Chapter 19
I couldn’t really be surprised by the outburst. Yet still it pierced me, enough that I felt a subtle responding question through the bond from Renn.
“I might be,” I answered honestly, feeling my energy drain through my heels. I sat on the edge of the bed. “I am aware. I’m . . . aware.”
My brother shook his head, shifting back and forth as though confused about what to do with himself. “N-Nym, he’s a king. He’s the king.”
“In my defense, that’s a more recent development.”
He barked a mirthless laugh. Grabbed his hair and let it go, leaving it poking out at an odd angle. “So his being a prince was acceptable?”
“Brien—”
“You know what else is recent? Antsan, Nym.”
My posture sagged. “Yes, it is. I’ve . . . kept my distance, since their arrival.”
He relaxed a hair. “So it’s stopped.”
My thoughts twisted back to yesterday, in this very room, pressed against the wall just behind my brother, my fingers knotted in Renn’s hair, his hands splayed over my hips.
The guilt must have been apparent on my face. Brien looked ready to split apart. “What are you thinking?”
My temper rose, and Ursa was not there to balm it. “Do you assume it hasn’t plagued me constantly? I am nothing and he is everything.”
He ran a palm down his face. Paced. “Is it . . . the magic?”
For a moment I thought he meant the link, and it terrified me that he knew, yet I realized he merely asked the same question I’d presented Renn the first time he’d told me he loved me. Did he love me, or just the magic that healed him?
“No,” I answered.
Brien tried to lean against the wall but found himself too restless to stay there. “Nym—” Emotion creaked in his voice. “After Vin and Ford—”
I winced at their names.
“—do you really think this is wise?”
“If you want to get philosophical with it,” I countered, “I’m sure I could find something in my defense. Perhaps we should ask Renn. He likely has the words of every ancient scholar memorized and could recite something applicable.”
He let out a long exhale. “Renn. Again. How long have you . . . ?”
I couldn’t quite remember.
Brien began pacing again. I let him get a few good strides in before demanding, “Sit down.”
“I can’t sit down, Nym. My commoner sister is sleeping with the king—”
“I’m not sleeping with him,” I retorted, even as my cheeks warmed. I recognized the fallacy of my statement—I had slept with him, in the same bed, but not in the way Brien assumed. “That is . . .” He’d flustered me. I stood, my energy suddenly renewed. “I’m not having sexual relations with him.”
An unbidden thought, of Renn in his room in the west tower, rising in the morning, Princess Azra’s red hair splayed out on the pillow beside him—
Brien crossed to me and grabbed me by my shoulders. Not harshly, but firmly. “I don’t know him well, Nym.” He’d lowered his voice. “I don’t know what he and the Antsan king have decided. But even so, nobles . . . I don’t need to remind you of Lord Fell—”
“He is nothing like Lord Fell.” The nobleman who had caused the carriage crash that killed our mother, father, and sister. The one who had paid five silver merits for each of their heads as recompense and never looked back.
“Is he using you?” he asked, concern moistening his eyes. “If he’s healed, why does he need to keep you around?”
My throat thickened. “He loves me, Brien.”
He didn’t seem to hear. “You already have a reputation in Fount—”
I wrenched from his grip. “What reputation?”
Renn stirred, concerned. I was tempted to build up the wall, to hide my pain, to protect him . . . but he’d asked me not to. So sincerely, he’d asked me not to—
Regret limned Brien’s features, but he pressed on. “Sure, people don’t talk about it anymore, but they know. They can’t not know, Nym.”
Two failed engagements, a pregnancy. They were hard things to hide. Harder things to live through. Venom leaked into my voice when I answered, “Anyone who judges me for those has a soul blacker than Adoel Nicosia’s.”
“So you’re on a first-name basis with him, too?”
I reeled back from him. He winced. “Too far,” I spat.
“Too far,” he agreed, and finally sat on the bed, the strength gone from his legs.
I stood there, and he sat there, in silence for a long minute while I wrestled with my anger.
While I imagined Ursa telling me, He cares about you, as he should, or You would behave the exact same way if the roles were reversed.
Though her voice no longer echoed in my mind, thinking of the sentiments helped calm me, and I lowered myself to the mattress beside him.
After Ursa, Brien was my closest sibling. My dearest friend.
I rested a hand on his knee. “I know. I know. I promise you, I won’t stand in the way of the treaty.
I’m not at the warfront, but I understand our limitations.
