Ozik raised a brow. “You’ve made your choice?”
She stopped in her tracks, fury bright in her chest. She spat, “Don’t pretend you ever gave me one.”
Ozik chuckled, and Vaasa just kept walking, Roman following silently on her heels, grief pouring from him, unavoidable, undeniable.
As Vaasa walked back to the emperor’s wing of the fortress, Roman kept his distance paces away. The moment they passed through the doors that led to the private hallways of this wing of the fortress, he stopped walking.
They were alone now.
Vaasa turned and released a small breath. The list of undesirable conversations she had no way to escape kept growing longer.
“Are you really going to marry that man?” Roman asked.
“What choice do I have?” She shook her head and dragged a hand through her hair.
Roman pursed his lips in contemplation. “Did you have Vlacik killed?”
Vaasa huffed an angry breath and placed her hand upon her hip. “Didyou?”
He gawked at her. “I was inside the brothel for all of ten minutes—”
“And unaccounted for all of the minutes after. The murderer wore a sentinel’s jacket, Roman, and you returned to the fortress without one. The guards at the gates saw you. It’s all the nobility are talking about. It’s precisely how Karev just cornered me into a marriage agreement.”
Roman went still. Anger lanced his features, and she was once again struck by how quickly he morphed into a different person—a colder one. “So my mistake is the reason you have to marry Karev?”
Vaasa shook her head in frustration, a pounding headache stealing her patience. “Yes. Either I marry him, or he pins the murder on you and me. This is all I can do to protect you. To protect myself.”
Roman ran his tongue along his teeth in contemplation,perhaps deciding if he believed her reasoning. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Vaasa, I’m so sorry.”
Her heart sank in her chest, this guilt burrowing so deep inside her she couldn’t see a way to claw it out. It felt like no matter which direction she went, she couldn’t avoid breaking his heart. “You need to be very careful, Roman. Karev wholeheartedly believes we are having an affair, and if you give him any hint of confirmation, he’ll soon have all the power he needs to call for your head.”
Roman looked down at his feet and cursed, fisting and unfisting his hands.
“I don’t want to be the reason you lose everything again,” she confessed. “I won’t be.”
Finally, a real truth she could give him—that she didn’t want to hurt him. Not again. No matter what fears she held about him or what their circumstances had turned them into, that single thing remained true.
Roman met her eyes across the hallway. “Thank you.”
Vaasa just turned and started away. “Summon me when Ozik has news.”
It was only three hours before Roman knocked, his expression still twisted and guilt-stricken. He held a white envelope in his hands. “Roland Beránek has been made warden of the prison,” he said. He extended a letter. “This arrived for you.”
Vaasa took the envelope from him, inspecting the Karev family seal upon it. She popped it open with her finger, skimming it quickly. It was an invitation to visit the port together the following day.
And an official declaration of his intent to pursue a marriage agreement.
CHAPTER
23
Vaasa’s hands shook as she held a glittering black wall in front of her. Her magic was more solid than she had yet seen it, able to take on shapes and forms at her command. It reminded her of what she’d seen Romana do, and something about that created a fissure in her. Her chest constricted. The thought of her coven was a knife in her gut. They had shown her only pieces of this, so careful not to push her too quickly, and Vaasa longed for that consideration.
Melisina was here in Mekës, yet Vaasa couldn’t run to her.
She held Ozik’s gaze from across the greenhouse. Nothing but spite and malice fueled her now. She had to be stronger,to become this man’s worst nightmare. With each second that passed, the fury in her gut grew larger, more violent.
A hole in her wall of magic appeared, smoking at the edges, the magic losing its hold. Ozik growled in frustration. “Whatever it is you are thinking about,stop.”
