CHAPTER FIVE ISI
CHAPTER FIVE
ISI
The summons came with breakfast.
A steward delivered it on a silver tray alongside toast I couldn’t eat and tea that turned to bile in my mouth.
“His Majesty requests your presence in his office at your earliest convenience,” she said, giving me a bow and leaving without awaiting a reply.
Earliest convenience. As if I had a choice but to go right away.
I dismissed my ladies, unable to focus with them fluttering around. My hands trembled as I dressed, selecting a pale blue gown that made me look younger, more innocent. The princess mask felt heavier than ever as I mentally settled it into place, smoothing my features into dutiful compliance.
Pherin had left to hunt and hadn’t returned, but I would handle this on my own.
Every step toward my father’s office with Victor pacing behind me felt like I was walking to my execution.
I catalogued everything as I moved through the castle. Two guards stationed at the library entrance when there had never been one. New locks on the armory door, heavier than before. A patrol passing through the east corridor when that route was usually empty at this time of the morning.
My father was fortifying his castle. The question was, against who?
The closer I got to his office, the more obstacles appeared. A checkpoint at the main corridor junction, guards who’d never been there before, demanding to know my destination. I smiled and explained I was summoned.
Another patrol forced me to step aside and wait as they passed, their eyes lingering on me longer than necessary.
At the final turn before my father’s wing, I found the hallway completely blocked. Six guards in full armor stood in formation, checking even a servant with a duster in her hand.
“State your business,” the captain said when I approached.
This wasn’t routine security. Did my father want me to feel the weight of his power before I even reached his door? All of this could be designed to remind me that I was in his domain now, subject to his will.
Or he was paranoid about something.
“Princess Amarissa,” Victor said from behind me, his voice carrying an edge. “Summoned by His Majesty.”
I’d never seen these guards before, and I knew everyone. New hires, then.
The guard’s eyes swept over me before he stepped aside. “Pass.”
By the time I reached my father’s office door, my palms were damp and my breath came shallow.
Outside his office, I pressed my hand against my belly, trying to calm the nausea rising up my throat. I had to be ready for whatever waited beyond this door.
After sucking in a deep breath and releasing it, I knocked.
“Enter,” he called out.
The office was exactly as I remembered. Dark wood paneling, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, his massive desk dominating the room like a throne.
The door to his adjacent parlor was partly open, and I heard someone moving in the room beyond.
Sometimes his advisors would wait there while he dealt with whatever issue was at hand.
Me, this morning.
My father sat at the desk, his head bent over papers as he wrote something in his precise, controlled hand.
He didn’t look up.
I stood in the shaft of sunlight streaming through the window behind him, trying not to feel exposed and vulnerable, while he made me wait. Each second stretched for eternity, the silence broken only by the scratch of his pencil on paper.
My gaze caught on an extra chair positioned across from his desk. Someone else may have been here before me. Or was coming. His advisors always stood; none had ever been invited to sit.
Who else did he expect here today?
Dread hit me like a fist to the gut. Had he arranged a marriage? Was I about to meet some lord’s son, a political alliance wrapped in smiles and lies?
Finally, my father set down his pencil and looked up.
“Amarissa.” He rose and strode around me, assessing me from every angle like a predator with its next kill.
I kept my spine straight and my gaze forward, even as every instinct screamed at me to run.
He completed his circle and settled into his chair again, the power dynamic clear. Him, comfortable and in control. Me, standing, exposed, and waiting for him to dictate whatever it was he’d called me here for.
“As I mentioned last night, I’ve made arrangements for your security,” he said, steepling his fingers in front of his chest. “Victor was adequate for a temporary measure, but I need someone more permanent, a person with the right skills to ensure any impulsive episodes on your part are halted.”
My heart slammed against my ribs. “Father, I don’t need—”
“I’ve hired someone who comes well recommended.” He leaned back in his chair, watching my face. “A mercenary from the northern borderlands. He has no connections to our court and no loyalties except to the coin I’m paying him. He’ll make sure you behave.”
Northern borderlands. A stranger. Someone who would report my every movement and trap me more thoroughly than any locked door.
“You will obey him at all times,” my father said. “I don’t have time to watch over you myself.”
The old Amarissa would’ve rebelled, questioning why I needed to be watched.
