Chapter 3
Lilias
LIKE COMING HOME
I’m pacing.
I stop walking, take a deep breath, and smooth my hands down the front of my skirt.
Then I walk very slowly to the window and look out at the courtyard.
It’s cold out there, and the wind is throwing fistfuls of rain against the windows as winter puts up its usual fight against the onslaught of spring.
There’s no sign of my brother, Elrick. And weather like this is going to delay him, even if one of the messengers I begged to carry my letters manages to find him. No one in the stables knew what route he’d taken. Or at least no one would tell me.
And I’m leaving this afternoon. The delegation from Vsenrog must have been camped just outside the palace, because they appeared for dinner just after my father announced my engagement.
So I’m leaving. Despite the weather, or perhaps because my father wants to punish me for some slight I’m not even aware I’ve committed.
Or maybe the king of Vsenrog is the one pulling the strings, and my father is just dancing along.
Whatever the reasons, I’ll be married in less than two weeks to a prince who isn’t really a prince.
I sigh as I spin on my heels. My feet tap against the stone floor as I walk back to the door.
I’m not under any illusions about Elrick’s ability to help me. My brother cares for me, of course, but he can’t change the king’s mind. And even if he did, what would that get me? Another arranged marriage, that’s what, to another man I wouldn’t even recognize in a dance hall.
I know more about Prince Laurance of Ethiria than I know about Zarek of Vsenrog, yes, but I don’t know any of the things that matter about either one of them.
Like, would they be a good husband? Or are they the kind of men who want their wives to stay silent in the castle, locked away like marble statues?
With a huff, I spin on my heel and stalk toward the window yet again, pacing like an animal in a cage. It doesn’t matter if Zarek will be a good husband. Good, bad, indifferent. I have to bind my life to his, no matter what kind of man he is. That’s the price I pay for being born in a palace.
There’s a click, and the door behind me creaks open. I turn as my tutor, Blayne, walks into my private quarters. A knot rises in my throat, and the tears I’ve been expecting all morning rush forward.
I wait until he locks the door behind him before throwing my arms around Blayne’s shoulders. His hands rub my back as I struggle not to cry. Not for the first time, some panicked part of me realizes I took things much too far with him.
And then, also not for the first time, I pull back and press my lips to his.
He opens for me slowly, like he always does, his hands sinking into my dress and my hair, his cock stiffening through the layers of cloth between us, his soft, muffled moan sending a bolt of heat through my core and slicking the space between my legs.
Gods, this is what I needed. I didn’t know how much I ached for him until I begged Blayne to teach me what I would need to know as the wife of a prince. Now, I never want to stop.
But Blayne breaks our kiss and pulls away. His perfect blond hair is slightly mussed, and he runs his hand down the side of his head to smooth it, then turns back to me.
“Lilias,” he purrs. “Gods, you temptress. You’re going to destroy me.”
I step forward, closer to the heat of his body, but he moves back and shakes his head.
“But not this morning,” he snaps. “Don’t push me. We have too much to cover.”
I cross my arms over my chest and pout, like a child. I’d stamp my foot on the ground too, if I thought it would do any good. But Blayne entered my life as my tutor, and he’s been doggedly determined to fulfill that role no matter how desperately I try to distract him.
He takes the bag from his shoulder and unfurls a piece of parchment over the table. It looks like a map of Vsenrog, although the western border shouldn’t extend through the mountains—
Oh. I step closer, the throb of sexual frustration fading as I examine the map.
It is Vsenrog, but from a century ago. Back when Ethiria and Marion were little more than secret hopes and dreams in the hearts of the farmers and ranchers who lived here.
When the king of Vsenrog felt slighted by the lords of the western mountains, he set fire to wheat fields and let the people starve.
I swallow hard, then raise my eyes to Blayne. Elrick told me once about the summer of misery that sparked the war that gave Marion her freedom. He said the farmers who live in the mountains have not forgotten.
“Did you know,” Blayne begins, in the same tone he always uses to open a lesson, “that Marion was once a small part of the great Vsenrog empire?”
I nod; of course, I know that. Unlike Elrick, Blayne has never once mentioned the summer of misery that sparked Marion’s rebellion against Vsenrog. Perhaps he doesn’t know. He comes from Vsenrog, after all, and I doubt Vsenrog students are taught much about the atrocities their kingdom committed.
“So, in a way,” Blayne continues, “your marriage to a prince of Vsenrog, even if he’s an adopted prince, will be like the Kingdom of Marion coming home.”
Our eyes meet. There’s something he’s not telling me, something shadowed and strange in his expression. My chest feels tight. I knot my fingers together at my waist to keep my hands from shaking.
