Henry beamed at that, and Adela kissed him quickly on the cheek before turning away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Henry.”
Henry stood in the hall, gazing after her. “Tomorrow, Dela,” he whispered.
She waved one last time and vanished around the corner, leaving the young Finley alone with his longing.
Once she was away, she picked up the pace, walking briskly. Servants bowed as she passed, smiling knowingly. Adela smiled back, but her mind was only half on the princess act. She’d taken the long way to the royal quarters without thinking, walking along the castle’s eastern face, the face that looked out over the Unseen Sea. The sun was behind her now, and the ocean lay glittering beneath the light of the last sliver of the waning moon. She watched it as she walked, gazing at the long, flat line of the horizon. Somewhere out there, the Empress’s fleet was preparing. Ever since the queen had declared that the Empress was on the move, Adela had been watching the sea day and night, waiting for the first glimpse of the ships that would change her life forever. Her hand sank unbidden to the heavy, ornate short sword at her hip. When the Empress came, she would be ready.
The servant led Josef to a suite in the oldest part of the palace. There were five rooms in total: a sitting room with a single, narrow window overlooking the castle’s front courtyard, a dressing chamber, a washroom with a tiny fireplace and an iron tub, a small library, and, of course, the bedchamber with its massive bed cut from the wood of the last of Osera’s oaks before the entire island had been deforested to make way for the growing city. The servant insisted on giving Josef the full tour, and Josef let him, despite the fact that he knew the suite with his eyes closed. After all, for the first half of his life, these had been his rooms.
Very little had changed. The rooms had been cleaned and divested of the clothes and toys he’d left behind the night he ran away to become a swordsman, but the suffocating feel of the place hadn’t changed at all. If anything, the dark rooms seemed even smaller than before, though Josef supposed that was because he’d grown several inches since he was fifteen.
Josef let the servant finish his tour before ordering him to get out. When the man finally left, Josef sat down on the silk couch in the sitting room. The sky was dark outside the tiny slit window. Torches flickered down in the courtyard below, making it feel far later than it was. Sitting on the creaking couch, the same couch he’d sat on with his mother while she lectured him on being a prince, he felt strangely outside of time. He could still see his mother as she had been, tall and golden and unapproachable. A queen in every sense, not that bent, old woman sleeping in the room above him. Josef looked up, glaring at the wood-beam ceiling. Hot, childish anger welled up in his chest, surprising him with its vigor. The anger had been building since he’d set foot in Osera, since he’d first seen his increased bounty and realized what it meant. Being back here, in this palace, and now in these rooms, he felt like he was fifteen again—still trapped by duty he hadn’t asked for and expectations he could never meet, still desperate to get out, to get away.
Josef frowned and took a breath, a swordsman’s breath, as his old sword master had taught him, and let the anger drift away. The Heart’s weight pressed on his back, reminding him of how far he’d come. He reached up with a reverent motion, drawing the black blade from its wrapping and laying it across his knees. He was not trapped, he told himself as his fingers traced the Heart’s scarred surface. He was here by choice, a son doing a good turn for his mother, to whom he owed his life. When he was done, he would leave by choice. He would turn and walk away from the court and the crown and everything else that had no claim over him anymore.
Feeling slightly better, Josef leaned over and set the Heart against the stone fireplace. Realizing it could be a while before Adela arrived, Josef flicked a dagger out of his sleeve. He fetched his whetstone from his pocket and, sitting up on the pillows, began to sharpen his knives, killing the time with long, slow strokes as he waited for his wife.
He didn’t have long to wait. He’d scarcely finished his daggers when the door creaked and Adela stepped into the room. Her armor was gone, replaced by a close-tailored jacket that showed off her figure and long leather trousers tucked into short boots. Her sword, however, was still at her side, and that comforted Josef. Princesses baffled him, but an opponent he could understand, and Adela had always been up for a fight when they were kids.
She stopped when she saw him, and he got the feeling she didn’t expect him to just be sitting there, waiting. But, as always with Adela, she adapted, stepping into the room like this was how she ended every evening.
“Have you eaten?” she said, her voice bright and cheery.
Josef shook his head.
“I’ll ring the bell, then,” she said, stepping over the blades he’d laid out on the carpet.
Josef just nodded and began putting his knives back into their sheaths.
Dinner arrived a few moments later, a series of trays carried in by servants who gave Josef knowing smiles until he reached for his sword. After that, dinner was laid on the table with great efficiency and the servants vanished out the door as silently as they had come in.
Adela walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of dark wine, carefully pouring two glasses and setting them on the table.
“Sit,” she said, sitting down.
Josef walked to the table. “Is that an order, captain?”
“No,” she said. “You can starve if you like.”
Josef arched an eyebrow, but he pulled out the chair and sat down. She pushed a plate of roast meat across the table at him. “Eat.”
“Why the sudden concern for my well-being?” Josef said, taking the fork and helping himself.
“I want this over as much as you do,” Adela said, spooning a pile of roasted vegetables onto her own plate. “And it’s kind of hard to get a baby from a dead man.”
Josef stabbed his fork down so hard the tines bent. “I can’t believe you agreed to this,” he muttered. “Marriage to an absent husband is one thing, but a baby?”
“You think too much of yourself, Josef,” Adela said between neat bites of her food. “All you are at this point is an impediment to the progression of the bloodline, same as I’m little more than a useful vessel. The only thing anyone in this kingdom wants or expects from us is a child to carry on the line of Iron Lions. My life has always depended on being what was expected of me, and when you look at it that way, being a mother isn’t so different from being guard captain.”
Josef winced. “When you put it like that it kind of removes the nobility from the whole affair.”
“There wasn’t much to begin with,” Adela said, drinking her wine. “We’ll be done pretending one day. Until then, it doesn’t have to be all bad, does it? I mean, we used to be friends.”
“We did,” Josef said quietly. “A lot can change in fifteen years, Dela.”
“Nothing that matters, Josef,” Adela said, putting down her cup and tossing her napkin on the table. “I’m going to bed,” she announced, standing up and starting toward the bedroom. “Finish your damn wine and let’s get this done.”
Josef looked after her. “But I don’t dri—”
The slam of the bedroom door cut him off. Josef sat at the table fuming for several minutes, and then he let the battle calm fall over him. He grabbed the small glass of wine and drained it in one gulp. When it was gone, he stood up, threw the empty glass on the table, and turned toward the bedroom. He marched across the room and opened the door with an angry tug, slamming it behind him as he vanished into the candle-lit bedchamber.
Nico crouched on the edge of the kitchen chimney, staring through the tiny strip of Josef’s window at the closed bedroom door. She stared for a long time, digging her fingers into the sleeves of her coat until the fabric growled.
She was such an idiot. What had she been thinking, vanishing right in front of the queen? Hiding from Josef when he’d come looking for her? It was stupid, dangerous, and, worse, childish.
Nico put her head down, burying her burning face into the folds of her coat. Josef would be so disappointed in her. He’d always said she was a survivor, a fighter. He didn’t know she was a coward, hiding away on the rooftop because she couldn’t stand to see him with… with…
Nico sighed and jumped down, sprawling herself out on the steep slope of the palace roof to stare up at the long, snakelike creatures that were just barely visible against the flat black of the night sky. The worst part was she didn’t even have a right to be this angry. After all, what was Josef to her? A partner in crime. A friend. A