I know what Antsan brings. I’ve already spoken to Re—His Majesty about it.
I’ve tried . . . to keep my distance. I even tried to leave, but Eden has asked me to stay—”
“Has he?”
I didn’t answer, but Brien easily equated the silence with an unspoken yes.
I squeezed his knee. “You know I never learn.”
He chuckled. Genuinely, this time. “Gods know you never learn. You’re the most stubborn person I know, and I’ve been in the military for fourteen months.”
I steadied myself with a deep breath. “Listen. There’s water in the pitcher. Do you have a change of clothes?”
He patted his bag. “Clean enough.”
“Wash up. Leave your uniform outside the door. I’ll wash it. Eden won’t be in until evening.”
“I’m not going to strip down in the princess’s room, and I can wash my own clothes—”
“You will, and I’ll wash them, and you can have a moment to not be surrounded by men. A moment of peace.”
He grappled with the idea, then nodded, so I left him to his thoughts, waiting outside the door for his uniform.
I ran my hands ragged dragging it across the washboard.
Hung it out to dry. Saw the too-few cooking staff struggling with setting up dinner for so many new arrivals, so I hurried into the tower to see to Brien, then excused myself to help with the evening meal.
With luck Brien and I could eat together afterward.
I helped drag cauldrons full of stew across the bailey, so those assigned to a kitchen meal today could form multiple lines and get their dinners faster.
Seln helped me haul mine closer to the east tower.
Even with her help I found the task surprisingly tiring.
Soldiers lingered nearby, pups waiting for a scrap to drop, but Princess Azra stood apart from them, like a wine stain on white linen.
I wondered how she kept her gowns so clean, especially with the grounds constantly turned up by passing soldiers.
That easy smile of hers was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, she scowled so deeply even Seln remarked, “Is she very hungry?”
I wished again that the link allowed words to pass through.
Did you say something to her? I’d ask Renn.
Yet perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps Azra had dug into her growing network for more rumors about me.
Perhaps a maid or soldier had mentioned I hadn’t healed anyone in camp, or that Renn had come to my room after his return to Derren.
Did I pray to Hem or to Zia for patience? Gods knew I needed it. And an extra morsel of energy. The day’s work had left me lightheaded.
Beatty whistled. Soldiers came at the ready with bowls from their personal kits. Pushing back my sleeves, I greeted them and ladled out soup as swiftly as I could, making sure I kept my enormous plait of hair out of the cookpot.
I spooned a ladleful into a younger man’s bowl and began reaching to the soldier in line behind him, but the younger stopped me. “We’ve had hard training today.” He tried to influence me with a lopsided grin. “A little extra?”
“You’ll have to get back in line if you’re hoping for seconds,” I offered.
The soldier comically mourned, earning a chuckle from his compatriot. They were well trained and efficient, and soon I was scraping the bottom of the pot and directing lingering soldiers to the next cauldron.
As I wiped my hands on my apron, Princess Azra strolled up to me in a very carefree manner, twisting the stem of a wildflower between her pale fingers.
“Did you wash before serving?” she asked.
I bit back a sigh, dropped the ladle into the cauldron, and leaned on the pot’s giant lip. “Your Highness, I assure you, your ire is better placed elsewhere.”
She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “I can assure you that you’ve only had a taste of it.”
Patience failed me, as it so often did. I glowered.
I glowered at her smug expression, at the curls her maid surely spent hours winding into her hair to mimic mine, at her expensive clothing.
She was just like the nobles at the winter ball, overly concerned with herself and completely ignorant of the suffering outside the castle walls.
She stood on the edge of war yet seemed blind to everything but her own ambition.
“Stew?” I ground out, hefting the ladle.
Wrinkling her nose, Azra stepped back from me. “Whore,” she spat, and started toward the—
“What did you just call her?”
My heart jumped, struck my clavicle, and dropped into my gut. Turning, I spied Renn coming from the east tower, only a few paces away, a bowl in his hand as though he’d been waiting for me to finish serving before he ate.
Princess Azra had enough modesty to blanch. “Y-Your Majesty.” She plastered on that smile, but it quivered in place. “You misheard me.”
Renn strode right up to us, the faintest glow emanating from his skin. I don’t think he noticed it. “I can hear a hawk take flight from half a mile away.”
“But you asked—”
“Redundantly.” He stopped in front of her, the toes of his boots touching her slippers, his cobalt gaze blazing. “I asked you a question.”