He huffed but said nothing.
I lowered into my chair, lacking the desire to fill the silence that followed. I remained quiet and contemplative as I pushed my food around my plate.
Although the adviser ate without saying a word, his eyes tracked every move I made.
Irked by it, and by the thoughts that clouded my mind until the only option I could settle on all day was inaction, I spoke first. “Why are you here?”
Avrin showed no sign of shock at my rude tone and question. Amusement filled his voice, and I looked up as he reached for his goblet of wine. He swirled it, then took a sip. “Here in this palace, or here dining with such a sullen princess?”
I almost bristled. Then decided I didn’t much care about his opinion of me after all. “Both.”
“Well,” he said, wiping his mouth with a lace-edged napkin. The cream cloth came away smeared with tomato soup. “If you must know, I usually dine here.”
“Alone?” I lifted a spoonful of soup to my mouth, swallowing as he watched with narrowed eyes.
“Your father hasn’t dined in this room since I arrived here, and I’ll wager he didn’t for years prior.” He glanced around, his attention falling to the empty yet beautiful fireplace with gold and ruby inlaid in the stone hearth. “A room like this deserves to be utilized.”
I silently agreed, peering around as I tore my bread in half and stifled the rising memory of the last time I’d eaten soup.
Open those lovely lips.
I dunked my piece of bread violently, uncaring as soup splashed over the lace table linen. Then decided to distract myself by any means necessary. “You said you were plucked from the streets?”
I could imagine a room such as this—and that this entire palace—was something he would marvel at standing within for many decades to come, then.
He nodded, lifting his bowl to his lips and slurping.
Irritation prickled, but the playful gleam in his eyes made me suppress a smile as he set the bowl down. “I was starving and desperate enough to try pickpocketing an off-duty soldier.” He licked his lips, and I half hoped the intrigue the shape of them aroused would create more—would kindle an interest for a male who did not carefully plot my demise. “I was too young to be executed and too wild to leave unpunished.”
“The soldier brought you here?”
“He brought me to his commander.” Avrin drank more wine. “The king just happened to be visiting the guard barracks, conversing with the commander and two others.”
I surmised that the largest building among the clusters of stone houses deep within the palace grounds must belong not to servants, but to members of Molkan’s royal military.
“I really should have been executed, and he knew it.” As if lost to the memory, Avrin’s gaze fell upon his almost finished meal, absent. “But he gave me the groundskeeper’s storage shed, said if I worked well for Helain for a year, he would see about letting me go.”
I chewed slowly, then paused. “But you never left.”
“Why would I want to?” he said, then laughed. “I had no parents, only an older brother who was relieved to no longer need to look out for me while he fended for himself. Here”—he gestured to the window—“well, you’ve seen it. I was barely eleven years, but even then I knew a good thing when it was shoved right before my face. So when the year was up, I said nothing and neither did Helain, and the king never noticed me again until I was pushing sixteen years and outgrowing half of his matured soldiers.”
“He made you enlist.”
He nodded. “As part of the royal guard. A few years later, Florian’s second-in-command killed his adviser and personal guard during an attempt to negotiate peace terms, and the king trusts no one, so…”
Fume, I guessed again but didn’t say.
“But he trusts you,” I said instead.
“He trusts me more than most, but let me be clear”—his voice lowered, and he tossed a glance over his broad shoulder—“he trusts no one.”
Similar words had been said to me about a different king.
I pondered that for longer than I should have, imagining what it must feel like—being so guarded. My hand curled around the bread, crumbs crumbling, as it occurred to me. As I acknowledged that I was dangerously close to knowing exactly what that felt like.
I had no choice but to trust those around me, at least to a certain degree, to get what I needed and to remain breathing. And I was beginning to hate it. That I might never know true safety and the life of comfort that came with it.
I wished I could roam freely throughout this land and any other without fear. I wished I could further get to know the male who was my father and have him smile and wink at me again without feeling like I needed those tiny displays of affection. Hints that he cared for me.
This kingdom was supposedly my own, yet I couldn’t shake the sense that one wrong move might cause all of it to disintegrate and cave in around me.
I wanted to be accepted here. In a way I hadn’t been accepted in Crustle or in Florian’s court. In a way that finally made me feel like I’d found it.
Home.
Avrin dropped his spoon with a clatter, then leaned back in his chair.
Sufficiently shaken from the anxiety that refused to let me feel at ease, I was grateful. “And your brother?” I asked, recalling that he was a member of the Wild Hunt.
“He wanted no part of this kingdom or any other. He left with the hunt the moment he matured and proved his worth to them.”
Curious, I asked, “What did he have to do?”
Avrin grinned, then rose from his chair and said with a seriousness that shocked, “Trust me when I say you’re better off not knowing everything, Princess.”
The following afternoon, I ventured down those sandstone steps to the terrace once more.
Determination kept my stride steady and my shoulders back as I neared the gates that would open to a world I’d yet to experience.
And I was tired of waiting.
Tired of sitting within a pretty palace, awaiting my father’s attention when I was beginning to fear he saw me as nothing more than a creature to be kept in order to keep me from his enemy. I should have been grateful for such protection. But the safety I’d found was nothing like I’d envisioned.
This time alone had made it clear that all I’d found since beginning my hunt for something so elusive was more uncertainty, violence, and questions.
I wanted no part of this war. I wanted to live without being used by scheming males. I wanted to breathe without feeling the burn of betrayal and missing someone I never should have wanted.
I wanted to escape everything I’d foolishly hoped to find and have the freedom to find something else.
Maybe I would find a place of my own. A place where no one would bother me. And if I had to find such a place in the middle lands until these kingdoms forgot that I existed, then so be it.
I couldn’t return to the apartment. It would be the first place Florian and Molkan looked. I’d have to work my way farther south toward the wood-laden borders of the human realm, and gain employment along the way to help me achieve that.
The guards ceased talking and separated when they became aware of my approach. Both moved to the center of the gates, chins high and their hands drifting to the weapons at their sides.