My stomach sank. The capital. Too far from Darreth.
I looked down at my clothing. I didn’t feel as though I’d been undressed in any way, but it was impossible that I hadn’t had to relieve myself in all that time. My legs were tied at my ankles and thighs and my arms behind my back, so even sitting would take immense effort—not something I’d wound my scant pride trying to do in front of her.
“Don’t worry,lady.” She said my borrowed title with a sneer. “You haven’t been touched. A druid slowed your body functions for the journey. You’ll feel it all soon.” She gave me a terribly beautiful but frosty smile. “They said it would hurt. I was curious to see if they were right.”
Great, so I was being held by an insane woman. “Not exactly a warm greeting for your…guest.” I didn’t want to push her, but I was through being the meek, jumpy bird. “Who are you?”
“To you? Your Highness, Princess Anwen of Gelida.” She made a mock curtsy.
“Wow, arealprincess. Why am I here?”
“Politics,” she said simply.
“Obviously,” I snapped.
They might start torturing you at any moment.I took a calming breath and asked, “What do you intend to do with me?”
“If we wanted to hurt you, you’d already be screaming, so stop twitching like a rabbit.”
I wasn’t twitching. I was trying to see if I could wiggle out of my bindings without drawing too much attention to my movements. However, what she’d said was so close to my thoughts that I began to worry she had psychic abilities.
Her voice was sharper than the sword she wore. “At least we won’t hurt youyet.”
“That’s…comforting,” I murmured. “Uh, Your Highness. Why exactly areyouhere?”
Some emotion twitched at the edge of her mouth but didn’t land. Amusement? She moved closer, studying me as if she might peel back my skin and read the layers underneath.
I still felt nothing from her. Surely, if she was being shielded, I would sense the magic streaming into her? I could come to only one conclusion: Princess Anwen was a mage.
“Congratulations. You’re valuable.” Anwen quickly walked away and picked up a letter that had been sitting on the fireplace mantel. She tossed it in front of me. The seal on it wasn’t one I recognized, but I could guess that it was from a household in the Shipwreck Archipelago even farther north judging by the dreadful sea creature that formed its sigil.
“I stole you from my idiot cousin’s men. His plans would only have made Stormdân even more unreasonable than he’s already proving to be.”
Maelric. So the rumors were true. Anwen was at odds with him.
“Uhh, thank you? I think…”
“So you can read subtext. Maybe you aren’t as stupid as I’d feared.” Her voice turned to a whisper. “That will keep you alive.”
Yes. That was all that mattered now—staying alive until Emrys found me.
My thoughts drifted to the dream that still clung to me with the weight of memory: the clash of bodies, the screams, Emrys fighting his way toward me. If that vision had been true and not just the fog of magic-induced sleep, then he was already coming. I had to believe that because of the way he’d held me, his breathing even and his magic settled. Because of the way he’d looked at me last night—like I was precious. Like I was his. Like he felt the same way about me that I did him.
I just had to survive long enough to see him again.
Anwen moved to sit at the small breakfast table placed near the unlit hearth. There were apples in the bowl next to her. My treacherous stomach abruptly growled in the quiet, no longer used to missing meals.
She quirked another smile. “He’s riding here now.”
Oh gods.
Elation and terror warred within me. What was he facing? What if he got hurt? And beneath all that, beneath his skin, what would this do to him?
“The men under my control have been ordered to stay out of his way, to help if requested. They will not stop him. My cousin’s supporters… Well, you know exactly how that story goes.”
Ruination. Emrys would not stop.
If Anwen didn’t want her men to attack Emrys, did that mean there was a chance we could both leave Tir Gelida alive?
