“Nothing but the best for the Queen of Flowers,” she replied, voice heavy with irony.
I toasted her with the glass, sipped once more, and set it down. Much as I’d love to have more of the ambrosial liquor, I couldn’t afford to slow my reflexes. There would be fighting yet to come that day—and not only with my lovely fiancée.
“Ambrose, Sondra—would you leave us alone?”
25
I nearly called the pair of them back when Ambrose offered Sondra his arm and they strolled out onto one of my balconies, as if at their leisure to admire the sights, even while the pounding on the doors accelerated. Con waited for them to go and pull the glass doors shut behind them, then turned that blazing gold gaze on me.
I braced myself. I didn’t think he’d hurt me, but he had a way of getting around my arguments. In truth, my previous convictions were in tatters. All my careful plans, dashed to pieces. Furious as I was, I couldn’t help reveling in the sweet relief that I wouldn’t have to get on that ship. I wouldn’t have to face Anure, yield to those cruel and grasping hands. Give up my life when I hadn’t yet lived.
Not yet.
Con studied me, assessing me like the enemy combatant I was. So I attacked first. I raised a brow at him. “Did you want privacy so you could compromise Me in truth?”
The pounding on the doors stopped abruptly and ominously. They must be formulating a new plan.
He ignored both that and my taunt. “What will it take?” he asked. He poured me some brandy and slid it to me.
I eyed it and him calmly, offering him no opening.
“What will it take to convince you to marry me, right here, right now?” he clarified.
“Are you attempting to bribe Me?” I asked, making sure to sound incredulous.
“If that’s what it takes, yes.” He glanced around the room. “I obviously have little to offer you that you don’t already have, but I would vow to do my best to give you whatever you ask for.” He grimaced slightly. “If nothing else, I’m good at living up to my promises.”
I opened my mouth, found I had no words. “Why does it matter to you so much?” I finally asked.
He looked around, spotted one of my elegant chairs, and snagged it. Tapping its seat, he seemed to be checking its sturdiness before settling his weight on it and stretching out his long legs, folding his hands over his flat abdomen. He watched me with those unblinking wolf’s eyes.
“You say nothing matters to you more than protecting Calanthe? Well, nothing matters more to me than destroying Anure and his false empire.”
“Everything they say about you is true,” I said, pleased that he flinched, even if barely. We’d learned very quickly how best to wound the other.
“That’s right.” He inclined his head. “Ambrose says marrying you will get me what I want. I’m willing to give you whatever you want to make that happen.”
“I want My freedom,” I told him, surprising myself that I blurted it out. “And Calanthe’s,” I amended hastily. “Can you give Me that?”
He considered. “I took mine, by force of might, as you know. So, yes. I can promise the same freedom I have, which is something.”
“The questionable freedom of an outlaw,” I pointed out.
Smiling wolfishly, he acknowledged that. “Better than none at all.”
I snorted disparagingly.
He sobered. “And far better than the bastardized version of freedom you have labored under all these years.”
With no reply to that, I had to look away. Out the window to the fantastic beauty of Calanthe. For no good reason, I had to struggle not to weep.
“Lia.” He waited until I looked at him again and, all seriousness, leaned forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “I promise I’d fight for you and Calanthe. I’m a good strategist, and a better fighter. Warriors more skilled than I am follow me willingly.” His mouth twisted in a wry smile, as if that surprised him. “I have vurgsten in great quantities, both with me on my ships and cached in various locations. More important, I hold Anure’s mines at Vurgmun with my own people, so he can’t acquire more.”
“He’ll have plenty stockpiled,” I pointed out, unable to help myself.
Nodding, he sighed for that truth. “It would be good to find out how much he has.”
I laughed for the impossibility of that. “You’d need spies on the inside at Yekpehr.”
His gaze didn’t waver from my face. “I’m betting you have them.”
Had I thought he’d believed my act, fallen for the helpless and fragile ornament I’d pretended to be? Apparently not. If nothing else, this man—this deposed and enslaved prince—saw through me in a way no one else did. I couldn’t judge him for what he’d suffered at Anure’s hands. He’d survived what would have broken a lesser man. So had Sondra.
“This would be a marriage in truth,” I said slowly, pondering the possibility of actually doing this. “No pretenses. Even if Ambrose hadn’t set those boundaries, I’d insist on them.”
Con nodded once, eyes on mine. “I accept those terms.”
“What about Sondra?” I asked then, working to keep the caustic jealousy from my voice and eyes. Not many marriages on Calanthe demanded fidelity of the partners or multiples, but I’d had little opportunity to explore my emotional tolerance for such things. Judging by how I felt now, I wouldn’t be generous about Con continuing to be her lover.
To my surprise, he dropped his face in his hands scrubbing it, then raking his hair back. “She punched me, you know,” he said conversationally, “for telling you I love her.”
That sounded like Sondra, from what I’d observed. “Jeopardized the game by revealing that secret, did you?”
“What?” He looked briefly confused. “No. Because we don’t love each other that way. She’s my closest friend. What we went through in those mines…” He looked haunted, haggard, gazing out the window. Then shook it off. “I can’t tell you what happened to her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. But I could see it now, that deep connection between them, that went beyond anything as simple as friendship.
He coughed, cleared his throat. “I am not … good at talking. But Sondra is like a sister to me and—” He broke off again, throat working, and he studied his interlaced fingers.
“It’s good to have someone like that,” I said, mostly to give him time to compose himself. He’d dropped some of his hard shell to talk to me this way, and I hadn’t expected to see this person through the cracks. Oriel. Something niggled in my memory. Not a crown prince, but a princess. Not Sondra, I thought, but perhaps Con’s blood sister.
“Why didn’t you tell Me who you are?” I asked.
His glanced up, eyes hard again. “This is who I am.”
“Conrí, crown prince of Oriel.”
“I was,” he conceded, mouth tight. “Long ago, when such things mattered.”
“They still matter,” I replied.
“To you,” he sneered.
“The world cares,” I replied, refusing to rise to his bait. And the land cared, but he might not know that. I had no idea if the kings and queens of Oriel had observed the old ways. Even if they had, Con might’ve been too young still to know it.