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“No, after it.”
I slide my gaze toward my mother, whose lips pinch, and back to him. “Excuse me?”
He stares for a moment and shrugs. “I truly care not about your illicit escapades, Kirran, but you will respect the marriage covenant once you make it. Is that clear?”
My skin bristles. I tighten my hold on the fork. “What are you talking about?”
Mother tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and leans toward me, her voice soft as she speaks. “You were seen leaving the servants’ quarters in the middle of the night.”
“Indeed.” Father’s brows lift as he peers at me over his goblet. “I suppose you patched things up with her, then?”
My stomach twists for more reasons than I can pinpoint. Of course he’d have someone keeping watch, someone to spy for him, lurk like an insect on the wall amid private conversations. I probably should’ve expected that. Royalty affords little freedom or solitude.
“What I did last night has nothing to do with you.”
Mother inhales, but he speaks before she does.
“But what you did has everything to do with Servant-Alia.” My father shakes his head and glances toward the arched window laden with amber and red glass. “As I said, I care not. So long as you stop doing it after tomorrow.”
“I did nothing with her.”
He casts a knowing yet cold look my way and chuckles. “Think what you will, son, but I am no fool. When a man argues as intensely as you did back then, well — it stands to reason that there is a reason. And now that you’re back, of course you seek to rekindle that passion. Who could blame you?”
I just look at him. Heat crawls under my skin. Beside him, my mother tips her head down and presses her fingertips to her forehead. Her shoulders rise and fall with a lengthy sigh, like they spoke of this already.
My father stares back at me, something between amusement and annoyance tugging at his face. Then his golden eyes harden. “However, I’ll not have whispers among the court of your extramarital indulgences with the half-breed help. You must produce at least an heir and a sparebeforeyou start bringing illegitimate offspring into the fold.” The side of his nose wrinkles. “Especially ones with no chance at magic. Thank the forest that none of your previous dalliances with her were fruitful.”
I stiffen my spine and stay silent as he resumes his meal like he’s said nothing inappropriate or presumptuous. Mother avoids my gaze but appears less disturbed by the topic than she is exhausted by it. I’m sure she’s heard more than a little of his ranting this morning. He and I have had this argument a few times. He’s never believed that Alia and I weren’t intimate. Surely, if I’d rebelled against him by choosing a servant, I must have abandoned the morals of my upbringing too. Not one of our conversations has ever resulted in him listening to me. Or caring what I think, what I want. And what I absolutely do not want.
Yet I am no fool either.
For I know the natural laws of the fey. In order to pass on magical capabilities, royal blood requires the same. Or, at the very least, noble blood. Alia’s spring fey father was a duke with impressive healing magic. Had he married a spring fey — or any fey, really — Alia likely would’ve inherited something significant as well. Spring fey may be our opposite in every way, and there is no shortage of simmering animosity amid the grudging alliance we have with them, but fey are fey. And among my people, royal blood recognizes royal blood.
Regardless of her father’s status, the fact that she’s half-human, the daughter of a common human ambassador, means she has no magic. She can’t produce a magical child, even if she married royalty.
Our marriage would end my magical bloodline.
When I was the fourth prince, it wasn’t as much of a concern, yet my father still wouldn’t hear of it. He would lose his mind if I broached the subject of marrying her now.
Disgusted thoughts blare through me.
Are you truly that pathetic? That desperate? Have you forgotten the last seven years of heartbreak and betrayal?
I grind my teeth together, but my mind isn’t finished.
You’re willing to give in so easily — just because she touched you?
My chair scrapes across the floor as I shove up from the table. Mother offers a regretful smile and looks away. Without acknowledging my father, I spin on my heel and blow out of the dining room. Every step unleashes another snarled thought, borne of a defensiveness I thought I’d severed from myself years ago.
Because it isn’t the touching. It’s the talking. Her words, her warmth. Her willingness to seek the truth with me when she has lived the last seven years thinking I rejected her and feeling like I broke her heart. And cruelly. It’s the fact that she was afraid of me but stayed to converse with me anyway. It’s how she still holds on to a sliver of hope and doesn’t let go of it, no matter what stands against her.
Her touch has always undone me. But it’s never been about her touch — it’s only ever beenher.
I can’t let myself think beyond today. Can’t consider the fact that being with Alia would require failing the parents who have no other son, who have already lost so much. It would possibly mean abandoning the broken family I have left — and leaving my nation and its people vulnerable, at least until a proper heir could be named, from among my cousins or even the unborn children my brothers’ widows carry.
Maybe there is something in that. A loophole somehow. For now, all that matters is getting to the heart of whatever happened. If I can fix it, I will.
We’ll find out the truth and go from there.
