Chapter 69
P anic flooded my veins before I even opened my eyes.
The bed was cold.
My eyelids flew open, and I took in the room in a single glance. The lavatory door was open. There were no shadows on the balcony.
She was gone.
Bolting out of bed, I darted to the hallway door and wrenched it open.
Yuriy stood guard in the hallway.
“Have you seen Rowan tonight?” I didn’t bother expounding.
Yuriy’s eyes went wide, his gaze darting from me to the room behind him in the hall. “No. But she used the balcony…before.”
Der’mo .
I threw on a shirt and grabbed my sword, running for the balcony, taking the path across the rooftop as she must have. It wasn’t a path she could have been forced on, unless she was threatened.
Had Mairi— Ava gotten to her? That would have been nearly impossible unless she came when I was asleep…deeply asleep, so much faster than usual.
Der’mo, der’mo, der’mo .
I ran faster, vaulting myself over the roof at the only real vantage point to the ground. There were two sets of footsteps. One was exactly the size of Rowan’s dainty feet. The other was slightly larger, but not nearly the size of a man’s.
This was my fault for letting Taisiya stay when I knew better. I had suspected she was spying for Lochlann, but had I been wrong all along? Was it Ava she worked for?
The two sets split halfway to the stables, so I followed Rowan’s. The snow was like icy shards of glass shooting straight through the soles of my feet. I hadn’t even realized I had forgotten shoes, in my haste to reach her.
It had melted under the stable, but was no less cold. Voices carried over to me across the still night, one the distinctly dark timbre of a man, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I tightened my grip on my swords, hugging the side of the wooden building while I approached on silent footsteps.
The voice was clearer now, speaking the Common Tongue in an unfamiliar accent as I rounded the corner.
“It doesna matter now. Y’er here, and y’er alive, and now we can go home and put this all be?—”
The man cut off his words.
Time stood still in the infinite heartbeats that followed.
The man looked up at me, finding me in the shadows where I should have been nearly impossible to spot. Not just any man, I amended. King.
Because that was almost certainly who this was.
I supposed it wasn’t so surprising that the former Captain of Lochlann’s Guard had noticed my presence when few others would.
He was as massive as the stories painted him, with broad shoulders and hair that glinted the same shade of crimson as Rowan’s, even in the low light of the moonbeams peeking through the tumultuous sky. He could have been any soldier, except for the way he was cradling Rowan’s face like she was the most precious thing in the world to him.
His favorite daughter, Davin had said. Whether that was true or not, it was clear that the king loved his middle child.
She still hadn’t turned around, and I was grateful for it. It was easier to process her betrayal when I wasn’t looking at her face, and far easier to compose my own features.
How long had she known she was going to leave? When she had leaned for me to kiss her, had she already planned the details of how to drug me and sneak out of my kingdom without so much as a word?
Had she known about Taisiya all along?
She spun to face me, shock widening her eyes like she had any right to that emotion at all right now.
“Lemmikki, when I said you were an escape risk, I’ll admit, I didn’t actually think it was true.” My tone was as frigid as the air around us, and still as mild as I could force it to be.
At least she was safe.
“Evander, I was going to come back to tell?—”
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut her off, not wanting to hear excuses I wasn’t sure I could believe, not wanting to lose a shred of my composure in front of the king of my enemy.
The king in question darted around Rowan with a speed that betrayed his years of training, along with a natural-born skill. I lifted my own sword. As little as I wanted to duel with him, I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand here while he cut me down for the sin of saving my people from the consequences of his daughter’s mistakes.
“No,” Rowan threw herself bodily in front of him, placing a hand on his arm.
I expected him to rage past her, but instead he only looked at her with confusion. He didn’t let go of his sword, but neither did he lift it.
“Rowan?” His tone was less a question than a demand for answers, every inch a king.
“Don’t.” She looked up at him with more than a plea. There was trust in her eyes, trust that he would listen to her, that he would do the right thing.
“He kept me safe,” she said, like it was all the information he needed.
Hell, for their relationship, maybe it was. If this was their political leader, it certainly made sense why she didn’t understand the Socairan way of speaking in non-answers.
All of the hazy pieces of her were coming into clarity just in time for her to be gone. Now there was no need for me to put them together in any way that made sense.
Not that I could. Not that I even wanted to, now.
Her father’s eyes blazed in a fury not unlike that which his daughter had displayed only a few hours ago in the great hall.
“He kept ye in his bed.” He bit out each word as a challenge to hers.
“Not...like that,” she countered. “Just, give me one minute, please, Da’.”
Just like that, he did. The giant king nodded because his daughter had said please.
It was no wonder she had expected the world to bend at her will.
Was that an excuse? A reason? Maybe she didn’t need one. She was only ever my prisoner, when technicalities came out to play. Everything else was little more than…necessity and mistakes.
She turned to me, raking her gaze over me. It was equal parts assessing and uncertain, but it was the latter that gave me pause. Something like grief flickered in her gaze, like she was taking one last look at the sunset after preparing to spend her life in a cave.
Like she was rethinking that life, which made no sense at all.
Did it?
I thought about flushed cheeks in a tent with Korhonan, the sound of glass shattering on the wooden cabin floor, a hand on my wrist, an exhausted voice begging me to stay, footprints in the snow leading away from here.
All of it muddled together in my mind until finally, I thought about deep red scars marring pale, perfect skin.
She didn’t know what she wanted, but even if she had, it wouldn’t have mattered. She was safer in Lochlann.
“This is for the best, Rowan.” I told her quietly. “We both knew this was only temporary.”
Her lips parted soundlessly, like a soldier who had been struck on the battlefield. She closed her mouth, shaking her head slowly like she was putting together all of the things I already had.
Then she squared her shoulders, turning to go. I left before she could change her mind.
Before she could tempt me into reconsidering my decision when nothing good could come of that.
She needed to go home. And I…I needed to go back to my life as it was before her. I needed to forget that I had ever let that life be upended by a single tiny, reckless princess.
I needed to forget about her .
End of Volume I