Court of Winter (Fae of Snow & Ice, #1)(89)
My power now rivaled the prince’s. I’d stopped the prince from enacting his soul-sucking rage on Vorl, and they now saw me as a potential threat to their prince.
I inched back, pressing my spine into the bed’s headboard. “What if I don’t want to marry you? What if I refuse to enter the Trial that could make me the next queen?”
Prince Norivun’s jaw muscle ticked. “You cannot. You’ve been commanded by the king of the Solis continent to partake.”
“But what about replenishing our continent’s orem? I thought that was my purpose?”
“It’s now one of your purposes but not the only one. You’ll start training with your tutor this week while continuing to travel to fields with me each day as planned. We’ll work to replenish our continent’s orem, but that’s not all you’ll do. You’ll also be entering the Trial. Your days will be busy and tiring, but the king has commanded it.”
I clenched the sheets in my hands, balling them into fists. “But we made a bargain. You’re sealed by magic. You promised that if I replaced the land’s orem that I could return home.”
“I did.”
“But you’re saying now that I have to enter this Trial as well.”
His expression remained impossible to read, yet his eyes burned like sapphires. “I’m afraid the two are mutually exclusive.”
“So I’m to be a slave to this court. It doesn’t matter if I save our land?”
“You’ll not be a slave. You may one day be queen. And while I cannot stop you from returning to your home after you replenish our continent’s orem—you’re correct that the bargain protects you in that aspect—I cannot promise you that you won’t be a married female when you do so.”
“Married to you,” I whispered as shock crept through me.
He nodded, and for a moment, a look of wildness shone in his eyes. The prince wanted that. For whatever reason, he wanted me.
But for the life of me, I didn’t know if I felt that in return for him. Too much had been done. Too many lives had been taken at his hand, which meant I needed to find a way out of this Trial.