Suddenly, her heart ached.
What if she wasn’t enough—not as queen, not as wife.
What if, when he touched her, he found only tremor where courage should have been?
She pressed her palms against the basin, willing the thoughts to scatter. But when she lifted her gaze again, tears blurred her reflection. Her hands clutched her waist as if she could still the trembling there.
The corset did not help.
The beading did not help.
Nothing helped.
“You wanted to marry for love,” she whispered to the wavering girl in the mirror. “Now you’re afraid to believe it.”
A breath.
Her feet carried her before her mind caught up.
She left the basin, crossed her chamber, flung open the door.
Down the hall, into another—her father’s.
“Amerei?” Storne looked up from his work, startled.
A tray of food teetered on the edge of his desk, half-buried beneath untidy stacks of papers.
“Shouldn’t you be dressing for your handfast?” he asked, voice clipped, as the door shut behind her.
Amerei couldn’t answer.
Some foolish part of her longed for him to see her heart, to name what she could not. But Storne only frowned and said, “You don’t expectmeto help you. Do you?”
That was all it took—a single reminder that even on the most important day of her life, she would stand alone.
Her eyes closed. Tears slipped hot down her cheeks.
Storne didn’t notice at first—but when he did, his face fell. He pushed his work aside and came to her.
“Darling…” he said, almost laughing, though his eyes searched her face. “What’s all this about?”
Something struck deep in Amerei—a question she had carried for years but never dared give voice. She lifted her tear-streaked face, voice breaking.
“Why did you never remarry?”
Storne opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He studied her a long moment, weighing his words.
At last he said, “Playing kingmaker all these years has made my life… complicated.” His thumb brushed a tear from her cheek. “And besides—of all the women reckless enough to fancy me, how could I ever choose just one?”
A breath caught in Amerei’s chest.
She stepped back, an ember sparking beneath her ribs.
“Is that the way of it, then?”
She sank into the nearest chair, swinging her legs to the side as though bracing herself.
