I glared rather than continuing to sputter. If that was what she thought of me …
“Everyone will assume the worst,” she continued in that cool tone, her face a perfect mask again that betrayed none of her true emotions. Perhaps I’d imagined she had any. “Especially the emperor. You’ve ruined Me.”
I straightened. “We have witnesses.”
Lia shook her head minutely. “Your loyal companions. They wouldn’t be believed.”
“Believe this, Your Highness,” Sondra said, her voice harsh as Merle’s. “I know something about rape. I would never stand idly by and allow it to happen. Not even for my king. I’d cut his cock off first. Begging your pardon, Conrí.”
Unwillingly, I smiled. Especially when I caught the look on Lia’s face. “She would, too.”
“I appreciate your attempt to console Me, Lady Sondra,” Lia replied stiffly. “But that does nothing to salve a reputation I’ve spent most of My life building.” She leaned her elbows on the desk, delicately bracing the wig and crown, groaning softly. “What am I going to do?”
“We should have the wedding immediately,” Ambrose said.
Lia looked up, blinked, long and slow, the crystals on her lashes chiming musically. “There won’t be a wedding. Anure will execute Me for allowing his emissary and guards to be slaughtered, not marry Me.”
“Oh no!” Ambrose laughed, shaking his head, and Merle added soft caws. “You’re correct in that. But you were never meant for Anure, child. I meant for you and Conrí to marry. That will preserve your reputation and satisfy the prophecy. Although it will have to be a marriage in truth.” He waggled his eyebrows at us. “No marriage in name only. Can’t leave Anure any loopholes.”
Lia leveled a fulminous glare on me.
“What?” I held up my hands in defense. “I didn’t say it!”
“He’s your wizard,” she shot back in icy tones.
“Actually, I’m my own wizard,” Ambrose said genially. Merle cawed and flapped his wings. “All right. True. I’m Merle’s wizard, if anything.”
“I’m not marrying Conrí.” Lia declared her decision with the finality of a queen accustomed to being obeyed. Though I had no wish to marry her, either, it put my hackles up that she’d rather marry the imperial toad and sacrifice her life to him than even entertain the thought of being shackled to a brute like me.
“You asked me how to find an heir for the Abiding Ring,” Ambrose said. He tilted the staff so it caught a ray of sunshine and shot a spear of emerald light at my face.
“Hey,” I protested, squinting and holding up a hand to block it.
“Him?” Lia loaded a world of incredulity into the one word. “You want Me to make him the heir to the orchid ring and the kingdom of Calanthe.”
“No, no. Perish the thought. That is not something Conrí could ever be.”
I scowled at the amusement in the wizard’s protest. “Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Ambrose bowed a little, completely without irony. “No, I mean the legitimate children of your marriage. There will be heirs for you, I promise.”
“Except that I have no intention of marrying this man.” She wouldn’t even look at me as she said it.
“But you will,” Ambrose assured her. “It’s what has to happen.”
“Is it?” I asked him. If I’d truly been a king, had something to offer her, and if we lived in a different, kinder world, maybe I could’ve wooed Lia, convinced her that … what? Even if we’d met in that world, I don’t know what I could’ve offered her. It didn’t bear contemplating, as that boy, that man I might’ve been had disappeared along with everything else. Though I wasn’t Anure by any stretch, I also didn’t blame Lia for fighting being forced to take a husband like me. “Surely there’s another way around the prophecy.”
Ambrose gave me a long look. “You’ve suffered greatly, Conrí. I believe you can endure this, too.”
Was that mockery? I could swear I caught a glimpse of bitter betrayal in Lia’s eyes before she drowned it in impassivity. “Don’t concern yourself,” she told me sweetly. “I won’t force you to the altar.”
I ignored her and kept my gaze on Ambrose. “Do you promise that if I marry Her Highness, everything will fall into place for me to destroy Anure and end his reign?”
Lia laughed, sharp, the bitter edge riding it. “A foolhardy and grandiose ambition.”
“And yours are small and petty, limited to one tiny island.”
