Page 73 of The Masked Princess

“Perfectly fine. I don’t need my left arm to defeat Nelan.”

Annalise raised a perfect eyebrow but said nothing more as her lady’s maids stepped forward.

“I told you that you’d need us,” Priscilla said as she handed a tin of salve over along with a dagger.

“You two were supposed to be far away by now,” Annalise hissed, her voice nearly obscured by the hum of conversation that had broken out among the courtiers.

“As if we couldn’t tell that something was up or see the new stitches in your gloves. You are far too quick to send us away and march grim-faced to your doom. Your mother was the same; it must be a family trait,” Elsabeth whispered reproachfully as she set a steaming bucket of water on the ground with a small cloth next to it.

“Did you know?”

“About your plans? We suspected something, yes. I’d never have expected Captain Kierson to come back from the dead, though,” Elsabeth said.

“Neither did I, but it is a blessing that I will praise the Goddess for until the day that I die.” Annalise looked between her two friends with tears in her eyes as she washed the worst of the cuts from Soren’s face.

At her soothing touch, he allowed himself to relax and conserve his strength.

“Any chance I can convince you two to leave while you still can?” Annalise murmured, keeping her voice low.

“None, and even if you could, I doubt the guards would let us go now.”

“In that case, I fear you may have signed your death warrants.”

“I don’t think I need to remind you, Your Majesty, that every day working with you was laced with danger. Perhaps we’ve just grown to like a little extra thrill.” Priscilla’s grin was fierce. She dropped into a curtsy and retreated. “Now, if you’ll excuse us. We’ll be waiting for Captain Kierson’s victory.”

Annalise watched her two lady’s maids walk to the edge of the open space with a stricken look as she tended a cut on his eyebrow, and Soren nearly reached up to soothe her, but his left arm wasn’t feeling up to the task.

Still, she noticed the twitch of his shoulder, and a deep frown settled over her face. Annalise grabbed the hem of her dress and started cutting, ignoring the scandalized gasps of the crowd.

“It’s a good thing this train is so long,” she said as she sliced off a long strip of silk before setting it to the side.

“It’s a beautiful dress, and a pity you have to ruin it.”

She looked at him, blinked twice, then shook her head as she rolled the strip into a manageable bundle. “It doesn’t matter. I’m so glad that you’re alive, Soren. When I heard you’d died… my heart…” She swallowed and looked at the ceiling as if to keep her tears at bay. “You shouldn’t have come here. I don’t know where you’ve been, and I can’t imagine what Nelan did to you, but you should have escaped back to Dovea to warn them of what was coming and Nelan’s plans.”

“And leave you here? To be wed to that monster? Do you really think so little of me?” Soren dropped his voice. “The knowledge that I would take my revenge on him for everything he’s done and everything he planned to do to you was what kept me going.”

She lowered her voice to a whisper as she moved to the side, leaning forward until her mouth was next to his ear under the guise of wrapping the long cloth around his body, securing his left arm to his torso. “I had a plan. I would never have let him live past today.”

“They would have killed you for it.”

The smile she gave him as she returned to his front was tremulous. “If it’s my fate to die today, so be it. At least this way I could have done something good for my kingdom.”

“Spoken like a true queen,” Soren said.

As Annalise pulled away and secured the wrapping, Soren’s eyes fell to her lips, then searched her face. She was the most exquisite woman he’d ever seen, and when their eyes met, his heart stopped beating for a moment. In a room full of royalty, nobility, and finery, he only saw her.

“The Goddess has truly blessed me with the chance to see you again. I’ve had so many days to think about my regrets, to think of what I would tell you if I had just one more chance to speak with you.” Tears filled her eyes as her voice broke, but she didn’t look away. “I suppose it’s just my luck that the words fail me now when I need them most… but I hope you’ll understand when I say that I would have adored a life by your side, even as a poor shepherd’s wife.”

“And what of a life by the side of a poor western Dovean lord?”

She snorted as she gave his face and neck one last pass over with the washcloth and dabbed more salve on the deepest cuts. “I don’t think anyone would call you poor considering the wealth of your forests and flocks.”

He took her gloved hand in his ungloved one. “A life without you in it is a poor life indeed.”

The moment between them stretched like a thin cotton thread, heavy with the weight of what was to come.

Annalise looked down at the hand Soren held. Her jaw tensed, and she looked up at him with renewed resolve, covering his hand with her free one. “In that case, if we make it through this, I think I’d like nothing better than to make you a very rich man, my dear Soren.”