Chapter 21 A Walk in the Garden
A Walk in the Garden
Junis and Nyara leave me at the palace’s front steps with a crooked smile and a promise to see me again soon. The carriage wheels roll away, the sound fading into the night, and for a moment I simply stand there, swaying slightly, the cool air pressing against my flushed skin.
I should go inside, but I do not. The palace doors loom too large, too expectant, and the night feels kinder.
I turn instead, slipping through the side arch and into the gardens, letting the glamour fall before I reach the paths, brown giving way to gold.
The paths are dim, the hedges rising in dark walls on either side.
I walk slowly at first, trousers brushing my ankles.
I tell myself I am sobering up, breathing, existing somewhere unwatched.
A laugh of disbelief escapes before I can stop it.
I am married, a princess, and roaming the royal gardens in men’s clothes after midnight.
I cut toward the long walk by the fountain and nearly collide with two figures moving out of the shadows.
I freeze.
For a moment, I consider pretending I am someone else, but before I can think of something, Colsar stops short and Sevrin halts beside him. Both of them stare, and their silence is louder than any shout.
“What,” Colsar says finally, his voice low and tight, “are you wearing?”
I laugh again, softer this time. “Good evening to you too, Prince.”
Sevrin’s eyes track the line of my throat, the loosened collar, the way the jacket hangs open. Something dark and intent moves across his face. “Where have you been?” he asks.
“With friends,” I say easily. “Laughing and drinking and gambling.” I hiccup. “It is called merriment, but you are unfamiliar because you are dull.” I do not know which of them I am speaking to. Perhaps both.
Colsar takes a step toward me. “With whom were you merry tonight, Princess?”
I step back, lifting a hand. “Careful. You sound as though you believe you have earned the right to ask.”
His jaw flexes. “You should not be out here,” he says. “Dressed like this.”
“Why?” I ask mildly. “Because it is improper? Or because someone might see me enjoying myself?”
Sevrin lets out a soft, humorless sound. “You are drunk.”
“Not nearly enough,” I reply.
Colsar steps forward. “If I find out you were with another—”
“With another what?” I ask. “Man? Woman? Sailor? Gambler?”
“You are my wife.”
“For now.”
Sevrin watches this exchange with lazy interest, one brow lifting slightly. “And whose clothes are those, Princess?”
I glance down at myself, then back up at him. “Mine.”
I step closer to Colsar, close enough that he can feel me without touching. I lift my hand and brush his cheek. His body reacts instantly, tension rippling through him before he can stop it.
“Colsar—” I say softly.
He stares, waiting.
I withdraw my hand. “I’ve forgotten what I meant to say,” I admit. “Too much ale, husband.”
Colsar’s face tightens. “You shouldn’t—”
“I know,” I say mildly. “Not princess material. Not docile or grateful enough for your taste.”
Sevrin watches the exchange with a look that borders on reverent hunger.
“You look at me now as if I have become something else. Neither of you know me at all.”
I glance toward Sevrin, who has not looked away once.
“I drink,” I say after a moment. “I gamble. I dance when I am bored. I disappear when I am watched too closely. I carve wood because it calms my thoughts.”
Colsar’s expression changes, now full of something like regret or want or fear. I cannot tell which.
Sevrin finally speaks. “If you were mine,” he says calmly, “you would not walk these gardens alone.”
Colsar turns to him. “This is not your concern.”
Sevrin smiles faintly. “Everything that bears value to the realm is my concern.”
Their attention collides between them, heat rising.
I sway slightly as I turn to Sevrin. “Is it?” I ask. “Because my sister can pour wine over the Princess without consequence. My father bars me from his own ball. My husband means to parade another woman beside him as though I do not exist.”
“I heard Prince Tamal of Yorali is preparing to ascend,” I add lightly. “They say he enjoys laughter. Perhaps you could trade me to him for land, or ships, or something you value properly.”
“That will not happen,” Colsar says immediately.
I turn to him innocently. “Why?”
Before he can answer, footsteps sound behind us. Yvara steps into the light, silk gleaming, eyes bright with cruelty. “There you are. Drunk. Dressed like a boy. Making a spectacle of yourself.”
She glances at Colsar, then Sevrin. “Still untouched, I hear. Such a shame.”
Yvara is a cunt, and I am too drunk to be polite. “Have you ever told him,” I ask mildly, nodding toward the King, “what the seer said about you?”
Her color drains.
Sevrin’s attention snaps to her at once. “What seer?”
Yvara laughs too quickly. “She lies.”
I smile. “Divara of the Five Mountains,” I supply. “She saw me too.”
I take a step closer to Yvara, lowering my voice just enough. “Did you tell him that she said you would be full of promises?”
Her throat works.
“Unkept ones,” I finish.
I look at Sevrin then, meeting his attention without flinching. “She never asked what that meant,” I say. “She was too busy hating me for what I was promised.”
Sevrin’s expression darkens. “Is that so?”
Yvara snaps, “She lies.”
