Chapter 18
T his inn was everything I remembered it to be, from the mouse droppings in the corner to the ramshackle walls, and the stew that could only barely pass as edible.
Still, it was better than no food, which was a reality my people faced every day. So I took the unappetizing bowl and gave Kirill coin to pay for extras for the nearby villagers, walking upstairs with all the enthusiasm of a man walking to the gallows.
I had known from the moment Kirill mentioned Korov that the rooms at this inn only had one bed. On a practical level, I had anticipated it and already resigned myself to the implications.
But I hadn’t yet dredged up the desire to fight with my dear Lemmikki over it. She seemed more the type to work herself up into a fit than out of one, so I didn’t delay as long as I might have liked.
When I entered the room, though, she didn’t appear angry at all. Instead, her brow furrowed, her head cocking slightly to the side. The innocent, questioning look was accentuated by the frilly, washed out monstrosity she donned once again. I sighed.
Only a princess would see the single bed in an incredibly crowded inn with more bodies than space and think she wouldn’t have to share. Besides, it wasn’t as though I trusted her safety—or her intentions, for that matter—any more than I had the night before.
I explained those things in my very most patient tone, holding out the bowl of soup. Surprisingly enough, she still didn’t bristle in indignation. Instead, she only matched my sigh, looking at the bed like she wished she was asleep on it already.
“Where would I even go?” she demanded in a tired voice.
I shrugged, tucking away the uncomfortable feeling I had at seeing her display a rare bit of vulnerability.
“With the common sense you’ve displayed thus far, the possibilities are limitless. Would you walk directly into a bear cub den, or simply hand yourself over to the nearest Unclanned?”
Her eyes narrowed in offense, her expression turning imperious.
“I suppose I won’t bother to argue if you’re that committed to sleeping on this floor,” she said, finally taking the bowl.
My arse, I was sleeping on the unwashed floor.
“ You are more than welcome to the floor, if you so desire it,” I countered. “Perhaps I could even get you a little cushion to curl up on like the estate cat has. Never let it be said that I am unkind to my pets.”
Her lips parted. Ah. There was the outrage I had been expecting.
“Need I remind you that it was you who insisted on stopping early for the night?” It was slightly unfair of me, since there actually had been a storm, but it wasn’t as though I planned on us sharing a bed. “The inn we planned on stopping at was another soldier’s inn; plenty of rooms with two beds. But you wanted to stop here.”
“Need I remind you that we would likely be dead or…at least, seriously injured by now if I hadn’t?”
She was right, of course, but I wasn’t about to tell her that, so I breezed on past it. “I’m surprised that bothers you, what with your lack of self-preservation skills.”
A wicked half-smile graced her lips, her eyes narrowing. “Well, as fun as it would have been to watch you get caught in that storm, I wasn’t about to risk Kirill. Speaking of whom, if you’ll point me in the direction of his room, I’m happy to stay there. Or in the stables, for that matter.”
From spies to Korhonan to Kirill, she certainly wasn’t inhibited. I did wonder vaguely how she would feel about him if she knew he was guilty of the same sins she attributed to me, or if her affection was just that easily won by the smallest modicum of politeness.
Not that Kirill didn’t deserve her admiration, fickle as it may be.
“How quickly you go from concerns about your propriety to wanting to jump into bed with one of my soldiers,” I reminded her. “In any case, I doubt Kirill’s wife would appreciate that.”
“I—” she sputtered, another one of her bright blushes creeping onto her skin.
“Unfortunately for you,” I interrupted, “I won’t force my men to suffer through your company, and the stables are off limits for obvious reasons. So again, your options.” I gestured to the floor that I was sorely tempted to insist she sleep on, to the bed I had no desire to share, wondering if it was worth it to make that decision for her and have her keep me up all night with her complaining.
She stared at the floor long enough that I wondered if she would make that choice all on her own, just out of sheer stubbornness. Then she huffed out a resigned breath.
“Fine,” she said, her tone all noble self-sacrifice. “Just…keep your hands to yourself.”
