“What?”
Love. It’s a foolish little dream. I choke it down where she can’t see it. “I just want to meet someone I can trust. Someone who cares for me. A little. Someone who looks at me and sees me. Iskvien. Not my mother’s pawn. Not a means for advancement, or a means for revenge.”
Revenge. There. I’ve said it, and now my entire soul locks on that word I’ve been trying not to even think about.
Why did the Prince of Evernight focus on me?
Because he did. He took one look at me and he had to have me, and I fell into his arms like a pathetic little virgin.
It can’t have been coincidence, and I think I hate that more than anything.
Did he fuck me so he could gloat about it to my mother? Or his court?
What was last night all about?
Why did he give me such control?
What does any of it mean?
“Who was he?” Andraste murmurs, sinking onto the bed beside me.
“I don’t even know,” I say hastily. “Just a… retainer in some other court.”
Andraste gives me a long, slow look.
“Someone I shouldn’t have slept with,” I snap. “Congratulate me on being a fool. I earned it.”
She sighs and leans back on her hands. “Do you know why I wanted you to find someone?”
Stillness creeps through my heart. We haven’t confided in each other like this for years. “Why?”
Andraste stares blankly at the tent wall in front of her. “Because I wanted one of us to be happy. I want that for you, Vi.” Her lashes obscure her eyes. “Because none of the rest of us are ever going to get it.”
I swallow. Hard. “I’m trapped by a marriage contract I can’t get out of. I’m fairly certain that’s not my happily-ever-after.”
“You promised Mother you would sign Maren’s contract,” she replies astutely. “Don’t think I didn’t notice the exact words you used.” She pushes to her feet, looking far older than me in this moment. “I don’t know how you can get out of this arrangement, but I do know you have a chance. You have time, Vi. You want to make your own choices? Then start playing the game. You don’t have the luxury of being a little girl anymore. Fight her. Fight back. But don’t do it overtly.”
That’s easy for her to say….
She’s the favored one. She can do no wrong. She’s so fucking perfect it makes my heart squeeze up tight and small.
“I’ll think about it,” I mutter.
Andraste pauses with her hand on the tent flap. “I shouldn’t ask, but was it good? Was he kind to you?”
I sink my chin into my knees, heat flaring through my cheeks.
She laughs. “Good. I’m glad he was chivalrous enough to show you what pleasure means. Now stop being a little pet. Unsheathe your claws and play that bitch right back.”
Then she’s gone and I notice she didn’t push me on the details.
Because she doesn’t want to know.
If she doesn’t know, then she can’t betray me.
I don’t know why that little thought gives me heart. Maybe my relationship with my sister isn’t entirely ruined.
“Maybe you should count your blessings,” I grumble to myself, “because at least you don’t have to dance with Etan tonight.”
I sink back onto my narrow bed, hauling the blankets up over my face.
What am I going to do? How did this happen?
“Why did you let me do this?” I beg Maia.
There’s no answer from the goddess.
There never is.
I groan and roll onto my side, and as I do, paper crinkles near my ear. Odd. I throw the blankets back, but there’s nothing there. Running a hand beneath my pillow, I find a folded scrap of parchment, barely two inches wide.
Meet me, it says. Same time. Same place. We need to talk.
I sit up abruptly. How did it get in here? Mother’s encampment is almost more formidable than a prison when she’s at camp.
I’ve never seen that writing before, but I know who it belongs to. There’s an impatient slant to the letters as if it was written in a hurry.
Or as if he wrote it several times before screwing up each individual attempt, and finally jotted down the basics.
We need to talk.
My heart skips a beat. To meet him is foolish and dangerous.
But it I don’t, then what will he do? What will he say?
Will he tell my mother?
Was I right? Is this revenge?
Or just the opening play in a sick and twisted game?
The prince of Evernight holds a knife to my throat with this knowledge, and I need to know how to protect myself from it.
It’s not difficult to slip away from the Asturian camp.
The guards are all watching without.
And I’m the invisible daughter.
Throwing a cloak over my shoulders, I draw the hood over my hair and then slip into the forest, avoiding the bonfires and revelry as much as I can.
The little bower where I lay with the Prince of Evernight stands empty. There’s no one nearby, the party having moved closer to the lake. I don’t know if that’s an ominous sign or not.
Crickets chirp as I pace back and forth.
The moon picks out every single night-blooming Sorrow flower. They slowly unfurl, opening their faces to its soft light, little firefly lights dancing around their petals. Demi-fey by the look of it, stealing nectar until they’re Sorrow-drunk.
“You came.”
I spin around, one hand dropping to the hilt of the knife sheathed at my hip and the other staring into the shadows beneath the trees. My heart pounds with a mix of dread and something I can’t name. “Of course, I came.”
How could I not?
He can ruin me with a single sentence.
The same way he ruined me with a kiss.
“I didn’t think you were going to,” he says. “You would barely
