Seravyn #3
“But weren’t you?” I tilt my head. “Courting someone here may mean simply going to a play together, with an escort. But what you’re really curious about is if the women where I’m from are permitted to indulge before marriage, and if I have done such indulging.
” I arch an eyebrow. “I’ve heard the rumors, too, Ren.
What courtiers have whispered about Threnmere customs.”
Aldric’s callous words invade my mind, his accusation of me being a temptress, a Threnmere girl who loves to torture, and I force them away.
“I have nothing to be ashamed of,” I say to Ren. “If that were the case, my station aside, I have nothing I feel the need to hide from anyone. However, I simply have never met someone who inspired me to indulge.”
Something behind his gaze heats, and I feel the charged touch of it as his gaze searches my face. “I have never met anyone like you, Princess.”
“Not here in Kravenholt,” I say with a teasing smile.
“Not anywhere,” he amends, voice a low rasp.
A flush of heat warms my chest. “Then I’ll take that as a compliment.”
He nods sincerely. “You absolutely should. I’m fascinated. Mesmerized. Bewitched.”
The air charges between us, and I’ve lost the seconds, the minutes it’s been since I disappeared from the gallery. I don’t want to go back—I want to stay here, in this moment, and find a way to indulge with Ren—but I feel the weight of time.
“But now that you’re betrothed,” he says, cutting into my frantic thoughts, “there’s no chance of it.”
The question, again, is implied. I glance away, to the wall where a painting of the king hangs in all its threatening glory. His arctic eyes following, watching.
“That’s how it works,” I say, and I see the fall of his features he tries to hide with a quick shift.
“Of course,” he says, then rests a daring hand to my cheek, stilling my breath. “But that would only be honored by an honorable man, no?”
I swallow, leaning into his touch against my own will. “And as a jester, you are no such honorable man.”
He moves a breath closer. “I confess, I have never wanted to be more dishonorable in my life, Princess.”
His thumb traces the line of my cheekbone, and my eyes flutter shut. I lean into his touch, just enough that his palm cups my jaw. And Morrishan help me, I’m willing him to be dishonorable—to steal a kiss right this very instant…stripping me of the burden to ask for it.
My hands rise without permission and rest against his chest. I feel his heart, hammering against my palm.
The seconds pass.
I open my eyes, finding anguish pitted deep in his.
The scar that crosses his eye catches the faint light, silver-white against the shadow of his brow. His mouth parts. His pupil swallows the color of his eye almost completely.
His thumb stills against my cheek.
Ren exhales, his forehead dropping until it rests against mine. The contact is so chaste and so devastating that my eyes sting.
Then he’s gone, leaving my skin cold where it was warm from his touch only moments ago.
“We should return before we’re missed,” I say, smoothing my skirt that has no wrinkles.
Ren nods, no words needed. He offers me his hand to rise, but then says, “You had a question to ask of me.”
I take his hand, allowing him to pull me up beside him. Then I shake my head. “Another time,” I say. “It can wait.”
We stand here a moment longer, each of us waiting for the other to break the rules, to surrender.
I walk ahead. “I’m sure Isolde is looking for me by now.”
“Sera, wait—” He picks up the book of poetry from the chaise, offering it to me with a mock-formal bow that breaks the moment enough to be bearable.
“Your book, Princess. So you have a reason for your absence.”
I take it with a small smile. “Maybe I’ll have another reason to disappear here soon,” I say, letting my intentions linger in the charged air.
The faintest ray of hope lights his features. “As I’ve said, little cunning thing.”
A flush heats my skin, and I bury my smile.
We both leave the queen’s library, descending the staircase in silence. Ren pauses behind the tapestry, his hand finding my elbow once to steady me, then we’re back inside the corridor, surrounded by the noise and the chaos of a wedding I do not want and cannot stop.
We walk in opposite directions, and I don’t look back, not knowing whether he does either. But I feel his gaze on my spine the entire length of the gallery.
We’re in dangerous territory now. But haven’t I trodden safely my whole life?—and look where it’s landed me. Right in the maw of a beast—King Aldric Vaelstrom.
I realize I’m in danger—but not from any of the king’s cruelties. From myself, from what I might sacrifice if this feeling aching in my chest burrows any deeper.
I came here with one purpose.
It’s foolish to wish it could be different.
Yet I never thought I’d find something—someone—I could want more than to end the reign of a king who terrorizes so many realms.
But for the first time, the tally marks in my wardrobe don’t feel like a countdown to a wedding.
They feel like a measure of something else entirely.
The distance between the girl who arrived in this palace, sealed and silent and certain of her purpose—and the woman who didn’t just let a jester catch her, but who—goddess help her—wants to be caught.