Chapter Nine
Aren
The night was shitty, but by morning I’ve recovered from the effects of the poison, and I’m back at the Raven’s Beak by the afternoon.
It rains all day, an exhale from the heavens, like a breath that’s been held too long gusting from the sky in a great rush.
The damp doesn’t help with how I ache all over, but I’ve never been one to take a day off, even when I’m sick.
My sisters always tease that the only day I’ll rest is the day I die.
But they don’t know: I’m here today because there’s no way in Albion I’m going to let that bastard marquis scare me into hiding at home. He will see my face.
I didn’t tell my sisters what really happened, though they keep trying to pry more of the story out of me.
Of course, they want to know how the damn prince ended up at our house, and they kept teasing me about it, inventing some attraction between us.
But I kept telling them it wasn’t like that at all.
I just had a little too much wine and he walked me home.
The prince is a gentleman, right? That’s it. End of story.
I don’t want to admit that just thinking about what could’ve happened last night makes me shake. I can still feel the ghost of those fingers choking me. As soon as I can, I’m going to turn that dress I was wearing into rags.
I can’t let anyone see the damage, either, so I tied my mother’s old kerchief loosely around my neck to hide the bruising.
It still smells like Mother, like her homemade perfume of citrus peels and jasmine.
Maybe I just imagine it, and it doesn’t smell like anything at all.
But even after all these years, her scent brings a small measure of comfort as I go about my day, pouring drinks and serving food to those looking for shelter from the rain, wanting a hot meal and to rest their feet by the fire.
At the end of the day, after nightfall, I go out back to feed the pigs, carrying a heavy bucket of scraps. It’s still pouring. I freeze when I spy a shadow moving in the alley—the same alley where…
My heart pounds, and I start to tremble all over again, thinking he’s come back to finish the job.
I want to scream. My blood rushes; rage, hot and fierce, fills me.
Before I know it, I’m running after him, my fists clenched.
“Hey! Bastard!” I yell, as the rain muffles my voice. “What do you think you’re—”
But when he turns around, it’s not the marquis, nor one of his men.
“You.” I don’t know what to say, but my rage is suddenly doused, as if the downpour put it out. My shoulders fall. I’m still shaking, but now from the cold.
“Me,” replies the prince. He has a wool hood pulled up, masking most of his features, but the light from the tavern catches his sharp nose and high cheekbones. “I assume you’re feeling better today, since you’re back to yelling at me.” He gives me that charming smile again.
“Oh, about that…” I’m filled with gratitude, relief, and shame that I couldn’t fend for myself.
He waves it off as if it were nothing. Maybe it was nothing. I’m nothing to him, after all, compared to all the women fawning over him. He was just chivalrous enough to save me.
“I apologize, Your Highness. I didn’t know it was you,” I finally say.
“Dietan—please, just call me Dietan.”
“Not Dario?” I can’t help but laugh.
“All in all, I’d prefer my real name.” He laughs with me.
It’s nice to laugh together after everything. But the rain is falling in torrents on the two of us, and the pigs want their dinner.
“Do you need help with that?” he asks. Without waiting for an answer, he takes the slop bucket out of my hands and sloshes its contents over the low pigsty fence into the trough.
“Thank you, Your Highness,” I say as he hands it back to me and our fingers brush.
“Dietan. Please.”
I shake my head. As if I’d ever call a prince by his first name. “What are you doing out here?” I ask. He’s skulking around alleyways dressed like a thief. I remind myself I can’t trust him, even if he did save me last night.
“I mean to take a stroll through the forest,” he says casually, as if it isn’t storming all around us. A clap of thunder makes us both jump. “So, if you’ll excuse me—”
“You’ll get lost if you go that way,” I tell him, jutting my chin in the direction he was heading.
“Oh, right. I’ll go the other way, then.” He gives me a wink, just like last night, and heads in the opposite direction.
“You have a funny habit of sneaking around,” I say.
That stops him in his tracks again. He turns around, sighing as if I’m keeping him from important business in the woods. “I have to if I’m to get anything done. See, that’s the problem with being a prince. I’m recognized wherever I go.”
