I dig my thumbnails into the crossbars of my crutches and wish I could disappear through the wall. “I don’t know.”
“I told Tycho I would ensure you faced few hardships while he was gone.”
Like everything else, he says the words slowly, and they’re so completely contrary to what I was expecting that I’m almost certain he’s using the wrong ones.
Prince Rhen speaks into my silence. “So I am here to keep that promise.”
“I . . . ?oh.” I’m still not sure what to say. “Thank you. I . . . ?I have no hardships.”
Prince Rhen looks at Master Garson and says something quietly. He must ask him to excuse us, because the other man rises and steps away from the table. He gives me a nod and a kind smile.
The prince gestures to the chair he just abandoned. “Do you care to sit?”
No. I absolutely do not.
But he’s the ruler here, and I doubt that was a real question. I swing my crutches forward. The path across the dining room feels twenty miles long, and it’s so quiet I can hear my breathing. Eachclopof my crutches on the stone floor is uncomfortably loud.
By the time I sit, Master Garson returns, and to my surprise, he’s brought me a small platter of food, along with a cup of chilled mead from the kitchen. The platter is full of sliced nut bread and squares of cheese and a few strips of beef, along with berries in a bowl. It’s as startling as everything else since I walked in the door. I glance between him and the food, wondering if he’s going to sit back down, but he moves away again.
I realize he’s leaving us, possibly for good this time. “Thank you,” I say in Emberish.
He pauses at the door and smiles. “You’re welcome.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m alone with the prince. The first words he said to me are still echoing in my thoughts.
I do not think anyone has ever looked at me with quite this combination of anger and fear.
It makes me never want to look at him again.
“Eat,” says Rhen. “You must be hungry.”
I am.
But I don’t.
A moment passes between us. I can still hear my own breathing. I swear I can hear hisguardsbreathing.
When Rhen speaks again, his voice is quiet. “Does Garson treat you poorly?”
That makes me look up. “What? No. He speaks no Syssalah, but he’s not unkind.”
I say the words in a rush, and I can see in his face that I’ve spoken too fast, but he doesn’t ask me to repeat it.
“He tells me that you skip the midday meal,” Rhen says. “I wondered if there was a reason.”
“The forge is very busy.” And until Sephran found me a bench, I was very slow, but I don’t add that. “I don’t want to fall behind.”
“There will never be a shortage of work,” Rhen says. “Eat when you’re meant to eat.” He hesitates, then nudges the platter a bit closer to me. “I don’t like seeing my people hungry.”
There’s no emphasis in his voice, but the way he says that is curious. I can’t tell which part tugs at my interest the most, whether it’s the way he saysmy peoplewhen pushing the food towardme, or if it’s the fact that he thinks about his people being hungry at all.
Whatever it is, it’s hard to reconcile with what I know he’s done.
He’s told me to eat twice now, so I take one of the berries. It explodes with sweetness in a way that’s jarring when I’m feeling so bitter. I wait for him to press with more questions, but he doesn’t, and tension clings to my back. If he’s waiting formeto make conversation, he’s going to wait an eternity. I take a piece of cheese.
Prince Rhen eventually says, “Garson told me there seemed to be an argument. With one of the soldiers.”
He must mean what happened with Sephran this afternoon. I shake my head. “That . . . ?that was a misunderstanding.”
