Chapter 28 #2
“Ahead of my coronation, there are a few small changes I would like to institute around the dining hall. I acknowledge that these are hard times for us all…” He paused.
I wondered whether he was referring to the famine or to the orphaned Winnie Balden.
“So, it is my hope that these adjustments will breathe some fresh air into the palace.”
I gave him a look, then turned my attention to the small group of men who came filing into the dining hall, instruments in hand.
One of them, who wielded a lute, stepped ahead of the rest. He introduced their little troupe, as well as the name of their first song: Lady of the Woods, composed in my honor.
I tried not to roll my eyes, leaning back in my chair and obliging Nicolas’ attempt to prevent me from leaving early.
In all, it was a fine ballad, but the flattery couldn’t have come at a worse time.
As their song concluded, another stranger entered the hall, this one dressed in a whimsical costume of green and gold.
His horned cap had two points accentuated by little bells that matched those on the tips of his pointed shoes, and it took one silly word from his stupid, painted mouth for me to recognize that, at long last, the prince’s promise of a jester had arrived.
He went around the room, effectively breaking the ice that had frozen over the dining hall throughout the season, but I prayed he wouldn’t come near me.
I watched him dance in front of Winnie, saw the forced smile of amusement from her, and my stomach turned.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I whispered.
Nicolas turned his head.
“Forgive me.” I touched his thigh to appease him, then turned to Queen Adelaide, acknowledging her. “I must take my leave; I think perhaps the stew disagrees with me this evening.”
“The stew?” asked Nicolas.
“Yes, but don’t kill the cooks.”
I got up, making a swift exit for my bedroom. The solitude was enough to calm the torrent of my gut, and as my handmaidens did not anticipate my arrival, I was alone enough to undress by my own hand.
I’d grown clumsy with time. Another set of hands would have hastened the process of removing piece after piece from the complex ensemble.
Just as I undressed into my shift, the chamber’s lock turned.
I expected to see Winnie, or perhaps Florence, but my heart leapt when neither woman poked their head in.
Nicolas entered with his eyes to the floor, then leaned back against the door so that it shut. When he lifted his gaze, he flinched at the sight of me, dropping his jaw with horror before he turned away.
“I-I did not realize you would be—” he started.
I went for my nightgown, tying it around myself as fire ignited in my veins. “Are we married already?! Is that why you feel comfortable entering my private quarters without so much as a knock?!”
Nicolas was so red he glowed. “That makes one more action I shall have to apologize for.”
Snapping my hand to my hip, I raised a brow and waited. Nicolas eventually managed to look at me again, relieved by that one extra layer of cloth, and pushed from the door.
“I’ve noticed your distance since I had Shaun and Elisa Balden executed.
” He’d taken care to name them both, to not smooth over that wrinkle of history.
In his stress, he took his hair down from its short ponytail, massaging the place where the bulk of it had been pulled back.
“I didn’t heed your request or lend you an ear, and for that, I am sorry.
You are my betrothed, and I should at least honor that by hearing you out when you need to speak. Your words are precious few as it is.”
I frowned. It wasn’t an apology for his actions; he was only sorry for upsetting me, and I wasn’t sure if that amended it in the slightest or only scalded the wound.
“What you said at supper about ‘invisible threats’ was…astute,” he continued.
He began his characteristic pacing, folding his hands behind his back.
His shadow stretched and shrank across my floor with each turn.
“It’s been a problem for me since childhood.
Even before my uncle, I knew that some people wished me dead.
Some tried to act on those wishes. I couldn’t… I couldn’t take the chance again.”
I might’ve dismissed him, if not for the way his fingers trembled against one another and the look that flashed in his eyes.
His cruelty was undeniable, but now I saw that it came from a place other than malice.
This was a bone-deep fear, a paranoia brought on by the prince’s own curse: his birthright.
I might have been a captive to the prince, but he was in a cage of his own. The castle was a cell we shared.
I’d killed too. For fear, for survival.
For him.
Perhaps I couldn’t forgive the prince; that was Winnie’s role to fulfill, and to Nicolas, she was no more than a mere servant, no one to seek the forgiveness of. But I could understand where he was coming from, at least to some small extent.