I laugh quietly. “If I were lying, sister, you would not look so afraid.” I step toward her. “You have always been afraid since that day. The day you were told you’d be a disappointment. And yet I was told I’d save a kingdom, bear strong heirs—”
Yvara’s eyes flicker.
I laugh bitterly. “Let me guess. When the King brought you to his bed, you pricked your finger and stained the sheets so he would believe he was your first and not the stable boy at the Duke’s house.”
Sevrin’s face darkens.
Yvara recoils. “You bitch—”
“Propriety still stands,” I cut in smoothly.
“It does not matter if the Prince takes other women. I am still the Princess.” I look her over once.
“You are a toy. Waiting to be used. Or kept. And if he keeps you, he will regret it.” I lean in just enough for her to hear.
“Because whatever you promise, you will never deliver.”
Sevrin watches her closely now.
Yvara’s lips part. “You think you are better than me?”
“I think,” I say, “that you mistake proximity for worth.”
She scoffs. “At least the King wants me.”
“Does he?” I ask lightly.
Her eyes shift toward Sevrin, uncertain.
I turn back to Colsar at last, my voice gentler now, though no less cutting. “I was ready for you,” I add softly. “Ready to lie beneath you as often as you wished, to bear every heir you desired.”
Colsar swallows. Sevrin’s breath shifts beside me.
“And still,” I say quietly, “you turned away from it.”
I sway slightly then, the night catching up to me at last, and Sevrin moves without thinking, reaching out to steady me. The moment his hand touches my arm, Colsar snaps. “Do not touch her.”
Sevrin turns his eyes to him, cold and amused. “She is unsteady.”
“She is my wife.”
Yvara laughs softly. “You need not feign chivalry, Prince. She is the whore’s daughter you never wanted. A nuisance that has been forced upon you.”
Sevrin’s patience snaps. “Lady Yvara,” he says, his voice deceptively mild. “You will return to your chambers.”
Her smile falters. “Majesty?”
“You will remain there,” he continues, “until I decide whether your conduct reflects loyalty or ambition.”
Her face drains of color. “But—”
“Now.”
She leaves without another word.
Sevrin turns back to me. “You are drunk,” he says.
“Yes.”
“You are defiant.”
“Also yes,” I slur.
“And you are wearing clothing that invites speculation.”
I glance down at myself. “I find it practical.”
A pause. “Tomorrow morning,” Sevrin says, “you will eat beside me.”
Colsar’s head snaps up. “You cannot—”
“I can,” Sevrin cuts in. “And I will.”
He steps toward me, lowering his voice so only I can hear. “You will not be traded to Tamal,” he says. “You will not be gambled away. You will not be touched by another crown while this war still bleeds.”
He moves decisively, lifting me into his arms before I can protest. Colsar steps forward at once. “I will take her.”
“No,” Sevrin replies coolly. “You will not.”
For a moment, it feels as though steel might be drawn. Instead, Sevrin turns, carrying me toward the palace. I laugh softly against his shoulder, the sound warm and reckless and entirely unrepentant.
“You see?” I murmur, close enough that my breath warms his skin. “You should have wanted me.”
He does not answer, but he does not put me down. His hold is firm, possessive, carrying me toward the palace as if I belong nowhere else. The gardens fall away behind us, moonlight soon replaced by shadow.
Behind us, Colsar follows. He says nothing and does nothing, but I can feel him there, silent and furious. Regret clings to him now, visible in the rigid set of his shoulders, the way his attention never leaves us. He wears it like a wound he does not yet know how to tend.
As Sevrin mounts the first step, I shift slightly in his arms, my fingers tightening in the fabric at his shoulder.
“May I tell you a secret?” I whisper.
He exhales through his nose, a low sound that might be impatience or permission. “Speak.”
“You should have taken me when my father offered,” I say quietly. “You would have had everything.”
He does not slow.
“A woman meant to lead,” I continue. “Endless heirs. And more than that, a woman who can give you exactly what you need.”
He adjusts his grip, pulling me closer, as though he has already decided the cost is worth it. “And what is it that I need, Princess?” he asks, his voice roughened by something he does not name.
I smile, unseen. “Someone who does not wait to be wanted,” I tell him. “Someone who won’t fracture the moment you press too hard. Someone who pushes back.”
The stairs rise beneath us, the palace opening to receive us, but I lean closer instead, my mouth near his ear. “Because, Majesty,” I whisper, pausing just long enough to graze my teeth along the edge of his ear, “when I am finally given the chance to bite…”
My voice lowers, intimate and certain. “It will not be gentle.”
For an instant, his control falters and a sound escapes him, low and involuntary.
When I glance past his shoulder, I find Colsar standing halfway up the staircase with Lady Jessamy standing near him, speaking softly as though the moment belongs to them alone.
He answers her with a small inclination of his head, polite enough to satisfy appearances, but whatever she is saying has already slipped past him, because his attention has lifted beyond her to find me.
Sevrin does not turn to look. Instead his arm tightens around me, drawing me higher against him until the act of carrying me feels less like courtesy and more like something he has quietly decided not to relinquish.