by K. A. Tucker
To that, he says nothing.
The procession veers right, away from the rookery and uphill, and I sense we’re making our way back to the castle. The moment we turn onto a quiet street, away from the spectators, Zander releases my waist and puts space between us.
The return ride is silent, save for the plod of horse hooves, and I’m relieved for it. When we reach the courtyard by the stables, the boy from earlier rushes up with the step stool. Zander is the first one to dismount, offering me a stiff hand while I descend.
I expect him to release me the moment my shoes land on the ground, but he pulls me in toward him. The move is so unexpected, I stumble a few steps and fall against him, my palm landing on his chest. He easily secures my balance with a hand on my waist, keeping me in place, our bodies pressed together.
He leans forward and I inhale sharply, bracing myself for our sham to lead to a kiss I have not yet mentally prepared for. His mouth moves to my ear instead. “Do not think for a moment that you are fooling me,” he whispers, his bottom lip grazing my lobe. “This lapse in memory may be genuine, but I know you are hiding something.”
Despite the tension between us—or maybe because of it—his proximity makes my pulse race. But his accusation stirs my panic because it’s true. I am hiding something. I’m not entirely sure what, though.
I’ve already learned simple denials don’t work with Zander, especially not when he has already decided on an answer. “You’re one to talk,” I say instead. He’s been guarding every morsel of information I receive, feeding me in small increments as he deems sufficient.
“I’ve hidden many things from you,” he admits, releasing my hand to slide his fingers over the small of my back. To anyone watching, we must look like a couple about to make up after a fight—our expressions somber but our touches intimate. “Some, for good reason.”
I gather my courage and tip my head back. “Maybe we all have secrets for good reasons.”
“Perhaps. But I will uncover yours, eventually.” His eyes drop to my mouth, and I hold my breath, an odd, conflicting mix of dread and anticipation stirring within.
Abruptly, he releases me and storms away, as if suddenly desperate to have me out of his sight.
Chapter Fourteen
“Where are you taking me? This isn’t the way to my rooms.” The color scheme and moldings are similar, but we’ve climbed another flight of stairs and I don’t recognize any of the busts that sit on the plinths.
“To your new rooms, Your Highness,” comes the wooden response. Guard pushes open a set of double doors. “The queen’s quarters.”
I gape at the suite I walk into. “Seriously?”
He spares me no more than a strange frown before pulling the door shut behind me.
But … the queen is dead, I think to myself as I wander through the luxurious sitting room, decorated in rich shades of eggplant, gold, and blush. It’s a ballroom, easily three times the size of my previous cell block, its ceilings soaring and windows allowing daylight to stream in. A magnificent candelabra dangles in the center. Gilded furniture upholstered in silk and damask fabrics form an area for entertaining by a grand marble fireplace. Arrangements of fresh ivory and blush blooms in urns embellish throughout.
A cupboard door slams shut somewhere within the suite. I follow the noise to an adjoining room—the bedchamber. It’s no less exquisite, the rich plum-colored walls adorned with opulent moldings. An enormous bed sits at one end, dressed in ivory and gold, its stately, velvet-clad headboard reaching halfway to the ceiling. Another fireplace and smaller seating area occupies the other end.
Corrin bustles around in her usual flurry. When she notices me standing at the threshold, she makes a point of slapping the pillows she’s fluffing extra hard. “You’ve certainly been busy this morning, Your Highness.” Her clipped tone suggests that’s meant to be a slight.
“Yes, handing out coin to the poor. How dare I?”
Her mouth hangs a beat, as if caught off guard, but she regains her composure quickly. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen a fox invited back into the henhouse after the slaughter.”
She doesn’t trust me. Is it because she’s human and she doesn’t buy into Wendeline’s theory, or is there some other reason for her contempt? “I didn’t ask for this. It’s what the king wants, so why don’t you question him about his choices? I’m sure he’d love to explain himself to you.” How much does Corrin know about Zander’s scheming? Obviously enough to know that I’m no less guilty in his eyes now than I was this morning, otherwise she wouldn’t dare give me such attitude.
