Page 180 of Dare
The deadly realm with its perilous rainfall and carnivorous fauna. This fact insinuated I’d been too preoccupied to acknowledge anything but the dangers my visitors had placed themselves among. Logically, I had meant to warn them. At which point, I’d gotten caught up in the presumed fauna ambush.
Indigo had anticipated a guiltier answer. However, the reply made sense, as had my numerous other explanations regarding the past year. Details about my survival to the convoy, to the nobles, to my family.
What. When. Why.
I had weathered Winter’s inquiries and responded with dismissals, abbreviated versions, half-truths. While I detested removing Flare from the equation, as if she had lasted only a short while with me, my accounts had satisfied the court.
I thought of my fierce little beast. The image froze in my mind, every facet of her preserved under a layer of ice. If anyone tried to breach it, they would find themselves stripped of their flesh and missing several pertinent organs.
I respected my knights. My whole life, I’d treated them as my equals.
But I had limits. Where the safety of Flare, my family, and my kingdom were concerned, let no one test me. Most of all, anyone who meant my woman harm would die graphically. And slowly, for I was known to be a patient executioner.
My expression mirrored the man’s shrewdness—then exceeded it a thousandfold, cautioning the knight to remember his place. Underestimating the Prince of Winter was a fatal error. One more slip of the tongue would smack of treason and condemn him to a prolonged death sentence.
Go ahead, I silently provoked. Question the prince.
Indigo flinched and retreated a step. Much better.
But just in case. My fingers fell to the scalpel knife at my hip, and my voice sharpened like steel—refined, polished, lethal. “Is there anything else?”
“No.” Indigo cleared his throat. “Nothing, Sire.”
I cocked my head. “One might think you actually mean to keep the queens waiting.” When the man blanched, registering that he’d neglected his sovereigns, I murmured, “Dismissed.”
Spite lurked at the fine edges of his countenance. With a bow, the motherfucker grunted, “Your Highness.”
Your Highness. That form of address, I had yet to reacquaint myself with. It compromised my equilibrium, as it had within seconds of my rescue, when I’d found myself surrounded by men and women-at-arms, the troops sinking to their knees and chanting.
My name. My title.
Long live … somebody.
Indigo stalked away. After everything that had happened regarding that incompetent pissant of a monarch, Rhys, this knight wasn’t my first enemy. Nor would he be the last.
Be that as it may, the shithead would not speak out again. To this court, I was too smart, too merciless to challenge unless he wanted to donate his liver to research. Moreover, Indigo valued his rank above all ambitions. It outweighed his aversion toward born souls or the unlikely notion of his sovereign protecting one.
Someone called my name. I blinked, my head snapping toward where my grandaunts stood at the suite’s threshold, with their arms entwined and their gazes clinging to me. Silvia, the sentimental. Doria, the steadfast. They had sprinted down the steps in cloaks of amethyst and sapphire when I’d returned, then wept and flung their arms around me before I’d properly dismounted from my horse and planted myself on the ground.
The blanket of snow under my boots. The woodland scents of pine, cedar, and smoke. The arctic temperature biting into my flesh.
The culture shock had rendered me useless. I’d slumped into Silvia and Doria, my face burying in the tufts of their white curls.
I had anticipated my arrival, expecting to make straight for my parents’ chambers. Instead, I had procrastinated like a fucking coward, unable to carry myself there. For hours that day, I’d shut myself up with the queens in their antechamber until they urged me, saying it would be fine.
At last, I had reinforced my spine and summoned the courage to navigate the halls. Approach the Royal Suite. Dismiss the guards. Knock, step inside, close the door.
Since then, months had passed. Still, Silvia’s tear ducts filled behind the rims of her spectacles whenever she saw me, as though I might vanish again.
Guilt assailed me. Yet I would do it again. For Flare.
I stepped away from the table and inclined my head. “My Queens.”
“Jeryn,” Silvia gushed.
“Come,” Doria beckoned, motioning toward the terrace.
The women strolled outside. Behind them, I shrugged into my coat and followed, the fur slapping my calves and the chain accents of my steel-tipped boots rattling like bones. I stepped up to the railing, where the chalet castle pitched over the vista, the stone sills and overhangs dripping with icicles. Ahead, I peered at the panorama of coniferous trees. Snow powdered the needle leaves, the trunks’ widths could house villages, and owls kept vigil somewhere in the branches.