She took a deep breath and then another, looking down at Cerdic unconscious on the floor. She let out a slightly hysterical giggle and then had the horrible idea that she might have killed him. Her giggles choked in her throat on a rush of bile.
Slowly and carefully, she placed the jar back onto the table, her hands shaking so badly that it rattled.
She looked up at Mathos, still brandishing his dagger. His eyes were wide, but his lips quirked up at the sides as if he was trying not to laugh. Was he laughing at her? She wiped her shaking hand over her eyes, reminding herself that she did not cry.
He lowered the knife and whispered, “Remind me not to piss you off.”
Ha. She straightened her shoulders and glared. How dare he laugh at her? And then make sarcastic comments when he’d been pissing her off since the moment she met him. She lifted her chin so that she could look down her nose at him. “Too bloody late.”
He gave her a quick nod, and she almost imagined it was one of respect, as he replied, “There she is.”
“Who is?” she demanded, still glaring.
“The woman with the backbone.”
Oh. Damn. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her.
“Do you want to go?” he asked quietly.
She almost took a step forward, but she stopped herself. “Why should I trust you?”
He looked up toward the ceiling for a few seconds, then met her eyes. “I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you everything, but I promise that everything I did say was true. Dornar made everything sound a lot worse than it was. I really am trying to do the best thing for the kingdom… but, in the end, it’s your choice.”
He lowered his dagger and watched her. Wary, but without judgment.
She stared at him, realizing that he genuinely would walk away if that was what she decided. And that made her trust him more than anything else he could have said.
“Yes, I want to go.” She looked down at Cerdic, still lying inert on the floor. “Is he going to be okay?”
Mathos glanced down, his face unreadable. “Your boyfriend is breathing.”
She gave him a withering look. “Cerdic is notmyanything.”
“Whatever you say, Princess. But we have to get out of here. We can hang around to see if he’s going to wake up, or we can take this chance.”
Mathos stepped over Cerdic and into the larder as he spoke. She heard him scratching through the contents until he reappeared a minute later carrying a large ham and a full waterskin.
He passed her the waterskin and motioned her forward, but she hesitated. “What will Dornar do to him?”
Mathos glanced over his shoulder as he quietly opened the back door. “Hard to say. Dornar does whatever will give him the most power. He will certainly punish him for letting you escape, but I reckon how bad it will be depends on whether he still has a use for the man.” He stopped in the doorway and gave her a slow look. “If you love him, you should stay. Otherwise, I can break his neck now, and you won’t have to worry about it.”
He was joking. At least, she hoped he was joking.
She didn’t love Cerdic. She didn’t even like him. If he had dropped off the edge of the world and she had never had to see him again, she would have been more than happy. But she didn’t want him hurt because of her either. It was a horrible feeling—to have such power over someone. To know that they could be hurt because of her. Hurt like Mathos had been.
She closed her eyes and tried to think. Should she try to save the man who had betrayed her? Or should she save herself? Would Mathos be able to get away more easily if she wasn’t with him? Did that change anything?
She stood, frozen. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t love him, but I don’t want him hurt because of me. I don’t know if you’d be better off going without me.”
Mathos gave her a steady look, only the burgundy scales flickering up his arms and neck and onto his face betraying how on edge he was. “If you stay here with Dornar, he’ll be ruling the kingdom within the month. There are many thousands of people who could suffer with him as their king. I believe you’ll do far more good if you walk out of the door with me now. But you have to accept that Cerdic could suffer.”
She closed her eyes, taking a long, slow breath. This was exactly the kind of responsibility she hadn’t wanted. Hadn’t been prepared for in any way. And damn it all, now she was realizing that walking away from the throne was the same kind of decision. Because of the accident of her birth, people would live or die based on the decisions she made. What the hell was she supposed to do?
“Princess, the man I killed outside—the one whose knife this is—isn’t going to be responding when the guards call their checks. Someone is going to notice, or a patrol will see his body, most likely very soon. Our options are for you to go back inside and me to leave, or for us to leave together right now. You need to make a decision and make it fast.”
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “What would you do?”
“Not my decision. You’ll only hate me later when you start to second-guess it. You have to choose.”