She harrumphs but says nothing more.
The clang of metal against metal draws my attention to the open doors. I wander out onto a deeply set terrace, adorned by bursts of red geraniums and sun ferns in planters. While navigating the halls inside left me lost, from outside, I’m quickly able to find my bearings again. The vast royal grounds are still within view, only from a different angle.
I’m in the center portion of the castle. From here, a long, narrow walkway along the exterior wall connects to another sizable terrace. I’m almost positive it’s the one Zander was standing on that day.
The king’s chamber.
He has moved me next to him.
Smart, given we’re to keep up appearances of a relationship. Whoever in the royal household helped Princess Romeria is likely still within these walls, watching. If Zander has decided I am innocent of any wrongdoing, it wouldn’t make sense to keep me locked up in another wing.
It’s a strange concept that the king and queen would have their own bedrooms. Whether they would use them as such is another matter, I guess. But given our situation, it’s ideal. I’m sure Zander would rather sleep in a pit of vipers. I can’t say I feel much differently.
And yet, the memory of his arm around my waist and his thighs against my hips lingers.
“You fight with Malachi’s wrath fueling you today,” a man says through ragged breaths. “What bothers you?”
Directly below me is the sparring square. I immediately recognize Elisaf’s curls. He has removed his royal uniform jacket and dons a leather vest that shows off sinewy arms and tawny brown skin. He’s facing off against a man with golden-brown hair whose every step oozes grace and confidence.
“Do you yield?” comes Zander’s measured response, the sword blade dangling within his grasp. His green jacket lays folded on the nearby grass, leaving him in black pants and a loose white tunic. He must have headed straight here after the ride through the city, in search of something to stab.
Even from this vantage point, I can see the sweat glistening across their brows.
“Have I ever?” There’s that teasing lilt in Elisaf’s tone. It’s coupled with a swagger that does not exist when they are king and guard. In this square, they are friends.
Elisaf lunges, and they fall into a well-timed dance, twirling and deflecting, their moves and countermoves fluid and practiced.
I’ve witnessed knife fights before—clumsy jabs and shuffling feet as one opponent swings their pocketknife at the other in hopes of connecting with flesh.
This? This is art, their footwork impeccable, each turn swift, each strike precise.
But where Elisaf’s breathing has turned ragged, Zander looks like he could fight in his sleep. Fueled by Malachi’s wrath, Elisaf had said. The black-horned god who enjoys releasing demons upon the land.
The threat to Zander’s throne must be significant for him to stomach this scheme with me.
Zander blocks a thrust and then with lightning-quick reflexes, pivots and swings. His blade slices across Elisaf’s biceps. I gape in horror as my night guard drops his sword with a clatter and grasps at his arm, his grimace laced with pain. Blood pours between his fingers in rivulets, splattering the dirt below.
“Fates, are you trying to send me to Za’Hala before dark?” Elisaf says between gritted teeth, his face turning ashen.
“If only.” Zander seems unperturbed, but he hollers to
someone unseen. “Fetch Wendeline!” To Elisaf, he says, “Here. Staunch the blood with this,” and peels his shirt up over his head, tossing it to his friend.
I cringe at the gaping wound revealed in the split second it takes Elisaf to grab the cloth and wind it around his arm.
“I apologize. My head is not focused on the right things,” Zander says somberly.
Neither is mine. While I’m still fretting over Elisaf, I find myself quietly admiring the smooth olive skin and cut planes of Zander’s back. He’s built but not brawny, his muscles evenly distributed. I’d sensed the strength in his arms while bracketed between them earlier today, but now I can see they are perfectly honed, his shoulders sculpted with strength, likely from countless hours of swordplay.
“Your Highness! The seamstress is here to take your measurements!” Corrin announces loudly from the threshold, drawing both men’s eyes up to where I lurk above. A shirtless Zander turns, giving me an eyeful of a torso thickly padded with muscle.
I rush inside, my cheeks burning.
