Page 39 of The Masked Princess

He nodded.

“Five weeks… well, it’s certainly not much time to learn about my betrothed, but I suppose it’s not like I really have a choice, even if he’s an odious swine.”

“You always have a choice, Princess Annalise,” Soren said carefully.

“But do I?” Annalise smiled sadly at Soren. “Do I really have a choice when any path that doesn’t lead to marriage means my people will pay the price with their lives?”

Soren didn’t trust his traitorous tongue, so he bit the inside of his lip until he tasted blood.

CHAPTER 30

Three more weeks passed, and before Annalise knew it, it was time to leave the place she’d come to think of as home. Unlike Dovea, with its duplicitous court, or Rhinnea, with her marriage to an enemy king, Murana had been a welcome reprieve and had nourished her soul in ways she hadn’t realized she needed.

The morning they planned to leave, Annalise had just finished getting ready with Elsabeth’s assistance when there was a knock at her door.

“I wonder who that could be. You’ve hardly even had a chance to eat your breakfast,” Elsabeth tutted. “Here, Your Highness, you eat and I’ll go see what needs to be done.”

Annalise smiled and slathered a thick layer of apple butter on a biscuit. In the past few weeks, her appreciation for the older woman’s fearlessness and gentleness had only grown. Every morning, as Elsabeth insisted on brushing Annalise’s hair, she told stories about her mother, Elvira. They ranged in topic and time from when she was growing up in Orighet, to her move to Dovea, and finally, to her life as queen. Of all the things Annalise would miss about Murana, Elsabeth was near the top of the list.

Elsabeth shut the door to her chambers. “It’s Captain Kierson, Your Highness. He said he wants to speak with you before it’s time to go. Shall I let him in, or are you indisposed?”

“Let him in, please.” Try as she might, Annalise couldn’t deny the warmth that stirred in her chest at the thought of talking to Soren. In the weeks they’d spent in Orighet, their friendship had only grown stronger, until sometimes it felt like something more, something she dared not name for both how precious it was and how dangerous it could be. He was so warm and kind, like a safe harbor amid a winter squall, or a merry hearth fire during a blizzard. Some days, being around him almost made her feel normal, as though she’d never been cursed.

She scowled down at her food. If she were a normal woman, she wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally killing her husband with a brush of her fingertips, or what plans he had for a bride who couldn’t provide him an heir. No matter what power she might scrape together in Rhinnea, a queen who couldn’t bear children was a queen in a precarious position.

“What misfortune has your food caused you to deserve such scorn?” Soren asked as he took the seat across from her.

As usual, his eyes were soft and his russet hair quite tousled. He often ran his fingers through it while thinking. Usually, his hair started out nicely brushed in the morning and devolved throughout the day—for it to be so disheveled already meant, perhaps, that she wasn’t the only anxious one.

Annalise shrugged, casting about for something witty to say to bring a smile to his face and help him relax, but came up empty and opted for the truth instead. “I’m nervous about going to Rhinnea and am afraid I’ve lost most of my appetite.” She pushed her plate to the middle of the table. “Here, you eat it.”

Soren leaned forward in his seat, one eyebrow raised, but accepted the scones. He spread the preserves and took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Well, I guess that makes two of us who are nervous about the journey. What’s bothering you about it?”

“It’s not so much the getting there as it is what happens once we reach Rea.” Annalise looked out the window, unable to meet Soren’s dark brown eyes. “I know that with you by my side, no one will hurt me, but once I’m married, you’ll return to Dovea and I’ll be all alone in a strange castle as a queen who no one can touch.”

“You don’t have to go.”

His words were hardly above a whisper, and she cut her eyes back to him. “What was that?”

He swallowed, studying the plate as though it held the answers to the universe, before he lifted his gaze to hers. “I said that you don’t have to go. You can stay here with your aunt and start a new life. I’m sure the Muranan healers would benefit from your knowledge, and the people seem to have welcomed you with open arms. I’ll ride to Rea and tell them you died; that the bandits killed you. Then I’ll go to Dovea and do the same. No one here will betray you, and then you can finally be free.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“So you insist on becoming the sacrificial lamb that your father wants? You’ll allow the Rhinneans to spill your blood if your father so commands?”

“Yes, but it’s not for my father or for his court. It’s for the Dovean men who work the fields and shouldn’t have to worry about raids on their land or being conscripted to fight. It’s for the women who stand to lose fathers and brothers and husbands. And it’s for the children who would grow up parentless,” she said, her voice rising with every word until it rang through the room. “I spent all last winter weaving blankets to donate to the orphanage, and we’re at peace right now. I shudder thinking of how many more innocent families would be torn apart by a war. That is why I’m doing this—for my people, for the chance to save them from bloodshed they never asked for or wanted, not for King Everet.”

Soren’s voice remained even, but his tone took on a desperate edge. “Princess Annalise, you’re happy here. Please listen to me; don’t throw this chance away so carelessly.”

“What is happiness? A fleeting moment that will fade the next time someone accidentally touches me? Perhaps a few months of relative peace until the snow thaws and Rhinnea and Dovea go to war? No, Captain, I won’t risk it just because I’m nervous about my fate.”

“You have a future here⁠—”

She clenched her napkin in her hands, her knuckles turning white. “You’re wrong, Soren. I don’t have a future anywhere.” Her voice cracked and dropped until she was nearly whispering. “This curse will follow me until I’m in the grave—perhaps even beyond.”

He placed a boiled egg onto his plate with his fork but pushed it around instead of eating it. “When I was traveling, I heard things about then-Prince Nelan, your current betrothed. Dark and concerning things. I fear for your safety once you marry him.”

“What can he do to me that my father hasn’t already? Cut me off from everyone? Keep me behind a mask? Make me the mockery of his court and force me to live pretending I don’t see snide smiles or hear whispers in corners?” One corner of Annalise’s mouth twisted up in a sarcastic grin. “Let him do his worst.”