Chapter 45
A nother week went by in the same manner.
After a long day of working to stay in my father’s good graces, it did nothing to improve my mood to come upstairs to Yuriy’s barely concealed disappointment. The outline of a card deck was in his pristine coat.
For the love of every storm in Socair.
Instead of turning to go to my rooms, I veered directly to hers, wrenching open the door on its hinges.
It would have been hard to spot her miniscule form nestled in her mass of black blankets if not for the bright red curls spilling out like rivulets of blood.
I took a deep breath, willing that image from my mind before I stormed over to her bed. She blinked blearily up at me, not even remotely startled by my entrance.
“Are you ill?” I demanded.
“No.” Her tone was bored, unaffected.
She didn’t even move from where she was cocooned in the covers.
“Are you plotting something?” I seriously doubted it, but it was incumbent upon me to at least ask.
“No,” she replied in the same flat tone.
“Then why have you not left your rooms?”
She blinked again, still not moving. “The rooms you ordered me to stay in?” Rather than fiery, the words were almost a polite inquiry.
I wasn’t sure whether I should be concerned or appalled at her general lack of dignity, not that it was unprecedented, in and of itself. But this was something else.
“An order you have never followed,” I reminded her.
“Well, now I am. Congratulations. You finally have an obedient captive princess.” She finally moved, but only to shift herself to face the other direction. “If there’s nothing else you require, feel free to see yourself out.”
I clenched my jaw, biting back a growl of frustration. I couldn’t honestly believe I worked this hard for her to stay alive just for her to lay down and die over…
“Tell me this isn’t you mourning your ill-fated relationship,” I spat.
That got a reaction, at least. She rolled back over and actually sat up, her curls sticking out wildly in every direction.
“Are you actually mocking me right now for the grief that you caused?” There it was, the righteous indignation I had grown so accustomed to. “How exactly did you expect me to feel, to deal with any of this? You took me from my only family here, from a man who loves me.”
Interesting that she didn’t say a man who she loved. Perhaps she was being more honest with herself in the wake of all her overwhelming tragedy.
“You took the hope that I could see my family again when the pass opens,” she went on, her tone more heated. “That I could hug my sister and tell her I’m all right.” Her voice broke, and for the smallest fraction of a moment, I saw something beyond the spoiled princess pining for a man she barely knew.
Kirill’s words came to mind, and I had to acknowledge that she had taken longer to wallow in her situation than most people would have.
Even if her blame was grossly misplaced.
“You have taken everything from me,” she all but yelled. “And now you want to mock me?”
She closed her mouth abruptly, just in time for my own jaw to drop, my sympathy evaporating once again in the wake of her overwhelming ignorance.
She had no concept of what it was to lose everything, no clue as to how close she had come to being stripped of her life and what little dignity she bothered with.
“Trust me, Lemmikki, I haven’t come close to taking everything from you,” I assured her.
“Am I supposed to thank you for taking me but not killing me?” she shot back.
Yes, actually, that would be appropriate, considering how many times I’ve been tempted.
She must have read the answer on my face because she scoffed.
“I might be a cliché, Evander, but I am not the only one here. Another brutal Socairan lord. What the hell do you even have to be so angry about, anyway? Shouldn’t you be happy? You got what you wanted, and all it took was destroying a person’s life.”
I didn’t know where to begin with any of that. She wasn’t wrong about my brutality, but this was so far from anything I wanted that it was laughable. Besides, her life was hardly destroyed .
“And I would have done—have done—far worse to keep my clan safe,” I snapped, blinking back visions of heads severed cleanly from the bodies they belonged to, piles of ashes where homes used to be. “Keeping a single person somewhere she’s been unharmed for a handful of months really hardly rates at all.”
“Sure, I’ll just be unharmed here for a few months, and losing my fiancé !”
So much for her hidden substance.
I let out a dry laugh, wishing Kirill was here so he could quit making excuses for her.
“Oh, so this is about that,” I surmised. “The severing of the very deep connection you managed to make in… Was it even a full two weeks?”
Her lips parted in ire. “Just because you’re a shriveled-up, broken shell of a person who is incapable of loving anyone or anything outside of himself, it doesn’t mean you get to apply that to me.”
At least she wasn’t wrong on that front. Love was for people who could afford to be reckless.
“And just because you’re a na?ve, spoiled brat who has never had to make a single storms-forsaken difficult decision in her life does not mean you get to apply your narrow outlook of morality to me.”
“You talk about difficult decisions like you did this for some greater good. Tell me, Evander, if this was about something other than spiting Theo or Iiro or Clan Elk or Lochlann or me , why lead your people straight to a war?”
That nearly stopped me short. It hadn’t occurred to me that she still didn’t understand that all of this was to avoid war.
“You keep saying that, but have you considered how unlikely it is that your father will attack the very place where he believes his daughter is being held?”
Something dark passed behind her eyes, and she shook her head. “When you have no proof that I’m alive and no way to get him any? I know my father, and he will tear this kingdom apart brick by brick until he finds me.”
“Even on the threat of his favorite daughter being killed?” A threat that wasn’t a lie, if my father had anything to say about it.
It was an uncomfortable reminder of how close we still were to all of this going to hell. Well, further to hell.
“I’m hardly his favorite,” she argued. “But when he finds out I’m being held captive? He still won’t hesitate. My father was Captain of the Guard before he was king. It’s no secret to him that there are things worse than death.”
I looked around at her elegant room, the empty tray from where she had polished off her lunch, the warm bed she was currently ensconced in. Was being here at this estate equivalent to daily torture for her?
“And is this?” I asked quietly. “Worse than death?”
She met my eyes, something brimming in her own that I couldn’t quite read. Several heartbeats passed before she spoke.
“It doesn’t matter. It only matters what he will think. And what he will do because of it.”
Her matter-of-fact tone was a sharp contrast to the petulant girl who had lain in this bed for weeks. It was a rare glimpse of a different sort of princess, one who had seen more of the world than the inside of a castle, like she had actually considered the possibilities of her fate and resigned herself to them with a practicality she usually hid.
It was more reminiscent of the woman who picked up a sword and slit her dress, who slayed the enemy without hesitation or mercy. Just when I wondered if I had imagined those parts of her, she would bring them out to play.
Somehow, I wanted to be around her even less now.
I needed to go sort through what she had said, anyway. I had been working under the assumption that I would have time once the pass opened, but I was beginning to wonder if that was true. Would I be able to get a bird or a messenger to her father, or would he assume everything we said to be a lie?
Either way, large armies were difficult to move. We would figure something out.
“I see.” I said, already turning to go. “Well, Lemmikki, wars take time, even for the indomitable King of Lochlann. So settle in, because we have months yet to think about that.”
Hopefully.