Where Corrin is a sopping towel thrown over a lit hearth, Dagny is the party guest who radiates warmth the moment she steps into the room.
“Oh, Your Highness! This one was surely spun with you in mind!” The short, stout seamstress holds up a gauzy, bluish-gray fabric against my cheek. “The merchant said it was the color of a dove in the evening light, and he would be right!” She was sent here to take my measurements so she can craft me a new gown, and she hasn’t stopped prattling on since she laid eyes on me. There’s not a hint of animosity to be found in her flamboyant personality or her thick, lilting accent. If I had to put her in any camp, it would be in the “dear, sweet Princess Romeria could never have done such appalling things!” category. It’s a nice change from Corrin’s surliness.
“Look at that color against your skin. What a lovely hue.” Dagny’s brow furrows as she tilts her head and studies the material from that angle. She wears the telltale gold band on her ear and the engraving—a symbol I can’t read—matches the one on Corrin’s. I assume it’s a brand for their servitude to Zander and the royal family. Her hair is coarse and feathered with gray, the strands fraying in all directions from her bun like loose wires. Compared to everyone else I’ve seen in the castle so far, she’s an unkempt anomaly. It’s refreshing. “Don’t ya agree, Corrin? Isn’t that the ideal color?”
“I think any time you’d like to stop flattering and take measurements so Her Highness doesn’t have to attend gatherings in her nightgown would be ideal,” Corrin says crisply.
I spear my attendant with a flat look. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Someone else’s mood to sour? The woman never lingers in my rooms. This is new. Then again, everything today is new, and changing rapidly.
Corrin folds her arms over her small bosom. “I am exactly where I need to be.” To Dagny, she says, her tone a touch more conciliatory, “Her Highness has much on her schedule. Please do make haste.”
I have a schedule now? I glance at Corrin, but she doesn’t elaborate as she helps me out of my dress.
Dagny gasps at the sight of my shoulder, visible in my shift. “Goodness, Your Highness!”
“Yes, yes. They are dreadful,” Corrin dismisses. “The king would like them covered.”
Her words are a sharp prick to my ego.
“Are the stories true, then? About the daaknar?” Dagny whispers, as if afraid to utter the words out loud.
“Of course not!” Corrin snaps, glaring at the seamstress like she’s an idiot for even suggesting it. “If a daaknar did that to Her Highness, she would be dead.”
“That’s what I understood, but the stories …” Dagny blusters, her cheeks flushing.
I feel bad for her. Her kind heart is no match for Corrin’s brusque nature.
“Her Highness was attacked by one of her own when she tried to stop the insurgents. They used caco claws on her.” Corrin shoots a sharp glare my way, as if warning me against countering her lie.
“Oh, those wicked people.” Dagny’s head shakes furiously. “Such wicked people, what they’ve done to their own princess. Oh yes, I have just the design in mind for you, Your Highness.”
“So, you’re going to make me a dress.”
She chortles, as if my words are hilarious. “Well, yes, I am Her Highness’s seamstress. I will make all your gowns. New and proper ones that will hide what needs to be hidden.” She sets to measuring my body, as if suddenly frantic to get to work.
“Would you mind not making it so … poofy?”
Dagny’s eyebrows squish together. “Poofy, Your Highness?”
“Poofy.” I gesture to my hips, holding my arms out wide, and then point to the dress I wore today. “I’d like something a little more formfitting, and not so heavy.” I think back to the one I was wearing the night I met Sofie. I’ve seen nothing remotely similar in style so far.
“But that is the style for women of the court!” Corrin blurts, as if my request has personally offended her, adding crisply, “Your Highness.”
Maybe it’s time for a new style, I want to say, but I’m supposed to be blending in, not shining a light on the fact that I’m an interloper. At least I can be thankful these outfits don’t come with hoops and bum rolls. “The king was annoyed by it while riding through town.” And God forbid we annoy him.
Whatever rebuttal Corrin was lining up dies on her pursed lips.
“Formfitting.” Dagny scratches her chin. “I don’t suppose I know what ya mean by that?”