The rain batters harder and soaks into my only pair of leather shoes. “But where in the forest are you going, exactly?” I ask, even if it isn’t any of my business.
“Now that is privileged information,” he says, wagging a finger.
I scoff. This playful charm of his is starting to grate. Even that annoyingly symmetrical face of his seems a little less handsome. “If you’d tell me where you’re going, I could help. Otherwise, you’ll get lost out there, I promise you that.”
The prince looks at the forest and then turns back to me. He licks his lips, and his eyebrows pull together as he contemplates my offer.
Meanwhile, I’m going to die of a chill. If I’d known he was going to detain me, I’d have put on my cloak.
Finally, he steps closer to me, coming into the glow from the tavern. Rain coats his face, his skin gleaming in the soft light. I stand up a little straighter. Damn if I’m going to look small in front of him. Why is he so irritatingly tall?
But the way he looks at me doesn’t make me feel small. His eyes dance merrily as he gazes down at me.
“If I told you, then I’d have to kill you,” he whispers.
His tone is playful. It sure doesn’t sound like the type of threat he made to the marquis last night. That, I believed. But something about him still bothers me.
“No, you won’t,” I say. “Kill me, I mean.”
He laughs again. He has a nice laugh, rich and warm with amusement. “I suppose not.”
“Come on, I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
He looks me in the eye and holds my gaze. I can’t breathe for a moment.
“Right. I think you are quite good at keeping secrets,” he says, as if coming to a conclusion.
I wait, but when he says nothing more, I ask instead, “Why did you rescue me last night?”
He could have just walked on by. Princes don’t put themselves in danger for other people, especially nobodies like me.
For a prince to go out of his way was an act of kindness I would never have expected.
He got his knuckles bloody for me; I noticed when he handed me the washcloth.
I’m beginning to believe that he wouldn’t break my sisters’ hearts after all, if that is what they choose.
His eyes gleam, and he clears his throat. “It’s a little thing called chivalry. You’ve heard of it?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.” And there it is. It doesn’t have anything to do with me at all. Just duty. Just a man who is especially good at being a prince, even when nobody is watching.
I try to thank him but can’t form the words. My cheeks burn despite the cool rain against them. “I can take care of myself. I could have handled it.” It’s a lie, one even I don’t believe, but I’d rather throw myself from the roof than admit it to him.
“Obviously. But it’s nice to have some help occasionally, no?”
He’s still standing way too close, and his singsong Loegrian accent is making my heart race. Maybe it’s a good thing he’s a gentleman. A chivalrous prince would make a good match for one of my sisters.
Maybe not, if he’s fool enough to go tramping into the woods late at night. “You’re going to see that sorceress, aren’t you?”
He silently raises his eyebrows, hesitating, looking shifty again.
“If you knew anything about Evandale, you’d know it’s not a good idea to walk that forest at night. You don’t know what’s out there, especially these days. You could get eaten by a bear, or something worse. I hear there are all manner of creatures out there.”
“Oh, I don’t plan to die before my engagement, don’t you worry. There’ll be an announcement soon,” he calls, walking backward.
So, he has chosen a bride.
Surely, it’s Sonja or Ophelia.
Maybe that’s why he came to my rescue, to play the noble hero for them. The thought stings for a moment, but I find my tongue just as he turns forward. “Is this what you’ll do to your wife? Sneak away in the night and never tell her what you’re really up to?”
That stops him again. He calls back, over his shoulder, and his voice rises above the downpour. “Trust me, Aren Bellamore, if you were my wife, you’d be the first to know my secret.”
Huh. He knows my name. Of course he does—my family must have told him who I was. It sounds nice on his lips, like a melody. It fills me with unexpected warmth in this cold rain.
The prince might not be the vain, deceitful man I initially thought he was, but my gut still tells me he’s hiding something, something important enough to risk the future king getting eaten by a bear—or worse.
The prince is nothing but a liar. Maybe it’s better if he leaves this town without a bride at all.
I watch him go, all the way until he disappears into the woods.