“You don’t seem dismayed about the situation with him one bit.” Her teasing faded. What came next wasn’t in jest. “If it makes you happy, I think you’re the best thing that has happened to Darreth in a very long time.”
Except that I’d been sent with a specific purpose in mind—to heal the kingdom, yes, but also to use either him or Nisien.
Though my heart had already chosen sides. Tonight needed to be about keeping Emrys calm and in control. I would confess everything tomorrow, after he returned to me safe, bringing word that there would be no war.
Chapter 47
Isca
Catrin huffed beside the fire, poking at the stewpot with far more force than necessary. “You could’ve asked before magically hauling me halfway across the kingdom,Prince Emrys.”
Emrys didn’t look up from where he was tearing off a piece of bread, but there was humor in his voice. “You did look awfully comfortable in Adyn’s arms.”
“I was! Thank you very much.” She sounded indignant.
I hid a smile behind my bowl.
Emrys, for his part, looked entirely unrepentant.
“I believe the term is ‘abduction,’” she went on, lowering her voice just enough that none of the soldiers around the other fires could hear. “It’s a crime. Even when committed by a princeling with more power than sense.”
“You’ve no respect for your monarch,” he said, dragging the bread through his stew with the air of someone deeply aggrieved.
Catrin rolled her eyes then mimed pulling out her hair.
A soft laugh escaped Emrys; the sound instantly drew my gaze. It wasn’t sharp or mocking, as it could be when he was at the edges of his control. It was real.
“Remind me to send you back to the castle,” he said.
“You’d miss me.”
His tone was utterly serious, but the quirk of his lips betrayed him. “Not even slightly.”
She raised a brow. “Then who would keep you humble?”
Emrys looked at me with a mock expression of despair. “Do you see what I endure?”
I offered him a small smile. “She’s not wrong.”
I’d never truly seen this side of him. It was so warm, something I’d missed when he’d been cold and locked himself away more often than not in the castle.
We ate in companionable silence after that. The stars had traveled across the sky by the time the fire settled into a slow, crackling burn.
I banked the fire while Emrys stood to speak with the men. Orange light glowed on the hard lines of his face as he gestured at the watch schedule drawn in the dirt. Catrin and I excused ourselves with a quick nod, slipping toward the tents. He watched us the entire way.
We all had our own midnight rendezvous to prepare for.
Thanks to Emrys, Adyn had officially replaced one of our other guards permanently. The plan was that Adyn would sneak into her tent so Catrin could discreetly spend a couple of hours trying to write the beginning of her own love story with him in private conversation.
Of course, Emrys had threatened castration if Adyn made a single “ungentlemanly” move without permission in the time he granted them. But it was his way of apologizing to his childhood friend.
As I cleaned myself in the washbasin—the best we could do until we returned to the river—I heard Emrys enter his tent. After quickly changing into my nightdress and robe, I got to work braiding Catrin’s hair. I chose a half-up and half-down style that let loose curls fall around her shoulders. It took a bit longer than expected, but it was a style she could sleep in comfortably.
“Beautiful,” I whispered. She deserved to feel that way on such an occasion.
I was in a hurry to get out so she could have her private time, but my feet still hesitated as I opened the flap to Emrys’s tent. Something was…off.
My pulse began to beat strangely, and an odd tightness coiled at the base of my spine. The air had subtly changed; it was cooler, closer. As ifsomething had folded inward on itself while the rest of the world carried on around it.
