“You think I’m joking.” He looks wounded.
“About what part?”
Dietan watches me for a moment, twirling his fork. “I’m not joking about the biscuits,” he says. “You’d put the palace kitchens to shame.”
I know I’m a great cook, but it still warms me to hear that I’m every bit as good as the fancy chefs in the Loegrian capital.
He waggles his eyebrows. “You know, if we get married, you’ll need to make me this for breakfast every morning.”
“Ha.” I shrug, suddenly deflated.As if.
“What?” he asks.
I sigh. “You’re just another man who’s only interested in me for what I can do for you.”But not for who I am. “Including saving you, I might add.” I shoot him a knowing glance, and it’s my turn to quirk an eyebrow. All his thoughts are on breakfasts and biscuits. He hasn’t even asked about me. He doesn’t know a single thing about me and doesn’t care to—whether as a man or as my future sovereign. I go back to polishing mugs.
He puts down his fork and clears his throat. I look over to see he’s leaning over his plate, his eyebrows scrunched, making his face seem even more youthful. He stares at me like I’ve said the most absurd thing. “Is that what you think of me? That I just use people? I’m not like that. If you got to know me, you’d see.”
I shrug a shoulder like I couldn’t care less. “You wanted to use Veteria. And now I bet you’re concocting a plan to use King Osian. That’ll be ten cobs, by the way.”
“A bargain for such a feast,” he says, ignoring my jab.
“Twenty, then, including the wakeup call and the blanket,” I say flatly, and his eyes narrow. “Surely you of all people can afford such luxury.”
His gaze drops to the kerchief at my throat, and I abruptly turn away, focusing on stacking glasses behind the bar. I hear the scrape of a chair and footsteps. Now he’s at the bar, right behind me.
“How are you, by the way?” His voice is soft, and I hate how it makes me feel—all soothed and comforted. It’s the voice I recognize from that night. Deep. Gentle.Safe.
“I’m fine.”
“Does it still hurt?”
I pause, gripping a mug. Yes, it still hurts, but it could have been much, much worse had this maddening man not come along and played hero.
“How much would it cost to heal? Because I would give all I have,” he whispers.
My breath catches in my throat, and when I glance over my shoulder, I notice the crease between his eyebrows deepening, the corners of his lips falling. That face belongs on a gold coin, just like his grandfather’s.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say at last, bending my head low as if completely absorbed in cleaning this mug. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. And saving princes from getting lost in forests. I don’t need any help.”
“Is that why you didn’t put yourself on the list of candidates?” he asks suddenly.
“To meet you?”
“Exactly. Not interested in marriage or princes?”
I finally turn around to look him in the eye. “No, thank you. I don’t mean to ever marry,” I say more forcefully than I’d intended. “I don’t look forward to being any man’s servant or pack mule. I have enough burdens of my own—I don’t aspire to carry anyone else’s.”
Those words put a momentary chink in his armor as hurt flits across his eyes. He recovers quickly with his usual charm.
“What a terrible assessment of a most venerable institution,” says Dietan. He lowers his voice and leans toward me, as if imparting a great secret. “Granted, my parents’ marriage is a carnage of bickering and animosity.”
“See?”
“But surely there is such a thing as true love,” he says, turning up his princely charm. It seems so brittle up close. “There has to be, hasn’t there?”
“Not for me.” I don’t tell him thatof courseI want true love more than anything—to be loved and cherished the way a woman should be loved and cherished. But that’s for other girls. Prettier girls. Girls like my sisters. All men ever see in me is a maid they don’t have to pay. And this prince is, in the end, a man.
“Not for you?” he asks, seeming genuinely surprised.
