Page 49 of Bride of Ash & Dust

“I didn’t think she’d stick around,” he continues. “Most princesses, hells. Throw them to the ground, and they’d demand your head on a pike.”

The thought of anyone throwing Lilias to the ground makes my chest feel strangely tight. I try to drown the feeling with bitter ale.

“She said she’d had some training,” I say.

Petrys shrugs. “She’s not as bad as I was expecting,” he replies. “Her reflexes are quick, but she still panics and freezes. We’re working on it.”

Gods. His words feel like shards of ice in my chest. I should be the one teaching her how to fight. Really, I should be the one protecting her, making sure she never needs to know how to use her hands and her body against someone who means her harm.

Yeah, and I should be living in a little farmhouse in the mountains with a flock of chickens and a pack of scraggly-haired feral children. I snort into my ale.

“Thank you,” I say to Petrys. And then, before I can stop myself, the words slip through my lips. “Does she ever ask about⁠—”

I squeeze my jaw shut before I can finish the question. But Petrys knows. He’s been watching over me for my entire life; he knew what I was asking before I even formed the words.

“No,” he says, with a look in his eyes that’s almost an apology. “She doesn’t ask about you. You’re keeping away from her, I assume?”

I nod, then miserably drain my second mug of ale. I should stop here; Bertha’s brew packs a punch.

“That’s good,” Petrys says. “The gods only know what the king wants with Marion, but the more distance you put between you and that woman, the less leverage Malrik has over you.”

He’s staring at me again, those dark eyes heavy on mine, like he’s trying to send a message he can’t say aloud.

“I know,” I say.

Petrys reaches over the table and squeezes my arm.

“Stay safe,” he says in a lower voice. “Remember, Marion’s not your kingdom.”

I nod. He’s right, of course. Hells, Vsenrog isn’t my kingdom either.

Still, as I walk back to the palace through a soft, spring rain that makes the kingdom feel like it’s drifting through the inside of a cloud, I think of the red satin ribbon tied around my wrists, forever binding me to the princess of Marion.

Chapter 27

Lilias

I’LL BE SURPRISED

“But why is she coming here?” I whisper to Anura.

“You think she would tell me?” Anura replies. “That was the first time one of her attendants even talked to me.”

Anura is standing behind me as I sit at the dressing table before the massive mirror my husband said is also a window. I feel like a bug trapped in a glass jar, and Anura’s news isn’t helping.

Apparently, Acelina, the acting queen, wants to pay me a visit.

This morning.

In my quarters.

Anura also said something about a seamstress, which makes about as much sense as anything else in this godsdamned place.

“Oof,” Anura says as she frowns at my arm. “What are we going to do about that?”

I stare at my reflection in the watery glass. My arms and shoulders are a patchwork of bruises from my training sessions with Petrys. There’s a spot on my left shoulder that I can feel but can’t see, from where I hit a rock as I rolled away. There are rope burns around my wrists from where Petrys taught me to escape if my hands were bound, and two palm-sized purple splotches from Petrys grabbing my arms.

I’m getting better at breaking his holds, but every time I figure out how to counter an attack, Petrys tries something new. Or several somethings. I run my fingers over my upper arm, tracing the dull outline of Petrys’s fingers.