“What’s he like?” I ask in a voice that’s hardly more than a whisper. “Prince Zarek, I mean. My—”
But my throat closes around the word betrothed, and I fall silent. Blayne clears his throat.
“He is royalty,” he says. “He was the prince of the kingdom of Dungal, in the mountains north of Vsenrog.”
Blayne taps the map spread on the table, near a smudge of ink labeled Vederill Pass. Dungal isn’t there, so it was either part of Vsenrog back then, or the cartographer figured it wasn’t worth mentioning.
“He was sent to Vsenrog as a hostage,” Blayne continues, “to be raised as part of King Malrik’s royal family. A failed attempt to avert the war.”
Blayne looks down at the map, and his forehead creases. I know what he’s not saying. War broke out anyway. Now Vsenrog controls the northern mountains and Vederill Pass, and Dungal is ash and dust, as the song goes.
Elrick says Vsenrog started that war. Blayne taught me that Dungal provoked their larger and stronger neighbor. I’ve never known who to believe.
“Why did he stay?” I ask, frowning at the map.
“Zarek, you mean?” Blayne shakes his head.
“Who knows? Maybe he preferred Vsenrog. It’s a much richer kingdom, you know.
Much more comfortable than those primitive homes of the mountain lords.
” He shrugs. “Maybe he liked the work King Malrik offered him. Or maybe he had nothing to go back to. Vsenrog put a swift end to Dungal’s aggression. ”
I frown down at the map as a strange pang of sympathy moves through my chest.
I don’t want to go to Vsenrog. I’ve spent my entire life preparing to live by the ocean in Ethiria as the wife of their crown prince, Laurance. I know as much about Ethiria as I do about my own kingdom. More, perhaps. I’d even chosen the first sets of horses I wanted to breed in their royal stable.
But I suppose I have it easier than my betrothed, in some ways. His kingdom was destroyed. At least my home isn’t in danger.
“At any rate,” Blayne continues, “Zarek stayed, and he was raised as King Malrik’s foster son, becoming a prince of Vsenrog. He’s made quite a name for himself.”
“I’ve heard,” I murmur. “Don’t they call him the snake?”
Blayne looks up from the map. Our eyes meet, and his expression darkens.
“I wouldn’t say that to his face,” Blayne cautions. “But, yes. They call Zarek the snake of Vsenrog.”
Lovely. I press my lips together and frown at the old map. Vsenrog spreads across the parchment like blood seeping through cloth. I open my mouth to ask Blayne what exactly it is that my betrothed did to make a name for himself, but I stop myself.
Maybe Blayne doesn’t know. Maybe I don’t want to hear it.
“What is he like,” I ask again, “as a person?”
I hate the tremble in my voice. Prince Laurance, the man I was supposed to marry until yesterday, is an utter fool, according to most accounts. And I was prepared to marry him anyway. Why should I care what kind of man Zarek is?
Blayne shakes his head. “I’m not entirely certain,” he says. “I don’t know him, of course. He must do his job well. And I’ve heard he’s…loyal.”
I notice the hesitation and wonder about all the other words he chose not to say.
He’s an assassin, the snake of Vsenrog. That’s what Anura, my handmaiden, told me.
Zarek is a merciless killer for King Malrik.
The rumors say he murdered the only prince of Lisal during the Conference of the Seven Allied Kingdoms, and he killed a general from Aning during their brief skirmish with Vsenrog.
Anura said he sleeps with daggers strapped to his legs.
That’s going to make our wedding night uncomfortable, I replied, and she laughed. But she looked at me with a strange expression, like she knew something even worse that she couldn’t bear to tell me.
My eyes sting. The room dances behind another wave of useless tears. I ball my hands into fists and press them against my eyes. What good will it do to cry about it? I’m going to be married off to some royal son no matter what. I’ve known that my entire life.
You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
I take a deep breath, then lower my hands and blink until the room comes into focus.
Blayne is watching me warily, like I’m a strange animal who might bite.
It’s the same way he looked at me after the first time I pushed him too far, when he lost control and showed me exactly what I would be doing with whoever married me.
I reach forward, then take his hand in mine. Just like the first time I pushed him too far, I try to reassure him.
“I’m fine,” I whisper, although it feels like a lie.
But I am fine. I have to be fine. What other choice do I have? I could kick and scream, cry and howl, but I’ll still have to marry the snake of Vsenrog, King Malrik’s assassin.
I’m a princess. I have to marry a prince.
And then, because I’m not sure if I’ll be able to sleep without an answer, I ask Blayne what I really want to know.
“And you?” I ask. “Will you come with me to Vsenrog?”
For the first time since our kiss, Blayne smiles at me.
“It would be my honor,” he replies. “I can’t travel with you, but I promise, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”