She rose to her feet and leaned toward me. “At least I kept My tiny island intact. How is Oriel these days?”
Sondra made a small, shocked sound. Even Lia seemed taken aback by her very well-aimed taunt, a glimmer of regret in her eyes.
“In ruins, thanks,” I replied, for once not caring how like a dog’s low growl my voice sounded. “Which is entirely Anure’s fault, so I will have my revenge, regardless of your opinion. Ambrose?”
“Yes,” he replied simply. “I would not mislead you about this. Marry the Queen of Flowers and together you shall destroy Anure and his empire.”
I nodded, something about his careful wording bothering me. I really wanted to ask what he would mislead me about, but this wasn’t the moment. “All right then. You might not want to force me to the altar, Your Highness, but I have zero compunction about dragging you there. That’s the price of being my hostage. Before the sun sets, my sweet, you shall be the bride of the Slave King.”
She paled, visible even under the makeup. At last I’d found a weakness in her formidable armor, and I couldn’t find it in myself to enjoy the moment. Too bad that it was the prospect of being bound to me that did it, but as Ambrose pointed out, I’d suffered worse before this.
“You can’t force Me to take vows,” she asserted, but she sounded a hair less certain than before.
“You’ll do it to rescue your reputation,” I informed her.
But she shook her head, forcefully enough that the crown wobbled and she had to put up a hand to steady it. A hand that trembled. I felt like the brute I was.
“I’d rather be disgraced than wed to you,” she replied with quiet dignity, and depthless obstinacy.
“You are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met,” I snarled at her.
To my surprise, she smiled, as if I’d given her a compliment. “I’ve often noticed,” she said, in a conversational tone, “that people always call Me stubborn—though rarely to My face, I’ll acknowledge—when I won’t do what they want Me to do. I won’t do it, Con. You can physically force Me to the altar, presuming you find a way to hold off My guards, but you cannot make Me speak the vows.”
I studied her slim and straight posture. Did she realize she’d called me by my name just then? Perhaps so, as her eyes held an appeal I might’ve called desperate in a less resolute personality. She thought she’d called my bluff, but then she thought I was a fool and she’d made a mistake there.
“Time for us to talk, Lia,” I said, using that same conversational tone.
She raised a sardonic eyebrow. “And here I thought we had been.”
I smiled without humor for her sally. Plucking up the discarded brandy, I tossed it back. I’d meant it to be mocking, to demonstrate that I could take anything of hers that I wanted to, but it went down like a dream of golden summers long since lost. Unable to resist, I poured more, sipping this time and savoring. “That’s really good stuff,” I admitted.
“Nothing but the best for the Queen of Flowers,” she replied, voice heavy with irony.
I toasted her with the glass, sipped once more, and set it down. Much as I’d love to have more of the ambrosial liquor, I couldn’t afford to slow my reflexes. There would be fighting yet to come that day—and not only with my lovely fiancée.
“Ambrose, Sondra—would you leave us alone?”
25
I nearly called the pair of them back when Ambrose offered Sondra his arm and they strolled out onto one of my balconies, as if at their leisure to admire the sights, even whi
le the pounding on the doors accelerated. Con waited for them to go and pull the glass doors shut behind them, then turned that blazing gold gaze on me.
I braced myself. I didn’t think he’d hurt me, but he had a way of getting around my arguments. In truth, my previous convictions were in tatters. All my careful plans, dashed to pieces. Furious as I was, I couldn’t help reveling in the sweet relief that I wouldn’t have to get on that ship. I wouldn’t have to face Anure, yield to those cruel and grasping hands. Give up my life when I hadn’t yet lived.
Not yet.
Con studied me, assessing me like the enemy combatant I was. So I attacked first. I raised a brow at him. “Did you want privacy so you could compromise Me in truth?”
The pounding on the doors stopped abruptly and ominously. They must be formulating a new plan.
He ignored both that and my taunt. “What will it take?” he asked. He poured me some brandy and slid it to me.
