I straightened. “We have witnesses.”
Lia shook her head minutely. “Your loyal companions. They wouldn’t be believed.”
“Believe this, Your Highness,” Sondra said, her voice harsh as Merle’s. “I know something about rape. I would never stand idly by and allow it to happen. Not even for my king. I’d cut his cock off first. Begging your pardon, Conrí.”
Unwillingly, I smiled. Especially when I caught the look on Lia’s face. “She would, too.”
“I appreciate your attempt to console Me, Lady Sondra,” Lia replied stiffly. “But that does nothing to salve a reputation I’ve spent most of My life building.” She leaned her elbows on the desk, delicately bracing the wig and crown, groaning softly. “What am I going to do?”
“We should have the wedding immediately,” Ambrose said.
Lia looked up, blinked, long and slow, the crystals on her lashes chiming musically. “There won’t be a wedding. Anure will execute Me for allowing his emissary and guards to be slaughtered, not marry Me.”
“Oh no!” Ambrose laughed, shaking his head, and Merle added soft caws. “You’re correct in that. But you were never meant for Anure, child. I meant for you and Conrí to marry. That will preserve your reputation and satisfy the prophecy. Although it will have to be a marriage in truth.” He waggled his eyebrows at us. “No marriage in name only. Can’t leave Anure any loopholes.”
Lia leveled a fulminous glare on me.
“What?” I held up my hands in defense. “I didn’t say it!”
“He’s your wizard,” she shot back in icy tones.
“Actually, I’m my own wizard,” Ambrose said genially. Merle cawed and flapped his wings. “All right. True. I’m Merle’s wizard, if anything.”
“I’m not marrying Conrí.” Lia declared her decision with the finality of a queen accustomed to being obeyed. Though I had no wish to marry her, either, it put my hackles up that she’d rather marry the imperial toad and sacrifice her life to him than even entertain the thought of being shackled to a brute like me.
“You asked me how to find an heir for the Abiding Ring,” Ambrose said. He tilted the staff so it caught a ray of sunshine and shot a spear of emerald light at my face.
“Hey,” I protested, squinting and holding up a hand to block it.
“Him?” Lia loaded a world of incredulity into the one word. “You want Me to make him the heir to the orchid ring and the kingdom of Calanthe.”
“No, no. Perish the thought. That is not something Conrí could ever be.”
I scowled at the amusement in the wizard’s protest. “Gee, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Ambrose bowed a little, completely without irony. “No, I mean the legitimate children of your marriage. There will be heirs for you, I promise.”
“Except that I have no intention of marrying this man.” She wouldn’t even look at me as she said it.
“But you will,” Ambrose assured her. “It’s what has to happen.”
“Is it?” I asked him. If I’d truly been a king, had something to offer her, and if we lived in a different, kinder world, maybe I could’ve wooed Lia, convinced her that … what? Even if we’d met in that world, I don’t know what I could’ve offered her. It didn’t bear contemplating, as that boy, that man I might’ve been had disappeared along with everything else. Though I wasn’t Anure by any stretch, I also didn’t blame Lia for fighting being forced to take a husband like me. “Surely there’s another way around the prophecy.”
Ambrose gave me a long look. “You’ve suffered greatly, Conrí. I believe you can endure this, too.”
Was that mockery? I could swear I caught a glimpse of bitter betrayal in Lia’s eyes before she drowned it in impassivity. “Don’t concern yourself,” she told me sweetly. “I won’t force you to the altar.”
I ignored her and kept my gaze on Ambrose. “Do you promise that if I marry Her Highness, everything will fall into place for me to destroy Anure and end his reign?”
Lia laughed, sharp, the bitter edge riding it. “A foolhardy and grandiose ambition.”
“And yours are small and petty, limited to one tiny island.”
She rose to her feet and leaned toward me. “At least I kept My tiny island intact. How is Oriel these days?”
Sondra made a small, shocked sound. Even Lia seemed taken aback by her very well-aimed taunt, a glimmer of regret in her eyes.
“In ruins, thanks,” I replied, for once not caring how like a dog’s low growl my voice sounded. “Which is entirely Anure’s fault, so I will have my revenge, regardless of your opinion. Ambrose?”
“Yes,” he replied simply. “I would not mislead you about this. Marry the Queen of Flowers and together you shall destroy Anure and his empire.”
I nodded, something about his careful wording bothering me. I really wanted to ask what he would mislead me about, but this wasn’t the moment. “All right then. You might not want to force me to the altar, Your Highness, but I have zero compunction about dragging you there. That’s the price of being my hostage. Before the sun sets, my sweet, you shall be the bride of the Slave King.”
She paled, visible even under the makeup. At last I’d found a weakness in her formidable armor, and I couldn’t find it in myself to enjoy the moment. Too bad that it was the prospect of being bound to me that did it, but as Ambrose pointed out, I’d suffered worse before this.
“You can’t force Me to take vows,” she asserted, but she sounded a hair less certain than before.
“You’ll do it to rescue your reputation,” I informed her.
But she shook her head, forcefully enough that the crown wobbled and she had to put up a hand to steady it. A hand that trembled. I felt like the brute I was.
“I’d rather be disgraced than wed to you,” she replied with quiet dignity, and depthless obstinacy.
“You are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met,” I snarled at her.
To my surprise, she smiled, as if I’d given her a compliment. “I’ve often noticed,” she said, in a conversational tone, “that people always call Me stubborn—though rarely to My face, I’ll acknowledge—when I won’t do what they want Me to do. I won’t do it, Con. You can physically force Me to the altar, presuming you find a way to hold off My guards, but you cannot make Me speak the vows.”
I studied her slim and straight posture. Did she realize she’d called me by my name just then? Perhaps so, as her eyes held an appeal I might’ve called desperate in a less resolute personality. She thought she’d called my bluff, but then she thought I was a fool and she’d made a mistake there.
“Time for us to talk, Lia,” I said, using that same conversational tone.
She raised a sardonic eyebrow. “And here I thought we had been.”
I smiled without humor for her sally. Plucking up the discarded brandy, I tossed it back. I’d meant it to be mocking, to demonstrate that I could take anything of hers that I wanted to, but it went down like a dream of golden summers long since lost. Unable to resist, I poured more, sipping this time and savoring. “That’s really good stuff,” I admitted.