Ahnna sat on a chaise at the far end of the room with Oliver lying on her knees, kicking his little feet in the air. She didn’t seem to notice that James had come in, and he leaned against the doorframe to watch his wife play with the baby. Ahnna’s hair was pulled back in a tail behind her head, revealing old scars and new, her cheek mottled with purple-and-green bruises and her lip healing where it had been split. The dress she wore was loose, because beneath were the heavy bandages protecting the wound that had nearly taken her from him. Next to her was a sheathed sword, and through the fabric of her dress James noted the slight bulge of a knife strapped to her thigh.
A warrior through and through, and yet beneath the violent exterior was a kindness that took true bravery. The sort of empathy and selflessness that always carried a higher price than most people were willing to pay, and it shone through as Ahnna made silly faces to amuse the heir to a family who tried to destroy everything she held dear, laughing when Oliver cooed and wiggled.
The stars help him, but James loved her. Loved her so hard that it stole the breath from his chest and made his knees weak, and hethanked every higher power for bringing her into his life. And for keeping her in it.
“James, are you going to stand there the rest of the afternoon or are you going to come in?”
James pushed away his thoughts to discover his wife was watching him through her lowered lashes, a slight smile on her face. “I was enjoying the view.”
The flush that pinked her cheeks made him of a mind to entirely disregard Amelie’s instructions.
“Where have you been?” Ahnna asked. “Ronan and Virginia were looking for you.”
He crossed the room and sat next to her on the chaise, kissing her on the forehead between various scrapes and bruises. “I tracked Dippy down. He was on the Ranges grazing, and he was a right ass about being caught. I think he’d decided to become a cow. He certainly shares their intelligence.”
“Do not insult my horse or you might find yourself stabled with him.”
“Noted.” He ran a hand through his hair, wincing as he jostled one of his own bruises. “He’s in a stall next to Maven. We’ll take them out when you’re healed. Or if you decide you want to escape all this pomp and ceremony.”
“Tempting.” She smiled. “But I think I’m content where I am.”
For his part, he was content anywhere that she was.
“He’s a good baby.” Ahnna tickled Oliver’s toes. “A happy baby. His nurses adore him.”
James looked out the window, a dull ache always forming in his chest when he was in the presence of his brother’s child. He tried to remember the last time he and William had spoken. Tried to remember the last words they had exchanged, but beyond knowing it must have been in Sableton before James left in pursuit of Ahnna, he could not remember. Which was maybe for the best. It was better to remember William from a time before the knives had fallen and thepoison had flowed, when they’d been brothers and united in all things.
“William was going to hold true to his word,” Ahnna said, seeming to read his thoughts. “He was going to withdraw from Ithicana. The threat to Alexandra might have been what caused him to agree to the plan, but I do think that in the end, he wanted a better legacy for his son.”
“At the price of your life.” It was the only thing William had done that had been wholly unforgivable. The thing that tarnished every memory of his brother, and for Oliver’s sake, James knew he should let it go, as Ahnna had. Except while his wife was blasé about all the hurts she had endured, James was decidedly not.
True to form, she said, “We’re alive. Our hearts beat in our chests, whereas all those who tried to hurt those we care about are in the grave or in the stomachs of Ithicanian sharks. From Valcotta all the way north to Cardiff, we are bound by blood shared and by blood spilled on one another’s behalf, which is stronger than signatures on paper. We need to relish this moment for as long as it lasts, because eventually, new villains will rise.”
Ahnna wasn’t wrong, especially in Harendell where greed and the desire for power seemed to run deeper than in other nations. The war had ended with Harendell’s surrender in the face of a united force greater than had ever been seen in recorded history, but in truth, the people had been happy to finally abandon the ambitions of too many rulers with a taste formore.A taste that was only ever satisfied by stepping on the backs of soldiers and civilians, their lives nothing but numbers on a list of casualties deemed acceptable next to the accounts of profit set beside them. James believed that was why they’d been so swift to accept his return—because he and Ahnna brought both the promise of peace and the willingness to defend those who were so often stepped upon. The story of Ahnna diving into shark-infested waters to save Harendell’s infant king had spread through the nation like wildfire, and her name had become synonymous with adifferent sort of rule than Harendell was used to, but one they were desperate to keep.
Which was what they needed to talk about.
“Virginia wants me to make a statement.” He kept his eyes on the view out the window, taking in the river valley. “To declare my parents’ marriage and my legitimacy, and then to claim the throne.”
Ahnna leaned her shoulder against his, still tickling the baby’s feet, the child’s content noises so at odds with the heaviness weighing upon him.
“You are a constant in the eyes of the people, James. I know you don’t always see it, but they trust you to do right by them in a way they trust few others. They will support you.”
“And you.”
She made a soft humming sound, then bent to kiss the baby’s forehead. “I think they understand that I’ll fight to defend them, and that means something. They want a ruler who will protect them.”
Ahnna had been the people’s princess in Ithicana—beloved because she never put anyone above them, least of all herself. She’d be the people’s queen in Harendell, of that James had no doubt.
Destined to rule and to rule well.
“Do you want to hold him?”
James glanced at her, then away again. “I don’t know anything about holding babies.”
“It’s not hard. Just don’t drop him.”
Before he could answer one way or another, Ahnna scooped up his nephew and deposited him in James’s arms.
