The very corner of Reid’s mouth turned up, and he nodded cordially, as if their conversation was built only of small talk. “Meet me tomorrow night, please.”
She laughed. “Yes.” Leaning to Lord Karev, she said in Asteryan, “He says he is interested in learning so he can speak to the women at The Lady Fortune.”
Lord Karev huffed a bland chuckle, unimpressed. “Shall we?”
It tore at Vaasa’s heart to stand from the table. To give one last parting glance to Reid before following Lord Karev up the stairs and back into the main fabric shop. She turned over her shoulder, meeting his eyes one last time, and despite them both, he winked.
Her heart thudded ceaselessly in her chest. Escape. She could taste it, feel it in the clutches of her hands.
“Heiress?” Lord Karev called.
Vaasa had a moment to recover. She turned just slightly and ran her fingertips along a spool of fabric as if she were mesmerized. “This purple wool,” Vaasa mused, meeting the lord’s eyes. “It’s exactly my favorite color.”
“Then you should have it,” he said. Lord Karev gestured to Sachia, saying, “Add it to my credit.”
It was a strange gesture, not inauthentic in its delivery, because Karev was getting what he wanted. She was useful to him, and the moment she ceased to be, he would run cold. Vaasa imagined this was precisely what it would be like to marry a man like Lord Karev—someone with whom she would build a dispassionate, though not entirely unkind, relationship… so longas she remained obedient. Perhaps in another world, it would have been the type her mother and her father shared. Allies, if not lovers.
Except her father had tortured witches, and her mother had spent fifteen years loving someone else.
“That is… generous, thank you,” Vaasa managed.
He nodded with what she could almost believe was respect. “As I said, when you are by my side, you will want for nothing.” As if the gift were something she couldn’t have afforded herself.
Sachia summoned one of the older women who worked in the shop, telling them to package the spool. “I’ll deliver it to the fortress, and perhaps we can continue discussions about that wardrobe,” Sachia said.
Vaasa gave an approving nod. “Please.”
Lord Karev extended his arm, something he didn’t particularly have to do, given they weren’t surrounded by anyone else. But the way he looked at her… it had softened, ever so slightly. Vaasa grinned, taking his offer and doing her best not to be revulsed as she settled into his side. “I see why Ozik finds you useful,” Lord Karev said quietly. “That was well done, Heiress.”
It was the closest to a real compliment that he would likely give her in private. As they exited, Vaasa found Roman waiting right where she’d left him. Just as Lord Karev wanted, she did not meet her sentinel’s eyes. She waited until they climbed back into the carriage before she asked, “Do you do business with pirates often, Lord Karev?”
He ran his tongue over his teeth, looking speechless for the first time. It was odd to see him like this, and Vaasa immediately took advantage.
“I am the daughter of the continent’s most ruthless conqueror,” she reminded him. “People like us must stay in power one way or another.”
Lord Karev let out a small chuckle and relaxed into his seat, as if she had just established something between them that had been the only part he didn’t know how to navigate. “I believe we’re similar, you and I,” he said. “We share the same vision for our lives.”
In so many ways, she wanted to say that she and he could never be the same. But as their carriage pulled away from the fabric shop, she wondered how much longer she could juggle these pieces before she had to cut out parts of herself to make room for what she was being shaped into next.
Schemer.
Chameleon.
Serpent.
Perhaps she was just as wicked as he.
“May we coordinate for tomorrow?” Lord Karev said, pulling Vaasa from her musing. “Dress in blue. We look powerful in blue.”
The following evening, dinner dragged on, a boring affair of political pandering. Ozik was seated near Vaasa, in the same spot at the table that he had filled Vaasa’s entire life. It was only the emperor’s seat that remained empty, though every once in a while, Vaasa noticed Lord Karev staring at it. Vaasa sat where her mother had—perhaps presumptive, but at Ozik’s behest all the same.
Anything we can do to make you appear inevitable is worth doing, he’d said.
It was halfway through dinner when Lord Karev stood from his table just next to the dais, meandering to the middle of the vast dining hall. He turned to face Vaasa where she sat. Dressed in the richest of blue jackets and black breeches, dark hair combed perfectly around his handsome face, he was the picture-perfect model of Asteryan royalty. With a brilliantly composed speech about progress and unity and carrying on the throne, Lord Karev turned to Vaasa.
She stood, lifting her glass and smiling. “Which is why, when Lord Karev asked me to be his wife last night, I humbly accepted.”
The room erupted in what was evenly split between genuine celebration and fabricated cheers. The Old Asteryans were shaken, the New Asteryans emboldened. This conflict was far from over. It didn’t matter if Lord Karev took the throne; the old guard would not share their influence so easily.
