Chapter 6
It had been about a week since Lord Kaid’s arrival, and to Asta’s surprise, she hadn’t heard of him being involved in a single scandal. Yet.
She had hardly seen the philanderer or his chief courtier. They had either been too busy attending dates with Maren or hiding away in their suites. It was a relief, honestly.
Asta and Linnea were walking through the gardens on a brisk afternoon when they heard music coming from the northern tower.
The location itself wasn’t odd, because that was where the music room was.
What was odd was that someone was actually playing an instrument.
No one had dared set foot in the room since Queen Else’s death.
Asta stalked toward the tower, Linnea struggling to keep pace behind her. She often forgot that her cousin was permanently weak from her malnourishment during her childhood—at that memory, Asta slowed down a bit so the lady-in-waiting could keep up.
“Who do you think it is?” Linnea’s voice squeaked.
“Dunno. Can anyone on staff play piano?”
Linnea shook her head.
If it wasn’t anyone on staff, that left only two options. But that couldn’t be possible. How would either of those beefcakes from Haalberg know how to play so well?
Though Asta was walking briskly, she knew how to keep her footsteps quiet.
She couldn’t stop herself from speeding up now, figuring Linnea would meet her there anyway.
She was almost to the north tower—the part of the castle that jutted out over the ocean, surrounded by water aside from the stone bridge.
As she approached the outside entrance, she opened the door, tapped the frame, and began climbing the stairs. When she swung the music room doorway open, her stomach flipped.
Kaid was alone, sitting on the piano bench with his eyes closed as he built the most powerful crescendo she’d ever heard. Asta didn’t even know a solo musician could draw such a lovely melody from a piano.
The lord tilted his head back, his eyes remaining closed as the bridge formed.
The notes were building higher and higher.
This was the first time Asta had seen him in the direct sunlight, which was coming off the ocean from the windows, and she realized that his hair was not in fact black, but the deepest cherry red she had ever laid eyes on.
His chiseled jaw and the strong muscles of his body tightened as the music escalated.
If she hadn’t hated him, she would look at this man, in this moment, and mark him as one of the most beautiful men in the world. Hell, she would admit it even though she did hate him.
As the bridge reached its peak, Kaid hit the deepest note, causing Asta’s stomach to spiral to her toes. His eyes snapped open and his turquoise gaze met hers. He smirked and continued playing. Something pulled at her, urging her to stay. Urging her to get closer.
Kaid watched Asta while she walked around to the other side of the piano and sat next to him. Asta saw motion in her peripherals, a person standing in the archway, and knew it was Linnea.
The doorway. Asta hadn’t tapped the threshold twice before entering.
She had been so caught up in Kaid’s song that she had forgotten all about it.
And once she realized it, she still didn’t get that usual feeling of the world crashing down when she didn’t complete one of her rituals.
The ball in her chest wasn’t coiling in on itself, strangling her from the inside.
All she could think about was his song—needing to hear more. Needing to step into the keys and live within the depths of the melody. She would follow this song to the pits of the sea.
Kaid kept his eyes locked on Asta while he played, and she worked through her emotions of victory and confusion. His song was like a current pulling her under, and she did not want to come up for air.
When the melody ended, neither of them said anything. They sat in strained silence, Asta taking quick glances around the room she hadn’t been in for years.
Her father had always told her that he felt her mother’s spirit the strongest here. Queen Else was an exceptional instrumentalist, spending all her free time in this music room creating art from thin air. Asta liked to think that her mother used to play her songs while she was in her womb.
Asta jolted when Kaid grabbed one of her hands and positioned it on the keys, then did the same with the other.
He covered her hands with his and began pressing the keys using her fingers.
At first, there were some unpleasant notes reverberating through the room.
Asta’s face reddened, but Kaid kept his focus on the keys before them.
After a few more adjustments, Kaid figured out how to play using her hands. The tune was light and simple, nothing nearly as complex as the one he had just been performing. But the song was still mesmerizing.
Asta didn’t know why she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t understand why the silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. Why wasn’t she repulsed by his touch?
