The Princess's Bargain
A knock sounded at the door, and Cedric stepped inside.
"Your Highness. An unidentified person has entered the garrison—"
He faltered. An unfamiliar woman stood facing Carion as if the two of them were locked in a standoff. Cedric's gaze flicked instinctively toward Orbin, who was waving him over with frantic signals to keep his mouth shut and get across the room. Cedric crossed the floor in silence and took his place at Orbin's side.
Carion found the woman's presence striking. She met his eyes without flinching, and there was no fear in those green irises. This was not bravado. It was temperament, worn into the bone. He found it interesting—and, in equal measure, rather galling.
Princess or not, how had she made it all the way into the commander's residence at the heart of a heavily guarded garrison?
Discipline has gone slack. I'll have to overhaul the security system and run a full inspection.
Carion tilted his head slightly.
"I was under the impression we were strangers."
"If you're asking whether we've met before, we haven't."
"Let's say you are a princess. Zephyros is, by every measure, an enemy of the Empire."
To call them an enemy was almost absurd given the overwhelming disparity in scale—but officially, that was what they were.
"Do you have any idea how much risk I would bear if this meeting reached His Majesty's ears?"
"I do."
"And that I could have you seized right here and sent to the capital in chains?"
"But you won't."
Rhea answered with a faint smile. Carion's expression did not change.
"What are you counting on?"
"I believe in the proposal I have for Your Highness. It's far more advantageous to you than sending me to the imperial capital as a prisoner."
"You mean marriage."
Rhea cleared her throat.
"I skipped over the more important preamble."
"Let's hear it, then. This preamble of yours."
Rhea glanced toward the others, and Carion said,
"There is nothing they cannot hear."
Orbin and Cedric stood at attention, barely breathing. Their desperate stillness said it all: Please pretend we don't exist.
The two of them were the sort to clash over nearly everything, but in this moment they were of one mind. In all the time they had served under Prince Carion, they had never witnessed anything quite so riveting.
Rhea drew a single, steadying breath, then spoke.
A silence so complete that even breathing seemed to stop settled over the room.
The southern desert kingdom of Zephyros. To the Empire, it was a thorn in the fingertip—small, persistent, and impossible to ignore. For some twenty years the Emperor had waged a campaign of conquest, winning battle after battle, until he attempted to invade Zephyros and lost countless troops in the effort. That sole, searing failure remained a subject so painful that even speaking of it was taboo throughout the Empire.
And now the Kingdom of Zephyros was volunteering to kneel of its own accord and become a vassal state? It was an event that would rock the Empire to its foundations, and the standing of Fourth Prince Carion, the man who brought it about, would change in a single stroke.
Orbin and Cedric had already wiped their faces clean of expression. They looked to their lord. But even with an opportunity of this magnitude laid before him, the dryness in Carion's eyes did not change. If anything, he sounded almost bored as he asked,
"There would be conditions, I take it."
"Take me to the imperial capital. As your consort."
Rhea felt a flicker of unease as she met his eyes, which had gone cool and still. With no reaction to read, she couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking.
"The Empire has already become the center of the world. Zephyros has maintained a policy of isolation for a very long time, and the kingdom has no foothold whatsoever within the Empire. I want to see and hear what happens at the Empire's heart. A princess who is nothing more than a vassal state's hostage could never do that. A prince's consort could."
"I refuse."
"...I beg your pardon?"
Rhea had always thought that answering someone with a blank what? made a person look stupid. She asked it anyway.
"If what the princess requires is a place as a prince's consort, there are other princes besides me. I'd be happy to arrange an introduction."
"I want to make this deal with Your Highness."
"Then take that deal to another prince. I have no interest in earning glory, and no intention of marrying. Cedric. Show the guest out."
"Yes, Your Highness."
Rhea bit her lip as she watched him turn away without a shred of hesitation. She had the sense that this was the moment to fall back. She followed Cedric out without protest.
Cedric escorted her to a guest chamber within the residence. In a tone as level and uninflected as his neat, exacting appearance, he said,
"Until Your Highness's identity has been confirmed, I must ask that you refrain from going out. Attendants will be sent in shortly."
"I understand. People from the kingdom will come within a few days."
"Yes. I will inform you as soon as word arrives."
Once inside the room, Rhea sank onto the sofa as if her legs had given out. All at once, every last bit of tension seemed to drain out of her. She looked at the closed door. There would be soldiers posted outside it—she was certain of that. She had steeled herself for far worse treatment, and she had no complaints.
She leaned back against the sofa and replayed the conversation in her mind.
She had known him only by rumor. The wandering commander. An unleashed hunting dog. The outlaw of the Northeast. She didn't know if he was still called those things now, but ten years from now the man he would become had worn nicknames far less pleasant than these. The Prince Carion she had pictured before meeting him had been eccentric, fierce, and far more emotional. Besides, he was only in his early twenties—an age when feelings ran wild.
But the man she had met in person barely felt like a rough soldier at all. If anything, he seemed remarkably composed for his age—a man who kept his face under tight control.
...He looks like her.
She had been startled the moment she first saw him. Had she not been wearing a hood, she might well have stared at his face as if bewitched.
To think Prince Carion was that handsome.
From time to time, his mother's face seemed to overlay his—Nella, the ruler of Nortia. Who could possibly claim he was not her son? He had inherited Nella's cool, captivating eyes and her sculpted bridge of a nose down to the last line. Nella had possessed a jawline unusually strong for a woman; on a man's face, it became a line of perfect proportion. It was astonishing that a son could resemble his mother so completely.
Ugh.
Rhea covered her face with both hands. The shame of it caught up with her all at once—the first proposal she had ever made, across two lifetimes, rejected on the spot.
What do I do, Your Majesty.
Your son is an idiot!
This marriage had been the plan Nella and Rhea had put their heads together to devise—their best strategy. It had never occurred to her that he might simply refuse.
Does he find me unappealing? ...Well. Of course he might.
Rhea pressed her hands to her burning cheeks. Where had that confidence even come from? Why had she taken it as a given that he would agree simply because she asked?
In the small hours before dawn, Carion tossed in his bed, then sat bolt upright. His forehead was soaked with cold sweat. He swallowed a groan, his face twisting as he clawed at his own chest.
It felt as though he had swallowed a lump of fire, and that fire now thrashed through him at will, ricocheting from rib to gut.
"Hah..."
His insides were burning. A scorching heat climbed the back of his throat, and every breath seemed to sear his windpipe. The pain hovered at the very edge of what he could bear, and with it came a wild urge to hurl himself into ice water.
But he already knew. He could submerge himself until his jaw rattled with cold, could gulp down freezing water until he choked—it would make no difference. This cursed fit came and went without warning. He knew neither its cause nor its cure. All he could do was clench his teeth and endure, waiting for the agony to crest.
If he loosened his jaw even a fraction, a scream would tear out of him. A shudder of gooseflesh raced down the back of his neck—and then, at last, it began to recede. Sweat dripped along the line of his clenched jaw. The veins standing out on his forehead slowly faded.
"Hah..."
He let out a long breath and collapsed back onto the bed. He stared up at the dark ceiling, dragging air into his lungs. That there was no aftermath was small comfort. That the attacks came mostly at night, where no one would see, was another.
He lay there, dazed, until the sky began to lighten. Then he rose slowly from the bed. There would be no more sleep tonight. He stepped out into the inner courtyard to take in the dawn air.
Wind?
The breeze that brushed his face felt warm for the hour before dawn. With a faint, nameless regret, he turned his head to follow it—and stopped short at the sight of Rhea, who startled at the sight of him.