“Please,” Nicolas whispered. “I’ve grown used to resentment, expectant of it, but not from you, Alana.”
His hand reached to touch me, but stopped short by a visible fear of my rejection.
“I cannot bear to be hated by you,” he admitted.
“I don’t hate you.”
Nicolas took a step closer, but his hand returned to his thigh. “I can’t go back to a life before you. The world before was dark, blighted. I’d be lost without you.”
I could dismiss him now or walk away, maintaining that wall I’d built between us that protected what little was left of my autonomy. But when I looked at him, I saw another prisoner of circumstances beyond our control.
Perhaps that was enough common ground to build something real upon, even if it had begun with his enchantment.
Knowing what my next words would spark, I swallowed. My hands clammed up at my sides, clenching at my robes with anticipation. “I was a shadow before I met you.”
“Yet you are my light.” Nicolas erased the valley between us. His hands cradled my face and drew me to him with devastating urgency. There were no plots here—only a base need, a condensing of many frustrated weeks spent apart.
My body betrayed me, responding to the calling his kiss provoked.
I felt him, resting my palms against his chest to steady myself, inhaling his familiar scent that mingled with the wine from dinner.
His heartbeat thundered beneath my fingertips, a carnal drumming to a song I hadn’t learned.
Nicolas walked me backward until my spine met the bedpost, one hand cupping the nape of my neck while the other slid down to my waist.
He pulled back just enough to breathe my name, his eyes betraying a sadistic combination of possession and adoration.
A thumb traced my jaw as he came back, gentler now but ever-consuming, his tongue working to memorize my shape and taste.
I arched into him, fingers curling into his cloak, but beneath the heat, something cold spread within my chest. Nicolas’ mouth moved to my throat and I closed my eyes, trying not to think of the execution orders signed by the same hands that now held me so greedily.
Breathless, he pressed his forehead to mine, still holding me as if I were an apparition. As though he’d wake up any moment now and I would be a pleasant figment of imagination within a long, twisted nightmare.
“I…” he started, licking his lips. His voice was hoarse, dry. “I have to go.”
I nodded, the warmth of his hands leaving my body. “Yes.”
“And…us?”
A hopeful stare. Desperate, even. Something was still festering between us, and maybe he’d sensed that, but I let him feel a sense of victory as I brought my hands up to sign along. “Go to bed, and you shall wake one day closer to our marriage.”
Nicolas looked between my eyes and my hands. He huffed in amusement, adjusting his clothes, and went for the exit. “You’re too good at that. I really must catch up.”
I remained against the bedpost, lips still tingling as the door clicked shut.
I tried to reconcile the man who’d just kissed me like it was his salvation with the one who remained stone-faced when Elisa Balden sobbed beneath the guillotine.
I pressed my fingers to my mouth to touch the ghost of him, to contemplate.
It didn’t feel natural, my connection to the prince. Magic aside, I recognized my affections as performative…an abnormal social calculation, as if I were his opponent in some convoluted game of social chess.
A familiar rhythm of footsteps drifted beneath the door, a measured gait I’d all but memorized. Quinn, likely checking in with the prince at the other end of the corridor before heading to bed.
The ring.
I’m not dressed for it, I thought, looking down at my robes, my bare feet. I scrounged for the ring, lifting it to examine. I’ll try again tomorrow.
But would I? It was a long time coming, another in a sequence of tomorrows that had come and passed already.
I was tired of hiding from him. We were still friends, and he remained my guardsman, no matter how loose I’d allowed that protection to become.
If I could not give him the occasional gift for worry of how he might respond, then perhaps I ought to request a new guard from the prince and get it over with already.
A set of keys jingled, removed from a belt.
I didn’t bother putting on slippers. I yanked the door open just as Quinn’s shadow approached, my bare feet silent on the cold stone.
But my nightgown was longer than my usual dresses, and in my haste, my foot caught in the hem.
I pitched forward with a startled gasp, hands flying forward to break the fall.
Strong arms caught me around the waist, one hand gripping my forearm to steady me. I fell back, planted firm against something solid.
“You’re not sneaking off again, are you?”
