Chapter 24 #3
It tore at Vaasa’s heart to stand from the table. To give one last parting glance to Reid before following Lord Karev up the stairs and back into the main fabric shop. She turned over her shoulder, meeting his eyes one last time, and despite them both, he winked.
Her heart thudded ceaselessly in her chest. Escape. She could taste it, feel it in the clutches of her hands.
“Heiress?” Lord Karev called.
Vaasa had a moment to recover. She turned just slightly and ran her fingertips along a spool of fabric as if she were mesmerized. “This purple wool,” Vaasa mused, meeting the lord’s eyes. “It’s exactly my favorite color.”
“Then you should have it,” he said. Lord Karev gestured to Sachia, saying, “Add it to my credit.”
It was a strange gesture, not inauthentic in its delivery, because Karev was getting what he wanted.
She was useful to him, and the moment she ceased to be, he would run cold.
Vaasa imagined this was precisely what it would be like to marry a man like Lord Karev—someone with whom she would build a dispassionate, though not entirely unkind, relationship…
so long as she remained obedient. Perhaps in another world, it would have been the type her mother and her father shared. Allies, if not lovers.
Except her father had tortured witches, and her mother had spent fifteen years loving someone else.
“That is… generous, thank you,” Vaasa managed.
He nodded with what she could almost believe was respect. “As I said, when you are by my side, you will want for nothing.” As if the gift were something she couldn’t have afforded herself.
Sachia summoned one of the older women who worked in the shop, telling them to package the spool. “I’ll deliver it to the fortress, and perhaps we can continue discussions about that wardrobe,” Sachia said.
Vaasa gave an approving nod. “Please.”
Lord Karev extended his arm, something he didn’t particularly have to do, given they weren’t surrounded by anyone else.
But the way he looked at her… it had softened, ever so slightly.
Vaasa grinned, taking his offer and doing her best not to be revulsed as she settled into his side.
“I see why Ozik finds you useful,” Lord Karev said quietly. “That was well done, Heiress.”
It was the closest to a real compliment that he would likely give her in private.
As they exited, Vaasa found Roman waiting right where she’d left him.
Just as Lord Karev wanted, she did not meet her sentinel’s eyes.
She waited until they climbed back into the carriage before she asked, “Do you do business with pirates often, Lord Karev?”
He ran his tongue over his teeth, looking speechless for the first time. It was odd to see him like this, and Vaasa immediately took advantage.
“I am the daughter of the continent’s most ruthless conqueror,” she reminded him. “People like us must stay in power one way or another.”
Lord Karev let out a small chuckle and relaxed into his seat, as if she had just established something between them that had been the only part he didn’t know how to navigate. “I believe we’re similar, you and I,” he said. “We share the same vision for our lives.”
In so many ways, she wanted to say that she and he could never be the same. But as their carriage pulled away from the fabric shop, she wondered how much longer she could juggle these pieces before she had to cut out parts of herself to make room for what she was being shaped into next.
Schemer.
Chameleon.
Serpent.
Perhaps she was just as wicked as he.
“May we coordinate for tomorrow?” Lord Karev said, pulling Vaasa from her musing. “Dress in blue. We look powerful in blue.”
The following evening, dinner dragged on, a boring affair of political pandering.
Ozik was seated near Vaasa, in the same spot at the table that he had filled Vaasa’s entire life.
It was only the emperor’s seat that remained empty, though every once in a while, Vaasa noticed Lord Karev staring at it.
Vaasa sat where her mother had—perhaps presumptive, but at Ozik’s behest all the same.
Anything we can do to make you appear inevitable is worth doing, he’d said.
It was halfway through dinner when Lord Karev stood from his table just next to the dais, meandering to the middle of the vast dining hall.
He turned to face Vaasa where she sat. Dressed in the richest of blue jackets and black breeches, dark hair combed perfectly around his handsome face, he was the picture-perfect model of Asteryan royalty.
With a brilliantly composed speech about progress and unity and carrying on the throne, Lord Karev turned to Vaasa.
She stood, lifting her glass and smiling. “Which is why, when Lord Karev asked me to be his wife last night, I humbly accepted.”
The room erupted in what was evenly split between genuine celebration and fabricated cheers. The Old Asteryans were shaken, the New Asteryans emboldened. This conflict was far from over. It didn’t matter if Lord Karev took the throne; the old guard would not share their influence so easily.
Which meant she saw a clear way to plunge the two factions into a civil dispute that would fracture any ruler’s ability to summon a military large enough to challenge the Icrurian Central Forces.
Her father had been a brilliant politician, keeping both friends and enemies close to unite Asterya, and in another life, that would have been Vaasa’s strength, too. But in this life, she would be the thing that broke it.
When the opportunity arose and the room plunged into celebratory dancing and cheer, Vaasa joined in.
She embodied her roles as heiress and future bride, while Lord Karev was already on display as the regal, good-natured emperor-to-be.
For hours they danced and smiled and accepted congratulations, but as any good noble knew, the first party was never the last one.
Most of the people with real influence had already filtered out and gone somewhere else.
Roman lingered in the corner—no words exchanged between them, but no opportunity to slip away from him, either. If she wanted to make it to The Lady Fortune, she would need another way. She trailed Lord Karev to the back of the room, wine goblet in hand, and said, “Are you bored yet?”
He raised a brow at her, likely noticing the same things about the room that she did.
Lord Karev handed his goblet to one of the servants who skittered by and took Vaasa’s hand.
He watched Roman, gauging just the right moment, and when Roman turned, Lord Karev pounced.
“Now,” he whispered, and pulled her out of the room like two newly engaged lovers.
Lord Karev was the perfect excuse, the perfect alibi for her absence.
Suddenly, her cavorting was appropriate—expected, even.
No longer a whore, just someone’s future bride.
They fled through the Sanctum and out into the city square, Lord Karev waving down his carriage. He guided her in just as Roman burst through the front doors, anger marring his features. He ran toward them, face contorted in fury.
“Go!” Vaasa laughed as if she found the idea of cutting Roman this way to be funny.
She didn’t. The hurt on his face was a knife to her chest.
“To the city,” Lord Karev told his own hired mercenaries, who quickly signaled the horses forward. “Do not stop for the sentinel.”
The carriage lurched, and they rode off before Roman had the chance to stop them.