to open them any wider. But it only bought me a sliver of time.
She was significantly louder the next time she entered, setting the breakfast tray abruptly on the table. The clang of metal on wood jolted me.
“You must rise. The court will talk if you sleep the entire morning away.” Eva wrung her fingers around the pale lavender cuffs of her sleeves.
“What exactly will they say?” I couldn’t think what there would be to discuss. “Does Estlen not value sleep? Or perhaps they do not value a princess in a good mood.” I pressed my lips tightly together so that I wouldn’t say anything else.
“I am not paid enough for this,” she muttered under her breath.
I was certain there were many times my ladies’ maids in Bailoc uttered the same sentiment. “I am up. What is the agenda?” I pulled my loose locks across my back until they flowed over my shoulder.
