“I am trying to help,” he said.
Vhalla saw concern marked across his pained expression. “Oh?” Her patience ran thin. “Like you helped the last time we had a littlechat?”
“Everything I told you then was true.” Something in his tone gave Vhalla pause, she swayed slightly. “Vhalla, please sit. My brother and Father will give me hell if something ill befalls you on my watch.”
Vhalla eased herself onto the bed, pulling off her boots and lying down. She rolled on her side, her back to the prince. Everything hurt the moment she began to relax, but there was not much opportunity to do so as the prince rounded to sit on the edge of the bed, facing her. Vhalla glared at him.
“Vhalla, please listen. I want to tell you something,” Prince Baldair implored.
She sighed. “If I listen, will you go?”
He nodded, and Vhalla waited expectantly. “My brother and I are three years apart, which is a significant gap when you are five and eight, or twelve and fifteen, but at fifteen and eighteen and up it becomes less and less significant.” She wondered why he was exhausting her with trivia about their birthdays. “Not long after my ceremony of manhood there was a year where my brother and I decided to engage in somefriendly competition.”
“Friendly competition?” Vhalla braced herself for what that meant between these men.
“I’ve always been ... charming.” Prince Baldair smiled at her, and she didn’t even refrain from rolling her eyes. At least he laughed. “My brother grew as a strange, sad child. At one point it seemed as though he hit a new low and just gave into the darkness and distance surrounding him. To be honest, I never saw him leave it.”
Vhalla found it interesting how Prince Baldair’s and Larel’s descriptions could be both similar and different.
“At some point we had a row, and doesn’t really matter about what, he was eighteen and I was at the ever hot-headed age of fifteen. I said he could not even get a woman to so much as glance at him because of how he was.” Vhalla stilled, beginning to listen intently. “For whatever reason, my brother took the challenge.”
“Challenge?” she repeated softly.
“For one year, it was a challenge for who could have the most women agree to share their bed.”
Vhalla’s eyes widened. “That’s ... awful.”
“It is certainly not the worst thing either of us have done to pass the time. Nor the worst thing young princes have ever, or will ever, do.” Vhalla saw the likely truth of his words with horror. “At first, I was anovernightfavorite. But I underestimated my brother. One by one, like flies in a web, they began to offer themselves to him. I didn’t understand and it frustrated me daily. How my lanky, awkward, depressing shell of a brother managed to reclaim a solid lead.”
“Enough, I get it.” She pressed her face into her pillow.
“No, we haven’t gotten to the point yet.” He had a grim expression and Vhalla obliged silently. “I thought it was simply because he was the crown prince. But that wasn’t the case as the ladies seemed to call long after their turn was up, ever hopeful. Eventually I found he was not actually taking them to bed. They agreed to it, which given the wording of our bet placed him in the lead. But he never actuallytookone of them.”
Vhalla’s brow furrowed. “Why not?” Of course, she felt happy hearing that he hadn’t slept with a host of women, though luring them in like cattle seemed bad enough.
“I finally asked him once when I confronted him about the terms of the challenge. I’ll never forget what he told me.” Prince Baldair looked away. “He told me that it was the hunt that he relished. That none of them were good enough to merit his touch. That he did not have to kill the prey to have the satisfaction of the win. It was amusing; it was sport to watch them fall. For the next six months after, I watched him skillfully play every eligible woman he met. Somehow he knew what they wanted to hear, how they wanted to be led, and he did it with a complete mask of sincerity. He took things from them, but not their bodies. Their dignity, their time, their dreams ...”
“Please, I understand,” Vhalla breathed and was too tired to be as strong as she wanted to be.
Prince Baldair sighed and reached out, placing a large palm on the top of her head. Vhalla tensed at the momentary foreign touch.
“I thought maybe he’d changed.” The prince’s voice was soft. “But then I overheard a conversation between him and Father. Aldrik swore that he would be the one to make you obligated to gain victory. That you would be mindlessly obedient to him above all else and that he had you under his command without question. That the sandstorm was an example of this—and I realized he’d never relinquish the control he has on people.”
“Prince Baldair, I am very tired,” she whispered. The notes on the Emperor’s table returned to her, the mention of reports being given. Had she been a puppet for Aldrik and his father the whole time? Paying the greatest actor in the world with her emotions?
“I do agree with them—Aldrik and my father. You are smart, Vhalla. Please, just see him for what he is?” Prince Baldair searched her.
Vhalla closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to cower. “I appreciate your concern, my prince.” It was all she could say in the end.
He sighed heavily. “Rest well, Vhalla.” Prince Baldair stood.
She relied only on the sounds of his departure.
Vhalla shivered, despite the room being warm. Of course, the day she realized she was hopelessly in love with a man was also the day she would be given additional proof of his being a rather twisted ass. At least, if one considered Prince Baldair’s word as proof. Vhalla laughed, and coughed from the state of her lungs.
Had Aldrik not warned her of all this? Hadn’t he said on multiple occasions that he was not a good man? Vhalla sighed again and wondered if it was even fair of her to hold it against him. All their meetings had been an excuse to test her abilities. She was foolish for thinking they—she—meant otherwise. Vhalla took a delicate breath and fought against tears until exhaustion claimed her.
“VHAAAAAAAL...” Fritz sung softly. “Vhaaaaaaallaaaaaaaaa.”
