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Vanya squirmed under my searching eyes. What had the curse prevented her from saying? How could I even guess what was going on in her head? I could not push her anymore. Not when the result might be death. No matter what lies she’d told, the conspiracy she’d been part of, I cared too much. On the river barge, I’d struggled not to stab Heridan for looking at her. If speaking risked her life, I regretted each time I demanded answers.
“I need a moment with Mariska,” Tempest said carefully, as if checking what my reaction would be.
Not long ago, I would have insisted on being present to protect my innocent cousin from her trickery, now I simply nodded.
The relief washing over her face was a balm on my torn nerves. If she could smile like that, she truly was fine.
“Perhaps it’s best no one sees us together,” she continued. “If I’m alone no one would look twice but I imagine many know you. We both have places we should be, people to meet…”
She was sending me away. Something I had not even considered before struck me, jealousy souring my mouth. Perhaps she had someone waiting. Someone who knew the true her. Someone she could speak to without nearly dying. How could she make me so sure and insecure in the same moment?
She’d stayed in Tal to help, and here I was swearing secret vows to protect her, as if she was mine. I could not afford to forget myself. There was too much at stake to dream of lingering looks.
She had shown me how wonderful she was—kind and brave, free but somehow fragile. When I caught her, she fought with elbows and smiles, when we played and strategized a brilliant mind, creative and sure, shone through. Not like a scholar or general, but artist and inventor making the mundane seem new. She moved as if each step was the start of a dance. Despite how life had beaten her down, she seemed not even away how jaded it would have made most. She bent and never broke. She was someone I had not even known to wish for.
She deserved better than all this—me and whoever cursed her, pulling her into danger and plots. I’d just promised to protect her. Could I be honorable enough to let her go?
I stepped back, bowing like I would have to the Oberwaldian princess. “I’ll leave you to it then. Your debt to me is paid—if there ever was one.”
I spun on my heel and escaped into the empty stairway, desperate to run from emotions tearing apart the little ice still inside me.Aloneagain, a deceptive voice that sounded like my father whispered.A king is always alone.
A life I did not want. Was revenge worth—
A small hand closed around my arm, the grip light enough for me to walk away. A solid handhold in the storm inside me.
Tempest pressed against my back. “You don’t get rid of me that easily. Meet me on Third Street, North’s Place at eighth bell tomorrow.”
“Why?” It came out louder than I intended. The lone word echoing up and down the white staircase. “I won’t force or guilt or blackmail you.”
She lightly turned me around. “You don’t have to. I told you; I want to help. This can’t be goodbye… there are things I can’t tell you, but perhaps I can show you.”
Deep in her emerald eyes swam flecks of gold, brilliant in the sunlight streaming in through the tall windows.
“What do you really want? Why do you wait every night?” I asked. “Tell me that at least.”
“You. I want you and am unable to walk away.”
She stared up at me, like she had at the drinking hall when I thought, maybe, we could still… I had moved away. It had been the right thing to do. To deny the pull she had on me from the start. Proper. Sensible. Impossible.
You.
Not a crown or contract.
You.
Not prestige or promises.
When I pulled her close, when she tilted her head and wetted her lips, when I allowed myself to taste them again, my tongue flitting against hers, I thought of no one else. Nothing else.
Rightness replaced confusion and doubt as our tongues tangled. One taste could never be enough.
I had convinced myself it would not be the same when I knew who she truly was. That it’d been the act which drew me in, and she had felt like mine only because of the marriage contract. That I had fallen for someone who never existed.
Lies.
The woman in my arms remained everything I desired. More, considering what she had overcome. And at least while our lips caressed, our hands clung, and our breaths caught, she was mine.
“Your Highness,” a gruff voice said in my ear, and I spun, pushing Tempest behind me.
