He blinked at her, clearly taken aback by the question. Then he laughed, though it had a bitter edge. “Where else would I go? Yes, I’ll be a few years behind you, due to my egregiously late start.” He grimaced self-deprecatingly. “But Father won’t have me go be a sorcerer for anyone else. Zoopathy might not be glamorous, but I’ll make myself useful. Besides, I’m family.”
At a loss for words, Rose groped for the hopefulness, the sunny glow she usually gleaned from Sebastien, however borrowed it might be. She came up empty.
“You’ll be family, too,” Sebastien told her, as if reassuring her, dipping his chin toward the still-open jewelry box sitting on the table, the gorgeous opal gleaming accusingly in the morning light. “A literal princess!” His happy smile faded again. “Unless Soren didn’t make the offer yet? You never said last night. If not, he assuredly will. I know that much. Father wants you.”
She’d braided her hair too tightly in her tense frustration.“I’m not allowed to discuss the offers,” she answered. “They’re confidential until I sign.”
“Not even with me?”
She could hear the surprise in his voice, maybe a hint of hurt, and she was glad she’d chosen not to look into his face, instead staring at her own reflection. How could she accept King Soren’s hope-ending offer? She would perhaps have Sebastien, but if she signed that terrible contract, she would never be free.
What is freedom?a voice whispered in her mind.
You don’t know that you’ll ever earn your way free anyway.
You don’t know what you might miss, marrying a man who doesn’t truly love you.
You don’t know that you’ll ever find anyone else whose touch you enjoy.
Chains strangle more than happiness.
The various voices argued with each other, a damning chorus.
“Not even with you,” she whispered. “Not yet. I made a vow.”
“I understand if you can’t tell me details, but at least assure me you received the offer.”
She met his earnest gaze in the mirror and, finally, nodded. His joyful grin burned so that she had to avert her gaze again.
“Our future is so bright!” He rubbed the dogs’ heads so their tails thumped with mirroring happiness. “Isn’t that right, girls? I’ll work hard and it won’t be long before we join your mom at Castle Vega. Then we’ll have a grand wedding and begin our lives together. I will always, always take care of you, Rose. We all will. You know that, right?”
“I know.” That part wasn’t the problem. She fastened rose-bedecked ribbons to the ends of her long braids.
“I’m going to pay a visit home,” he said, suddenly resolute, “and talk to my father. I understand you can’t say anything about the contract details but I can make sure of things for you.”
“You can’t leave the academy. You’re in the middle of classes.”
“I am a prince of the realm,” he pointed out with rarearrogance for him. “Madame Hendricks answers to my father, not the other way around. Besides…” His green eyes sparkled with mischief. “It’s not as if they’re going to expel me.”
As he knew it would, their private joke made her laugh, but the humor felt hollow, worry gnawing away at the once-certain core of how she felt about him. The words crept up to the tip of her tongue, to ask him to have the king change some of the provisions of the contract. But then she would have to explain her reasoning, to break her promise and risk Sarah’s life. “No, you don’t need to go. Let’s see how things play out.”
He cocked his head, as if he hadn’t heard her correctly. “What do you mean, play out?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t know much of anything right now. What if I end up somewhere else?”
“Somewhere else?” he echoed incredulously. “Why would you even consider anywhere else?”
“I don’t know.” She threw up her hands, helpless to control the direction of this conversation. “If I get a better offer from some other… place.”
“Aren’t Soren’s terms good enough? Because that is something that can be fixed. That’s why I want to go visit my father. Just tell me what’s in the contract you’re not happy with.”
“I cannot say,” she answered through clenched teeth.
“Why not?” Flinging himself up from the chair, he paced away, then braced his hands on the sill of one of her windows in the round tower room.
“I made a vow,” she said quietly, not for the first time. “It’s a matter of honor.”
“Is it?” he asked coolly, turning to lean his exceptional ass on the window ledge, crossing his arms and his feet at the ankle, so that his thigh muscles bulged. “You’ve never been overly concerned with matters of honor before this, dark one.”