The wind was knocked out of me. I took a breath, inhaling cologne, and found my hands settled right against the viscount’s chest. I looked up, Quinn’s breath stirring the loose hair at my temple, and his hand lingered against me a moment longer before retreating to his side.
My skin seared where he’d held me, and I’d completely forgotten what it was I’d come out here to do.
Quinn quirked a smile as he patted the top of my room’s threshold. “Doorway effect?”
I blinked.
“You pass through a doorway and forget your intentions,” he explained. Then he leaned closer. “It’s either that, or you’re flustered. Now why could that be? I do believe I warned you not to go prowling off without me. I’m not sure how to punish you for it, but believe me, I’ll think of something.”
If I could groan, I would have. Rolling my eyes, I grabbed his wrist and pressed the ring into his palm.
“What’s this?” Quinn asked, dropping the act to study the piece of jewelry. His gaze met mine. “A gift?”
My fingers moved like a bird’s beak opening and closing.
I swayed my arms in reception of an invisible object, then pointed to myself.
“The crow brought it to me.” I pointed to Quinn, put my hand to my chest, and then pressed my middle finger to my thumb.
A swish down my nose. “You like red, so I thought of you.”
“You thought of me? I was worried about you, you know,” he grumbled, dismissing my offering. “I couldn’t find you anywhere. All I could surmise was that you’d finally decided to run away, or that someone had taken you...”
He stopped himself, returning his attention to the gift. Then, back to me. Biting his lip with consideration, he slipped it onto his right ring finger, examining it against his skin.
Quinn started forward, caught himself, and froze, visibly unsure of how to react. An embarrassed flush crept up from his neck.
“I…” he began, his voice snagging on unspoken thoughts. His hand lifted, hovering near my face as if to touch my cheek, then clenched into a fist. A raw desperation lingered in his expression, then he forced his eyes shut.
I knew that look. I’d caught it too many times to pretend otherwise; the way his gaze lingered, heavy with want. And worse, the answering pull in my chest that I kept trying to smother.
“Thank you,” he said. When he opened his eyes again, the mask slid back into place, though now it didn’t fit as well as it once had. “It’s lovely, Alana, but you shouldn’t have…”
“I’ve had it for a while. Wasn’t sure when it would be right to give it to you.” I signed, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.
Quinn swallowed hard, returning his focus to the ring as though he’d find answers within the garnet. “Nicolas is trying, you know. What happened with the Baldens…”
I tilted my head, brow furrowing.
“He was only ten when a nurse who’d raised him from birth tried to smother him in his sleep.
” The words came faster now, like every word he spoke would put another brick on the wall between us.
His accent thickened as it always did when he felt strongly about something.
“Ten years old, fighting for air against someone he’d trusted his entire life.
Then at thirteen, poisoned at his name day feast. Fifteen, an arrow that missed his heart by inches during a hunt…
He’s not cruel by nature, Alana. Fear made him this way.
But the musicians tonight, and the jester?
He’s trying to remember what joy feels like.
For you. He speaks of nothing but making you happy, when he’s not consumed by the terror of losing you. ”
But even as he spoke of his friend, his thumb absently stroked the intricate weave of the ring. His eyes lingered on my lips, my loosened hair, the way my nightgown had slipped slightly off one shoulder from the fall. I adjusted it, but the damage was done.
“You should go inside,” he said. “Before someone sees you like this.”
I parted my lips, then shut them into a thin line. “Are you well, Lord Quinn?”
A short, sharp exhale blew through his nose, followed by a low chuckle that was more air than voice. Three broken notes that died quickly, swallowed back down like a bitter pill. Something cracked in his expression. “No, Alana. I’m rather far from well.”
I chewed my tongue, easing toward him. He took a step back, straightening.
“Forgive me. The hour is late and I am not myself. I thank you for the gift, it is beautiful. As is the gesture.”
I put my hand down. I hadn’t felt it raise.
When had I become such a liar? To him, to Nicolas…to myself? I had felt it raise, and I knew why it did, just as I knew why I’d sought him out wearing only a nightgown, why I’d fixated so heavily on that stupid ring.
Friend.
The word mocked me as I watched him disappear into his room.