They’d barely exchanged more than a word all day. But now, having to share a room—
“You can take the bed,” he said, the words too loud, too big in the chamber.
“Thank you,” she said, arms wrapping around herself. The firelight danced on her light brown hair, setting golden strands within it shining.
“I don’t, uh—I don’t expect anything.”
That earned him a wry look over her shoulder. “Good. Neither do I.”
“Good,” he echoed, and winced, walking to the window. The starless night was a black wall beyond, interrupted only by a few glimmering fires at farmstead cottages. “Does it ever get … not gloomy here?”
“This is my first visit, so I can’t say.” Her tone was a bit sharp, as if unused to speaking normally to people, but she added, “I hope so.”
Tharion walked to the wooden chair opposite hers and sank onto it. The damn thing was hard as Hel. He shifted, trying to find a more comfortable angle, but gave up after a second and said, “Let’s start from the beginning. I’m Tharion Ketos. Former Captain of Intelligence for the River Queen—”
“I know who you are,” she said quietly, her soft tone belied by the steely calm in her eyes.
He arched a brow. “Oh? Good or bad?”
She shook her head. “I’m Sathia Flynn, daughter of Lord Hawthorne.”
“And?”
She cocked her head to the side, strands of her long hair slipping over a shoulder. “What else is there?”
He feigned contemplation. “Favorite color?”
“Blue.”
“Favorite food?”
“Raspberry tarts.”
He let out a laugh. “Really?”
She frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” he said, then added, “Mine’s cheese puffs.”
She let out a hint of a laugh. But it faded as she said, “Why?”
He ticked the reasons off on his fingers. “They’re crispy, they’re cheesy—”
“No. I mean—why did you do this?” She gestured between them.
Tharion debated how to spin his story, but … “This arrangement of ours might as well be an honest one.” He sighed. “I’m a wanted male. The Viper Queen has a bounty of five million gold marks on my head.”
She choked. “What?”
“Surprise,” he said. Then added, “Sorry. I feel like … maybe I should have mentioned that before.”
“You think?” But she mastered herself, a practiced, calm demeanor stealing over her pale features before she said for a third time, “Why?”
“I … may have been indirectly responsible for burning down the Meat Market, and now she wants to kill me. That was after I defected from the River Queen, who, uh, also wants to kill me. And then the Ocean Queen harbored me and forbade me from leaving her ship, but I disobeyed her order and bailed, and now here I am and … I’m really not doing a good job of making myself seem appealing, am I?”
“My father is going to keel over dead,” Sathia said. Something like wicked amusement glinted in her eyes.
He could work with a sense of humor.
“As glad as I am to hear that,” Tharion said, earning another few millimeters of smile, “it’s a long way of saying … I’ve fucked up a lot.” Sigrid’s dead body flashed before his eyes, and he shoved it away. “Too much,” he amended.
“So this is some attempt at redemption?” Any amusement faded from her face.
“It’s an attempt to be able to look at myself in the mirror again,” he said plainly. “To know I did something good, at some point, for someone else.”
“All right,” she said, then looked back at the fire.
“You seem, uh … relatively cool with this whole marriage thing.”
“I’ve grown up knowing my fate would lead me to the marriage altar.” The words were flat.
“But you thought that would be marriage to a Fae—”
“I don’t particularly want to talk about the things that have been expected of me my entire life,” she said with the imperiousness of a queen. “Or the doors that are now closed to me. I am alive, and I didn’t have to marry Goon One or Goon Two, so—yes, I’m cool with that.”
“The mind-prying thing didn’t woo you, huh?”
“They’re brutes and bullies, even without their mind gifts. I abhor them.”