She watched their fingers work together, pressing down the ivory and black keys. He had shockingly rough palms—rougher than she expected a rich, spoiled brat’s hands to feel. But they gently wrapped themselves around hers, despite the uneven skin.
Asta couldn’t break the trance she was in, even though she knew she should. This was her sister’s soon-to-be husband. But all she could focus on was his forearms resting on hers, the heat of his breath so close to her face as he leaned to reach her hands, his cedar scent wrapping around her, his—
The music stopped as Kaid quickly pulled his hands away, resting them on his thighs. Asta didn’t understand why until she looked up and saw her sister standing in the doorway.
“Princess,” Kaid stood, making his way to Maren, “come in.”
Maren gently placed her hand in Kaid’s and entered the music room, her eyes sweeping over the various instruments and decorations.
Now that Asta had broken from whatever spell she had been under, she took in the room at the top of the tower.
It was round, half the walls completely glass to observe the sea below.
The waves were particularly angry today, coming in ten-foot walls and crashing brutally onto the beach below.
The deeply colored tapestries were dusty, but intact. They depicted various sea creatures, but one caught Asta’s eye. It was of a horse with a fin for a tail, much like the statues at their front gates. She would have to come back later to observe it more closely.
What was she doing in here, anyway? What strange moment had she just shared with Kaid?
Linnea was standing in the doorway next to a particularly irritated Svanhild, and Asta took that as her cue to leave.
As she walked out the door, she looked back to see Kaid guiding Maren to the bench and sitting next to her. He positioned her hands on the keys, but he didn’t hold them as he had Asta’s.
She tapped the doorway and left, Svanhild regarding her with a foul eye roll as she passed.
Stupid. You are so stupid.
Asta scolded herself as she walked back to her suite. But what was she scolding herself for? All she had done was play the piano. Simple as that. At least, that’s what she tried her best to convince herself.
For all Asta could tell, it was Kaid playing a trick on her, using his womanizing ways to string her along and then crush her. But something within her had felt empty ever since that music had ended.
At the bottom of the grand stairs, Asta saw Niklas.
“Nik!” She waved to him, pausing for Linnea to catch up. The scholarly man smiled at the princess in greeting. “I’ve hardly seen you since the lord’s arrival. How is it going?”
Asta rested a hand on Niklas’s shoulder, and he started shaking his head. “Oh, no you don’t. I’m not gossiping with you.”
The princess’s nose crinkled. “You say it like I’ve forced you in the past. You indulge in the whispers nearly as much as I, and you know it.”
Niklas nervously removed his glasses and cleaned them with the hem of his tunic, his eyes shifting around to make sure no one could hear. “There is… something. It’s an odd tidbit I noticed. Hardly anything, really.”
Asta smiled maliciously. Niklas was so quiet that people simply forgot he existed half the time.
He was a fly on the wall, noticing all the little details that members of the castle and nobility never wanted discovered.
But Niklas needed someone to tell his secrets to.
And luckily for Asta, that person was often her.
“Put away that cruel smile or I won’t tell you.”
Asta folded her lips inward, but amusement still danced in her green eyes.
Niklas sighed. “It’s about Lord Kaidian.”
Asta’s heart skipped a beat. After the moment she and Kaid had shared, she needed news about him that would remind her just how much she despised him.
“Go on,” Asta said sweetly.
Niklas twisted his fingers anxiously. “He seems to be frightened by the ocean. Like, won’t-touch-the-water kind of frightened.”
Hmm. Niklas may be right with this one. Kaid had been here for over a week, and she had never once seen him down on the beach. She had seen Halsten doing his morning exercises in the sand, but never Kaid. But how could Asta use that to her advantage?
Asta thanked Niklas for the information and beckoned Linnea to keep following her as they made their way to her suite in silence. Linnea didn’t say a word, but Asta knew she would receive a full, but soft-spoken, lecture regarding the music room incident once they entered those doors.
Tap, tap.
The princess took a step back when she saw a member of the royal guard in her common room. But all panic extinguished quickly when she realized who the tall man was, his long braids swinging freely.
Asta shoved herself into his arms. “Gyrial!”
He caught and spun her so her legs kicked out in the air before gently returning her to the floor. His grin was infectious, and Asta couldn’t help but return it.