I swallowed my doubts and said to Nnati, “Do you remember the guy I talked about the last time we were at NordHaven? Roki?”
Nnati nodded. “I do.”
“Okay. Well, do you think that by dating Prince Zawne, I would be betraying him? It’s just … I know it was three years ago, but I still feel connected to him somehow. Do you think I’ve waited long enough?”
Nnati stared at me like I was crazy. “Um, yeah,” he said. “Kaelyn, you waited for him through your prime teen years. He never showed. You’re eighteen now. You’re a woman, and the coronation is in three weeks. You did all you could for that boy, and he left you high and dry. Go on the date with Zawne tomorrow and see how you feel. If it’s good, move ahead. Move on. You deserve it.”
“Thanks,” I said, but I didn’t feel like I deserved anything. I’d never be able to ignore the fact that I had left Mama with cruel words instead of love before she died. It would gnaw at me for the rest of my life.
“And Gaard deserves it,” Nnati went on. “The Ava-Gaard deserve you at your best if you’re to be their leader, maybe even their queen.”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “Now you’re the one being silly. The Crown of Crowns will never pick me. Not even if I marry Zawne. Over the years, several eligible heirs have either trained with the Grucken or become Askas. All I have is the foundation.”
“That might be all you need,” Nnati said, “your kindness and your heart—oh, and the marriage to Zawne. Just remember, Kaelyn, marry in haste and repent at leisure. Keep the kingdom in mind on your date, but also follow your feelings. You’ll know what to do.”
I thought it was crazy that we hadn’t even talked first, Zawne and I. Raad and Jaken had been the orchestrators of our little date. They had even decided on my apartment as the venue, which seemed a bit too intimate for my liking. I reasoned that it may have been improper to meet there, but I didn’t want to be caught in a public place with Zawne, in case nothing came out of the meetup. The main VondRust Palace buildings were also risky, since too many people could see us. And so there I was, standing at the threshold of my apartment while lightning flashed across the black sky and Zawne stood on the stoop, smiling, rain washing his handsome face. Thunder rolled in an ominous boom as he said, “May I come in?”
“Of course.” I gestured him inside. “Get out of the rain. How rude of me.”
As I closed the door, I whispered to myself, “Just one date. Be strong, Kaelyn.”
I had thought throughout my childhood that Mama and Papa would marry me off to a foreign heir. I had never imagined that when the day came, my brother would have a hand in it. And I never imagined that the man would be Zawne. When one of the Gaard councillors once suggested to me that Zawne and I would be a good fit, I had instantly rejected the theory. I was fifteen, and I thought we were too different. He seemed extroverted and cheerful, whereas I gloried in my solitude. If it had to be a prince, Jaken was much more to my liking. But so much had changed since then. Jaken and Raad had gotten married, and Zawne was now an Aska. I found myself asking: Did Zawne really want me, or was he going along with it just because it was expected of him?
On the plus side, the potential marriage could also be the answer to my anxieties about Roki’s invisible pull. I wondered if it was because I thought about him so much that I was starting to dream about him. It was time to cut the cord. All this thinking only made me restless, and Zawne was shaking the water from his hair like a dog. “What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “It must have been the wind. I have the fireplace roaring,” I told him. “Let’s go into the sitting room and get you warm.” I gulped, seeing his wet shirt clinging to his muscles. “You’re soaked.”
I led the way, modest yet alluring in the silk dress I had chosen to wear. A slit in the skirt showed off the sheen of my calves, and I could feel Zawne’s eyes fixating on them as he followed me into the sitting room.
“Are you cold?” I asked.
“No, not really. I swam and paddled for weeks through the frigid waters off the coast of Surrvul. I spent half a year with no shelter in the wasteland. It’s a hot nightmare during the day but a cold and miserable place by night. I’ve stopped being cold.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. I knew the Aska training was tough; people were killed by beasts and ravaged by the elements. I tried to sympathize with Zawne by saying, “Raad never talked about his time out there. You make it sound like a harsh and unforgiving wild.”
“It is.” Zawne took off his wet shirt and hung it on a peg above the fireplace to dry. His skin was moist, body chiseled like a sculpture of an ancient warrior. He had scars on his ribs and on his chest.
“Are those claw marks?” I asked.
“Huh?” Zawne inspected himself, looked at the scars on his right pec as if he had forgotten they were there. “Yeah,” he said, “but I don’t know which scar is from which leopard. I battled two of them. Or was it three? It happened so fast. My apologies, but my memory is fuzzy.”
I had a vision of Zawne on a hot desert while three leopards
