“I didn’t notice. I was distracted.”
“By the possibility of being murdered? Again?”
His eyes flashed, and then he shrugged, returning to Brunie’s wriggling demands. “That’s right.”
For a moment, she recalled the feeling of his chest against her back there in the saloon. The grip of his fingers around her arms, holding her still. The way his breath had stirred the hair around her ears.
Expecting some teasing words from him, Risa readied a retort on her tongue (something about how women weren’t for his ogling pleasure), but his face was all serious angles. Mouth pinched, awrinkle between his brows. Elbows on his thighs, hands cradled under his chin, gold eyes narrowed.
“I don’t remember her face at all,” he finally admitted.
She swallowed around the knot in her throat. “Well, the Wolf is going to either kidnap you or kill you for the reward money. I think we should pay her more than you’re worth to alleviate the desire. How many hearts have you broken to warrant a wanted poster?”
Javi didn’t seem perturbed by the existence of his bounty. “Many. But those were weeks ago.”
“Could it be political?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. Very few people know about the betrothal. Unless someone in my father’s circle—or the general’s—talked?” He wet his lips to whisper, “Or perhaps one of my guards survived?”
He sounded so hopeful that Risa’s heart plummeted into her stomach. She couldn’t imagine how he must feel about the massacre; he’d steered clear of it. She’d figured he hated unpleasant topics, but now she realized he might have blamed himself.
“Perhaps,” she said, because it seemed a kindness she could provide.
He nodded, though he didn’t look convinced.
“Why would anyone be so bloodthirsty?” she asked, eager to move away from the massacre, unwilling to interrogate her own feelings about what her curse had inflicted on people she didn’t even know.
“I’m not sure. It’s not like anyone needs me. I’m too lowly to be considered a valuable asset. I’m just another one of the Kheadish king’s sons in a long line of sons. I’m not a tool. I’m not a message.”
“The people love you,” she said, unable to keep jealousy from coloring her voice.
“Yes,” Javi agreed, the word laced in bitterness. “Until they don’t.”
That hung between them, a dangling truth he refused to elaborate on and she refused to accept, because doing so would mean allowing vulnerability. It would mean that her impressions were wrong, that there might be more to Javi than being “el principito.” Worse, she didn’t want to find out he was more like her than she cared to admit—just a boy, forced to wear a mask that didn’t fit, play a role he didn’t want.
Risa didn’t know how to lay down her arms, how to bring down the walls—not so someone else could climb through, but so she could climb out and meet them on the other side.
She pushed off from the window and settled on the corner of the bed, testing its weight. If a plank of wood with some straw sprinkled atop it was meant to be luxury in Spearbelly, well then, they were living in the lap of it.
“You can have the bed,” she grumbled, hoping that would dispel the tightness around her chest.
His gold eyes widened. “You’re being nice to me?” That smile of his, charming and sweet, returned in full force. “Gods, do you want tokissme?”
She sighed, exasperated. “I don’t know.”
He gave her a sly smile. “Kissing is easy. I can show you.”
“I meant I don’t know if I’m beingniceto you. I guess if I am, it’s probably because everyone is trying to murder you.”
Javi leaned back in the armchair and shook his head, a sniffle catching in his throat. “Take the bed. I’ll do first watch. After all, I have to protect my honor.”
Brunhilda’s magic flared in her chest, contracting around her heart. She rubbed the heel of her hand against her sternum.
Unfortunately for her, Javi was more astute in close quarters than he was when in a cursed forest or surrounded by singing cultists.
“Oh my gods, I was kidding, but perhaps you are starting to like me!”
“Not even a little.” She swallowed and scooted back along the bed until she banged her head against the headboard.
