The princess completely ignored me. She climbed inside on her own.
Her lady’s eyes were just as stony, but she offered me a curtsy. “Lady Charlotte, Your Majesty.” Then she ignored my hand herself, and climbed in after the princess.
I could feel my men watching this, but they weren’t smirking this time around.
Asher is in the other carriage, the chain between his ankles looped through the wooden rail that supports the seat. It’s clear the palace guard roughed him up. His movements were slow and awkward, his face full of fresh bruises, right down to a spot of blood where his lip was split. I’ve seen how quickly he can move, so I had Callum hold a weapon on him while I adjusted the chain. I expected him to spit profanity at me the whole time, but he was silent as a dead man, his eyes locked on the floor of the carriage.
Every muscle on his frame was taut, however, and I’m no fool. I clicked the shackles closed with a little more force than necessary. “Behave,” I said, and then I dropped the key in the pouch on my belt.
I waited for him to tell me off—or even spit in my face, the way he did to Dane. But he did neither.
Despite that—or maybebecauseof that—a twinge of regret flared in my chest. The same twinge that’s been poking at me since the moment I tricked him. I hesitated before closing the carriage door.
“What happened to your shoulder?” I said, because he was still sitting crookedly.
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t respond.
“Dislocated?” I guessed. Asher didn’t move, so I glanced at Callum. “Check. Fix it.”
Thatgot a reaction. Asher’s eyes flashed up, and he drew back into the shadows of the carriage. For a second, he looked like a wounded animal, cornered and ready to attack. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”
I was too tired and too agitated to deal with a fight, so I sighed. “Fine. Suffer.” Then I shut the door.
So now we’re all riding, all freezing, all irritated.
All starving, too. After Asher put the notion of poison in my head, I wouldn’t touch a bite of food from the palace, and I wouldn’t let my men eat anything either.
I really didn’t think anything could be worse than the way we traveled last night, but apparently it can.
Maybe the silence is too much for Sev, because when he speaks, his voice is aggrieved. “Are we going to talk about it?” he says.
It’s the first thing he’s said in miles, and I look over. “Talk about what?”
He’s got his cloak drawn up against the cold, the fur pinned in place to cover half his face and keep out the wind. But his eyes find mine. “The fact that we were supposed to stay a week but we barely even stayed aday? The way you didn’tmarryher? Or how about the Draeg spy you’ve got in a velvet carriage instead of shipping his charred bones back to the border?” He pauses, and his sarcasm thickens—or maybe it’s anger I’m hearing. “Perhaps something about how theystole our king, yet we’re escorting them to—”
“Sev.”
“I could go on.”
I give him a look.
From behind me, Callum calls, “How about the fact that we’re all hungry enough to eat one of the horses?”
Sev snaps his fingers. “That too.”
I frown.
Ahead of us, the snowy landscape stretches on formiles. A burst of icy wind whips between us all, and someone at my back mutters, “Fuck.”
Behind them, Roman says, “I have a few strips of dried beef left in my pack.”
Garrett and Callum both inhale sharply. Even Sev looks back. “Leave it to Roman to be prepared,” he says under his breath.
“Divvy it out,” says Garrett.
“I didn’t say I wassharing.”
Hooves shuffle in the snow. Garrett and Callum must be whirling their horses around. “Well, we didn’t say we wereasking—”