Isi had one task here and no interest in drawing attention.
“Of course.” My voice came out steady despite the panic clawing at my throat. “Whatever you think is best.”
“Good.” He looked past me toward the parlor. “Come.”
A figure stepped into the room. Tall. Muscular. Light brown hair.
Golden eyes catching the light like precious metal.
My knees went weak, and I froze for a beat. My heart didn’t just race, it exploded, shattering into a thousand pieces that reformed in the span of a single heartbeat.
I’d recognize those eyes even if I lived a thousand lifetimes.
The way he held his left shoulder slightly higher than his right.
The unconscious flex of his fingers against his thigh, the same tell I’d watched during tense situations.
Even magically disguised, his stance remained unmistakably his, with his weight balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to move, fight, and protect.
Heat crawled up my neck as my gaze traced the length of him, cataloguing every detail my body remembered.
The way he breathed, deeper on the inhale, controlled on the exhale.
How he’d stand close enough to a doorway to control it without blocking it.
The precise angle of his head when he listened, filing away information for later use.
Every cell in my body screamed recognition while my father’s eyes tracked my reaction. I forced my expression to remain politely curious, but my pulse roared so loud I was certain everyone in the room could hear it.
Don’t react. Don’t breathe differently. Don’t let anything show.
The rest of him was wrong. His hair was lighter, sandy brown instead of dark, and styled differently. His build appeared more slender, less obviously powerful. A fresh scar cut across his left cheekbone, still pink and healing. Part of the disguise?
But those eyes. Fates, those eyes.
I dug my nails into my palms hard enough to irritate the cuts I’d received last night, using the pain to hold myself steady.
“This is Blain Torreth,” my father said.
Even his name tasted wrong, like poison on my tongue. He was Trew, Trewyn, the king who’d held me through thunderstorms and showed me I was worth fighting for.
Not this stranger wearing his eyes.
“A pleasure to meet you, sir,” I said, dropping into a curtsy.
It was agony using formality when I wanted to run to him. Pure, exquisite agony.
Blain—Trew—moved closer, beginning a slow circle around me that mirrored my father’s inspection. I felt the heat of him as he passed behind me, close enough that the air shifted with his movement. Close enough that I caught his scent beneath his disguise. Cedar and citrus, faint but unmistakable.
My body wanted to lean back into him. I locked my knees, fighting the instinct with everything I had.
“She doesn’t look like much trouble,” he said, his voice pitched slightly higher than normal and his accent like those living in the northern territories. Everything about him was wrong except his eyes.
My cheeks flamed.
“Bit tall for a woman.” He moved to stand beside me, though still angled slightly my way. “But manageable.”
The audacity.
He leaned close and lowered his voice for my ears alone. “Though I expect you’ll require extensive…discipline. Daily sessions at minimum. Perhaps multiple times a day until you learn proper obedience.” With a sardonic lift of one eyebrow, he faced my father. “I’ve guarded more challenging charges.”
For a heartbeat our eyes met, and I found fury there. Cold, controlled, devastating fury. Was he angry I’d left or was this part of the act? I couldn’t tell, and not knowing terrified me.
I dropped my gaze like a submissive princess would when what I wanted was to glare right back, to grab him and shake him and demand to know if that anger was real.
My father laughed, the sound rich with satisfaction. “I like him already. Exactly the firm hand she needs.”
She, as if I was a thing to be watched over. Not a person with thoughts, feelings, and needs.
Trew reached out and adjusted my necklace, his fingers brushing my neck. “Every impulsive decision has consequences, Princess. I’m a very thorough man. When I commit to a task, I don’t stop until it’s fully complete. No matter how long it takes. No matter how much you might beg me to finish.”
His touch burned through me like lightning, like coming home, like every desperate prayer I’d whispered into the darkness since I’d left him.
He was close enough now that I could see the pulse hammering in his throat, racing despite his controlled exterior.
Hmm. Not as unaffected as he appeared, then.
“I’ll keep a good eye on her,” Trew said, turning back to my father. “She won’t leave my sight.”
Was that a threat or a promise?
“Excellent.” My father waved a hand toward us. “Take her back to her chambers. Familiarize yourself with her routines. Do not allow her to wander.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
“Let me know if you need further assistance.”