“We can fix it. Once the deed is done and you are married, they will have to accept it. I will be the King of Anglia and your brother will come around.” His tone was softly persuasive. “We need to get to the druid community on the Holy Isle of Anglesey; the druids there can marry you. Hopefully the news won’t have reached them yet.”
“Devyn will never agree.” Nobody wanted this. Not even Devyn. Maybe I should stop. Maybe it was for the best. “If we do this, whatever alliance exists between Anglia and Mercia will be destroyed. It will be a fracture down the centre of this island. If the council comes for them when they are too busy fighting each other, they’ll be annihilated. Maybe Devyn is right.”
“You’re giving up?”
I shrugged. I had resigned myself to marrying Marcus once before and maybe I could do so again. The wrongness of it threatened to choke me. To have come so far, and to end up living this half-life anyway… The irony was killing me.
Marcus took hold of my shoulders. “I will speak to Devyn. He has to do this now, before it’s too late.”
“You think you can persuade him? How?” I had barely even seen him all night. A single sighting, that was it. Did he already know what we had just learned? Was that why he was avoiding me? Delaying the inevitable of telling me for the latest and final time that we could not be together. Was this what my future would be like, knowing he was nearby but unseen, waiting on the edges of my life, and appearing only when I was in danger? Watching me be married to Marcus?
“I will find a way. We have to go tonight. I will have horses waiting at the back of the herb garden.” Marcus looked determined. “Be ready; we leave after midnight with or without him.”
A strange laugh escaped me. “Without a groom?”
“You think if you leave Conwy he won’t follow?” Marcus’s eyebrow lifted, making clear his scepticism at such a possibility. “Now, come inside before you freeze to death.”
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Marina skidded to a halt in front of us at the entrance back into the castle, dismay written large on her face when she saw Marcus was with me. “Can I speak to you alone?”
“Later,” I promised her.
“No, now.” She hopped from one foot to the other, her tone beseeching in spite of her stubborn position.
Marcus gestured towards the great doors and the festivities within.
“It’s fine. I need to find someone myself,” he said, taking his leave.
“They are saying that you will marry Marcus tomorrow,” she started, as soon as we found an empty room to talk in. “You can’t.”
“I can’t?” I tilted my head. “You’re the only one who thinks so.”
“No, really, you can’t. You and Devyn, when we was in Londinium, I thought that maybe you liked him…” Her eyes narrowed. “I saw you kissing him in the hallway.”
I pulled in a shaky breath. “I can explain…”
“You don’t need to explain nothing. But well, I think you and him have been… together. And I noticed you haven’t been eating much the last few days. My mum, she couldn’t eat either early on. So I asked Madoc if there was any way of telling for sure. Don’t worry, I ask him loads of things so he won’t think nothing of it.”
“Nothing of what?” I interjected. I didn’t have time for this. I didn’t have any time. I needed to think. Was Marcus right? Should we go tonight and damn the consequences?
“Oh, you haven’t realised. I thought maybe you knew and were going to marry Marcus anyway, but then I thought maybe you didn’t and that’s why I had to ask Madoc how—”
“Marina,” I ground out.
Her eyes rounded.
“You haven’t maybe missed your time of the month recently?” she asked, biting her lip.
“What does that have to do with…?” A hand stole to my mostly flat stomach. I had put on a little weight but I’d blamed the griddle cakes. Was it possible? My mind scrambled to calculate the weeks that had passed since I last had my period. It had been in the city before we left. I hadn’t even thought of it; we had been on the road for most of November, I had been distracted with the poisoning and then the trial, and it was midwinter now. “I’m pregnant?”
Marina gave a crooked smile. “I think so.”
“How?”
Her eyebrows shot up, that cheeky smile creasing her face. “You really want me to explain?”
“Ha, ha,” I replied weakly. It had to have been the night in the city before the handfast. “Did Madoc tell you how to check?”
She nodded and put her hand out to me, taking it in the traditional grip. Her inner wrist pressed against mine as she closed her eyes. A slow smile spread across her face.
“Congratulations,” she offered, her face twisting, knowing as well as I did how complicated this made everything.
A child.
I took a deep breath. It certainly helped focus the mind.
“Find Devyn. Tell him.” My voice trembled. Would he be pleased? It put him in a corner but I knew him; his duty to me would compel him to defy Rion once more. “We need to leave tonight. Tell him to meet us out the back of the kitchen gardens after midnight. I will let Marcus know that Devyn will be coming. He has a plan.”
“What plan?”
“For Devyn and me to marry before anyone can stop