I blinked, scanning her before I could help myself: the petite frame, wide hips, ample…curves, evident still, even in the ruffled lump. Perhaps in another life, with another set of circumstances, in which she was wearing something I couldn’t picture on my several times great grandmother, I would have been tempted.
But that was not this life, and that was not a road I would go down with any prisoner, let alone her .
Besides, I doubted even her precious Korhonan would have wanted to touch her when she was wearing the hideous nightdress of an ancient spinster.
“Well, it would help if you had worn something less provocative,” I assured her. “But somehow, I’ll manage.”
Her lips twitched, her eyes lighting up as she choked on what I could have sworn was a laugh. I tried to imagine another lady laughing when I insulted her outfit, but then, Rowan wasn’t a lady by any Socairan standard.
A fact made even more evident when she finally grabbed her soup bowl, staring down at it with an expression of unbridled horror.
Her shoulders twitched as she barely suppressed a gag. As if on cue, a fish head floated to the top of her broth, its one eye lifelessly staring back at her.
I amused myself for a few minutes by watching her war with herself on whether or not to eat the offensive soup, though it was decidedly less amusing when I worried she was going to vomit it all over our tiny shared room.
In Socair, or at least in Bear, we didn’t waste our food. Resources were hard to come by, and we prided ourselves on making each of them count.
Old fish bones notwithstanding.
The princess covered her mouth while I took a deep sniff from the bowl. It was truly revolting, even by poor village standards. The broth was heavy with the smell of stale ponds and briny, dead fish, along with a hint of mold and rust.
But no matter how much I wanted to toss the entire bowl into the fire, I kept my expression neutral. I took a swig from my bowl trying to ignore the greasy and metallic tang that coated my tongue and teeth.
It was like licking the bottom of an algae-covered pond, and my stomach lurched in protest. Still, I put on a pretense of satisfaction, as if I was actually enjoying the stew.
Or I tried to, anyway, even as a gag rose in my throat. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need, except that there seemed to be a challenge in everything we did. She must have felt the same urge, because she squared her shoulders and met my eyes, choking down the rest of her soup as fast as she reasonably could.
It was a nice distraction from the encroaching reality of sharing a bed with someone I didn’t trust any further than—well, I could probably throw her fairly far. And I trusted her much less than that.
I would be sleeping with the only weapon in the room on my person, at least.
The silence stretched on for a whole twelve seconds after she finished her soup before she broke it.
“Why did you believe me about the storm?” she demanded, every inch the spoiled princess.
That was an excellent question, one I had no intention of parsing through myself, much less with her.
“What makes you think I did?” I evaded her. “Perhaps I was only reading between the lines of your apparent shyness.”
“Ah, yes,” she agreed amicably. “That damnably reticent nature of mine. Then why weren’t you surprised when the storm hit?”
It was nice to know she paid at least marginally more attention than I had previously assumed.
“Maybe I was, and just not everyone wears every feeling they have for the entire world to see,” I skirted again.
“Maybe you’re avoiding the question,” she pointed out, searching my features for something I didn’t want to give her.
This felt like an entirely different version of her, somehow—like the storm or the nightgown had broken down some barrier between us that I was just as happy to leave in place. It was easier to think of her as the wayward, ridiculous princess, to forget that she was a mostly innocent person when I might still have to weigh her life against the good of my clan.
Because I wanted to avoid a war, I wanted to give her back to her father unharmed…but I would also do whatever was necessary to keep her out of Iiro’s power-hungry hands.
She certainly wouldn’t be the first innocent slain by my hands.
I forced myself to hold her gaze, while I told a rare, outright lie.
“I don’t pretend to have a superior understanding of the weather, Princess, and really, I had little to lose. If you were wrong, we lost half a day on the road. If you were right, we avoided both the inconvenience and the potential hazard of traveling in a storm.”
It wasn’t true. I had more to lose than that, but it was enough to get her to drop the subject with a last, dubious look.
Now we only had the much more surmountable task of sharing a bed for the evening.