I eyed it and him calmly, offering him no opening.
“What will it take to convince you to marry me, right here, right now?” he clarified.
“Are you attempting to bribe Me?” I asked, making sure to sound incredulous.
“If that’s what it takes, yes.” He glanced around the room. “I obviously have little to offer you that you don’t already have, but I would vow to do my best to give you whatever you ask for.” He grimaced slightly. “If nothing else, I’m good at living up to my promises.”
I opened my mouth, found I had no words. “Why does it matter to you so much?” I finally asked.
He looked around, spotted one of my elegant chairs, and snagged it. Tapping its seat, he seemed to be checking its sturdiness before settling his weight on it and stretching out his long legs, folding his hands over his flat abdomen. He watched me with those unblinking wolf’s eyes.
“You say nothing matters to you more than protecting Calanthe? Well, nothing matters more to me than destroying Anure and his false empire.”
“Everything they say about you is true,” I said, pleased that he flinched, even if barely. We’d learned very quickly how best to wound the other.
“That’s right.” He inclined his head. “Ambrose says marrying you will get me what I want. I’m willing to give you whatever you want to make that happen.”
“I want My freedom,” I told him, surprising myself that I blurted it out. “And Calanthe’s,” I amended hastily. “Can you give Me that?”
He considered. “I took mine, by force of might, as you know. So, yes. I can promise the same freedom I have, which is something.”
“The questionable freedom of an outlaw,” I pointed out.
Smiling wolfishly, he acknowledged that. “Better than none at all.”
I snorted disparagingly.
He sobered. “And far better than the bastardized version of freedom you have labored under all these years.”
With no reply to that, I had to look away. Out the window to the fantastic beauty of Calanthe. For no good reason, I had to struggle not to weep.
“Lia.” He waited until I looked at him again and, all seriousness, leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “I promise I’d fight for you and Calanthe. I’m a good strategist, and a better fighter. Warriors more skilled than I am follow me willingly.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile, as if that surprised him. “I have vurgsten in great quantities, both with me on my ships and cached in various locations. More important, I hold Anure’s mines at Vurgmun with my own people, so he can’t acquire more.”
“He’ll have plenty stockpiled,” I pointed out, unable to help myself.
Nodding, he sighed for that truth. “It would be good to find out how much he has.”
I laughed for the impossibility of that. “You’d need spies on the inside at Yekpehr.”
His gaze didn’t waver from my face. “I’m betting you have them.”
Had I thought he’d believed my act, fallen for the helpless and fragile ornament I’d pretended to be? Apparently not. If nothing else, this man—this deposed and enslaved prince—saw through me in a way no one else did. I couldn’t judge him for what he’d suffered at Anure’s hands. He’d survived what would have broken a lesser man. So had Sondra.
“This would be a marriage in truth,” I said slowly, pondering the possibility of actually doing this. “No pretenses. Even if Ambrose hadn’t set those boundaries, I’d insist on them.”
Con nodded once, eyes on mine. “I accept those terms.”
“What about Sondra?” I asked then, working to keep the caustic jealousy from my voice and eyes. Not many marriages on Calanthe demanded fidelity of the partners or multiples, but I’d had little opportunity to explore my emotional tolerance for such things. Judging by how I felt now, I wouldn’t be generous about Con continuing to be her lover.
To my surprise, he dropped his face in his hands scrubbing it, then raking his hair back. “She punched me, you know,” he said conversationally, “for telling you I love her.”
That sounded like Sondra, from what I’d observed. “Jeopardized the game by revealing that secret, did you?”
“What?” He looked briefly confused. “No. Because we don’t love each other that way. She’s my closest friend. What we went through in those mines…” He looked haunted, haggard, gazing out the window. Then shook it off. “I can’t tell you what happened to her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. But I could see it now, that deep connection between them, that went beyond anything as simple as friendship.
He coughed, cleared his throat. “I am not … good at talking. But Sondra is like a sister to me and—” He broke off again, throat working, and he studied his interlaced fingers.
