“I didn’t hate you,” I whisper. “I was shocked and hurt. Maybe I wanted to hate you, but I couldn’t.”
He swallows hard and backs away. Just one more step, but it feels like a mile. “When you said you wanted to stay here, I couldn’t let go of the hope that you might change your mind. And every day I see you here in my palace with my people, it’s harder to ignore.”
I close the distance between us and take his hand, unwilling to accept what he’s trying to say, even if I need to.
He toys with my fingers. “I know you never wanted to be my bride. I know that’s not what keeps you here. When you were missing this morning, it was a painful reminder that you’ve always intended this stay to be temporary—a means to an end. But I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. You’re the one who’s always made me laugh. You’re the one who makes me feel like I can still be me without letting my duty to my crown swallow me whole. And yet that same duty might require losing you.”
My gut twists with guilt. Does he know something? Does he suspect that I am stealing from his kingdom? “How . . . why would you say that?”
“My mother is pressuring me to choose my bride,” he says, his eyes downcast, as if he’s confessing something shameful. “She informed me last night that I have until the next new moon to make my decision.”
“That’s just over three weeks away.” My chest aches. It hurts to take a full breath. He’ll be choosing a bride, and while I should be focused on what this means for my access to the castle, jealousy burns a hole in my gut and demands my attention. “Why so soon?”
“She wants me to have a queen. Someone who can support me. Ruling . . .” He shifts his gaze to the window, staring out across the gardens. “It gets lonely. And she wants me to have a partner before she begins to transition her power.”
“Have you made a choice?” I don’t really want to know. I have no right to feel anything about Sebastian’s future bride, yet this jealousy feels as if it might tear me apart from the inside.
Finally he lifts his head and meets my eyes again. “I tell myself it doesn’t matter. Among the nobility, marriages are more often about power and alliances than about love. But then I think about you leaving and . . . Brie, if there is any chance that you could be happy living here, that’s what I want. I want you as my queen.”
I feel like the room is closing in around me. I can’t imagine what that life would look like—life as a princess of a kingdom that imprisons people fleeing a hostile land. But if Sebastian and I ruled, we would change all that.
Could I possibly be a force for good in this world? Not just another queen never wanting for anything and ruling over others, but a queen of change? But no. That’s not even a choice. When Sebastian knows the truth, he won’t want me anymore. Lark’s vision assured me of that.
You could never be the Seelie queen.
And there’s the evidence of just how despicable I am. He thinks he wants me forever, and part of me is considering it even as I’m betraying him. I’m the thief who’s stealing from the kingdom he’d have me rule by his side. And then there are these things I feel for Finn—the way my power surges when he’s close, the attraction I don’t want but can’t deny. Would Sebastian want me if he knew any of that? Even if he did, doesn’t that prove I don’t deserve him?
I’m silent too long, and Sebastian closes his eyes. The hurt that flashes across his face is a punch to the solar plexus. “Right,” he whispers. “Well, at least now you know where I stand.” He turns on his heel and heads out the door.
“Bash,” I call, following. He stops, keeping his back to me. I don’t trust myself to look at his face, so I speak to his broad shoulders instead of asking him to turn around. “I never wanted to marry a prince.” I want to press my palm between his shoulder blades, to feel the reassurance of his strength, his heat. Or maybe wrap my arms around him, press my front to his back and rest my palm on his chest to feel the reassuring beat of his heart. I do neither. “But I would have married Sebastian, the mage’s apprentice, in a heartbeat.”
He hangs his head. “You can’t have one without the other, Brie.”
“Ah,” I say softly. “But the prince is growing on me.”
When he turns, the hope in his eyes cuts me deep, and I don’t know what I hate more: that I’m manipulating him or that what I said is true.