“May I?” I hold out my hand toward the rudimentary pencil in her grasp.
She obliges with a curious frown.
I pause for a moment to marvel at the pencil’s design—the graphite wrapped in stiff string to keep markings off fingers—before quickly sketching a silhouette on the sheet of paper on the coffee table, the long strokes of my hand a comforting routine from my old life. If only I had paper and pencil to occupy my time. “Something like that?”
Dagny’s head cocks as she studies it. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. Do they have gowns like this in Ybaris?”
I have no idea, and in any case, Princess Romeria wouldn’t remember, but it’s clear Dagny isn’t within the trusted circle. “Just an idea I had,” I say instead. A dress that “fell off the truck” with the help of Korsakov’s men. I adored it but passed it over for fear it was too opulent and flashy to wear in a place where I needed to go unnoticed. But it would fit well with the dress styles I’ve seen here so far, and this gauzy material Dagny brought would be perfect for its design.
“May I take this with me?” Dagny holds the sketch as if it’s a prized possession.
“Yes, of course.”
“I’ll see what I can do. And I promise, the king won’t see those ghastly marks.”
I don’t care what the king cares to see or not see, but I bite my tongue and watch with fascination as Dagny measures and fills a page with scribbled numbers, all while prattling on about her husband Albe and her son Dagnar—I assume, named after her. When she’s done, she curtsies four times, gathers her bolt of fabric, and rushes out, all while humming to herself.
The room feels uncomfortably quiet once she’s gone.
“What are caco claws?” I ask.
Corrin collects the dress I wore today, smoothing the skirt with a forceful hand. “A weapon they use in Seacadore, made to look like a beast’s talons.”
How appropriate. “Did the king say he didn’t want to see my scars?” I can’t be the only one in Cirilea to have them. Abarrane wore hers proudly. I assume she earned it in battle. Well, so did I, in a way.
Her eyes flash to me. “It isn’t about vanity, if that’s what you’re asking. Both Wendeline and the king feel that the fewer people who know you survived a daaknar attack, the better. Information is a commodity, and anyone with too much can become a danger. Besides, you’ll garner more sympathies painted a victim of your own mother than you will as an immortal who has defied certain death twice.
”
Corrin knows far more than she has previously let on. Who is this human to Zander that he would trust her so? Clearly someone who knows the inner workings of the court and how to survive.
She marches into a small room off my bedchamber while still talking. “Dagny is a rare talent as a seamstress, but she’s also an insatiable gossip. It works to our benefit on this day. She will spread that version of the story through the castle faster than a family of rats finding their way to a barrel of grain. Of course, no one with half a brain in their head will believe those scars were caused by caco claws, even ones forged from merth. But we will cover them as best we can to hide the fact that you were injured by something far worse. Soon, the gossip will focus on more important things. Like your nuptials.”
She emerges with a black dress. “I had your full closet transferred here. Most of it isn’t sufficient, but Dagny will make a few capelets for you. This should work for today.”
“Wait—he doesn’t actually expect me to marry him, does he?” This is supposed to be an act to lure my accomplices.
“Why don’t you question him? The king would love to explain himself to you,” Corrin parrots my earlier snipe nearly word for word, capping it off with a triumphant smirk. “Come. I will draw you a bath and then you will begin to learn how to behave less like a peasant and more like a future queen.”
A firm knock sounds on the door to the sitting room moments after the bell gongs five times.
I frown from my spot on the settee. My only visitors since I’ve been imprisoned have been Corrin, Wendeline, and Annika, and they’ve never knocked before entering.
“Come in!” I holler.
The door creaks open and Zander strolls through. “Your manners are impeccable,” he says dryly.
A flutter of nerves stirs in my stomach at the sight of him. I stand and take a deep breath, reminding myself that we’re now temperate allies.
He looks fresh and clean in a black-on-black embroidered jacket. How many of those does he have? I’m sure at least as many as there are gowns in my dressing room. Princess Romeria traveled here with a wagon full of luxurious outfits for her role as queen.