She couldn’t tell if he was being naïve or playing dumb. “You fit so well together. She’s your match: pretty, noble, educated, refined. I saw her brother looking at you, calculating. A man like you needs a wife, after all.”
“Liana.” He sat down abruptly, astonishment draining his face of color. “You can’t believe that.”
“I’m not the right partner for you,” she said. “They all see it. No one dares to say it to your face, not yet, but I’m a burden to you. Good enough for tents and battlefields, but ridiculous here in the palace. You need a wife who will bring you connections and power, who will be your ally.”
“I see you’ve joined the ranks of those who think they know what is best for me,” he said, only a faint line in the corner of his mouth revealing his anger. “But you should know better, Liana, you really should. Have I ever done anything to make you feel you were not enough?”
“No, but—”
“Do you think I would ever,everagree to another political union, after all I’ve been through?”
She shook her head, all words gone from her mind.
“I can’t marry you now because the kingdom is still bleeding, and such a willful, defiant act could tear it apart. But that doesn’t mean I will marry anyone else, for any reason.”
He sat on the edge of the chair, gripping the armrest so hardhis fingers turned white. She’d rarely seen him this furious, this hurt. But still, she couldn’t get rid of the claws that pierced her heart.
“Seeing you here, among these people, your people…I couldn’t understand why you chose to be with me. Why do you want me, Amron?”
“Because I love you, you fool.” He jumped out of the chair, raking his hair into a disheveled mess. “I love you, isn’t that obvious?”
“Love has never been essential in a relationship, not for someone your rank.”
He winced as if she’d slapped him. “Oh that is cruel, Liana. You’re slashing deliberately now.”
“Why did you choose me?” she insisted. “There are so many women out there more elegant, clever, and educated than me. Kinder, gentler, sweeter. Women who would make it their only goal to make you happy.”
“How terrifying,” he said.
“Why me?” she asked again.
Amron paused his exasperated fidgeting and regained his poise with considerable effort, sitting down beside her. He laid his hand on her knee: Touch—clear, explicit—had always been his language of love. The warmth of his fingers penetrated through the thin linen of her nightgown. Her heartbeats measured the time, silence stretching before them as he struggled to find the words.
“Because you see me,” he said at last. “You don’t care about rank or power. All my life, people have wanted me because of what I am—a prince, a doorway to privilege—but not you. You see me for who I am, and you like what you see, and that is incredibly liberating. I have no better mirror than your eyes.
“I don’t want a woman who would mold herself according to my wishes, I want a woman who loves me on her own terms.I want to be myself in private, just like I want you to be yourself. And you are entirely yourself, Liana—bravely, brazenly yourself, like a cat who doesn’t give a damn about the rest of the world. Don’t get dragged into this courtly mire, into their stupid, volatile rules, their mercenary ways. Do you think any of those women care about me? They just want a prince under their thumb.
“You, on the other hand, want nothing from me, buteverythingof me, and I’m happy to give it. Every breath, every heartbeat, every last drop of blood, for as long as I live. And once when I’m gone, it won’t diminish you in any way. You’ll still be your beautiful, fearless, unadulterated self.”
Chapter 30
Melia
Being dead wasn’tso terrible.
The Seragian ship had sailed out on the morning tide. Salt wind cooled her cheeks as she sat on the deck in the shadow of the massive, wind-filled sails. Watching Abia disappear in the distance filled her heart with ache: the last connection to her old life, melting into the horizon.
Her health was still fragile—the encounter with her father’s blade was a close call. Close enough, in fact, to kill Princess Melia of Elmar. She touched a bundle of documents in her pocket for reassurance: She had a new name now, a new future before her.
It was an unexpected gift, and she planned to enjoy it.
• • •
The surgeon who’dnever introduced himself had sewn her shut, and the pretty, stern woman who called herself Celandina nursed her in a small room in an unfamiliar house. Fever gave Melia nightmares of her flesh burning, of blazing embassies and funeral pyres. Death sat at the foot of her bed every night, wearing Ferisa’s face.
“Take me with you,” Melia begged.
“No, little raven, it’s not your time,” Death who was Ferisa said.