“It’s good to have someone like that,” I said, mostly to give him time to compose himself. He’d dropped some of his hard shell to talk to me this way, and I hadn’t expected to see this person through the cracks. Oriel. Something niggled in my memory. Not a crown prince, but a princess. Not Sondra, I thought, but perhaps Con’s blood sister.
“Why didn’t you tell Me who you are?” I asked.
His glanced up, eyes hard again. “This is who I am.”
“Conrí, crown prince of Oriel.”
“I was,” he conceded, mouth tight. “Long ago, when such things mattered.”
“They still matter,” I replied.
“To you,” he sneered.
“The world cares,” I replied, refusing to rise to his bait. And the land cared, but he might not know that. I had no idea if the kings and queens of Oriel had observed the old ways. Even if they had, Con might’ve been too young still to know it.
“Do they?” Con snapped back. “Forgive me if I haven’t seen much evidence of that.” He propelled himself from the chair. Restless as the wolf in my dreams, as if the chains dragged at him still, he paced to the window and stared out. Then he spun and pinned me with that relentless, determined expression. “What else—or are we done?”
“We’re done,” I agreed. I waited, but he only watched me, also waiting. Had I expected some kind of formal proposal, the warrior bending a knee to request the honor of my hand? No, clearly he had no affection for me—or any real regard, given his contempt for me and what I stood for in his mind. “I’ll marry you,” I clarified, mostly to end the détente, and stood. “Let’s get this over with.”
At least he wouldn’t be as bad as Anure. And I could stay on Calanthe. Until Anure brought his warships to destroy us. The palace towers falling into the sea, the waters boiling with blood. Fire, death, and destruction. The wolf begging me for help, and me breaking and bloodying my fingers on his chains. The dreams had been driving me to this moment all along. I supposed I should’ve capitulated to the demands of fate long before this.
Calanthe had warned me in the beginning, and I couldn’t refuse Her.
Con watched me with that wolf’s wary golden gaze, and I realized I’d lifted my hands and stared at them, the orchid ring’s petals moving with their trembling. Composin
g myself, I let my hands drift to my sides and I raised my chin, gathering what regal poise I could. I allowed a slight, curious smile. “Well?” I asked. “What is your plan now?”
He offered me a smile, wry and self-deprecating. “Let’s just ask our pet wizard about that.”
A booming thud hit the doors, making me realize how long they’d been quiet. A painting fell off the wall, clattering to the floor. “Best hurry,” I advised.
With a nod of agreement, Con strode across the room and delivered the news. Neither of them seemed surprised as they returned, Ambrose congratulating me warmly and Sondra eyeing the shuddering wall askance.
Con grimaced, looking to Ambrose. “I don’t suppose you thought this through, what you’d do to get us out of the corner you trapped us in?”
“I was mostly focused on making sure the marriage would occur,” Ambrose admitted. Merle danced from foot to foot on his shoulder, muttering an agreement.
“We could open the doors and announce our impending nuptials to My people,” I offered politely. I might’ve tried harder to trick Con that way, if I’d thought I could.
He barely bothered to toss an annoyed look at me. “And have your guards storm in and slaughter us? I don’t think so.”
Ah well. Couldn’t blame a girl for trying. Old habits die hard.
“We can’t stay in here forever,” Sondra reasoned, pacing over to the window and leaning out to scan the walls in every direction. “Given time, we could maybe climb out, but I think we don’t have time.”
Another heavy boom resounded, and plaster shattered where the painting had been. “Ah,” Ambrose said with a note of regret, “they’ve figured out to come through the walls instead. Won’t be long now.”
“Can’t you magic the wall, too?” Con asked.
“No.” The wizard shook his head. “Walls aren’t doors, you know.”
Con briefly closed his eyes, muscle in his jaw pulsing. I tended to sympathize with his frustration. Magic users have such a different understanding of the world that their logic—while eminently reasonable to them—often seems absurd to others. Especially to a man who preferred a hammer and a bag of rocks to other weapons, I was sure.
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