Page 14 of The Queen's Line

If I had neededany proof of Aric's claim that my kingdom was suffering, I saw it all on the carriage ride north the next day. It was as if I was watching a flower decay with every mile we traveled. Kimmery's capital was exquisite, glittering, and smooth. The villages that surrounded it were sweet, like scenes from quaint paintings, and the people who strolled the streets in the south seemed happy enough, if comparatively shabby to what I'd grown up surrounded by.

By evening of the first day, everything had changed.

I winced as the wheel of the carriage hit a deep pock in the road, jostling me between Thao and Cosmo. Wendell sat across from Thao, and Owen took up the rest of the bench, his head leaning against the top of the carriage by the window, mouth hanging open and letting out soft little sighs of sleep. Outside of Thao's window, farmland stretched, men in the fields with their backs bowed low, shirts hanging loose on their bodies. With farmland so rich, the men who worked the fields should've looked hale and healthy, but instead, the faces that turned to watch our traveling were gaunt and hollow-eyed.

"Does all the food go to the capital?" I asked softly, turning to Cosmo.

His own gaze was watchful out the window, eyes equal parts sympathetic and observant, like he couldn't decide between empathy for the men, or the desire to paint them. Perhaps both.

"Most of the farmland is owned by merchants rather than townspeople," Cosmo said. "The food goes south and is shipped away. The farmers are paid a small stipend of the food and a little money."

"It was a law passed at least one hundred years ago that farmland must be owned by no less than two hundred acres for mass and uniform crops. Most farmers couldn't afford to and were reluctant to try and buy each other out. They ended up selling to merchants."

I twisted my own fingers in my lap and tried to force my jaw to unclench. "It should be abolished."

Cosmo hummed, and Owen snuffled in his sleep, softening some of the tension.

A set of horse hooves clapped closer to our carriage, until Aric appeared on a grand red stallion, bending forward to peer inside at us. "There's an inn a few miles ahead where we could eat a rough meal and get back on the road after watering and changing the horses, or we might travel a little east and stay with some local lord."

I frowned and heard the test in Aric's voice. "I think a local inn would suit fine."

"The ride won't get more comfortable through the night, princess," Aric said.

"Well if you think it will be too much for you, you may come and sit inside and I will take the horse," I tossed back.

Cosmo chuckled, and Wendell gave me a glowing smile from his corner of the carriage as Aric sat up straight and clucked to his horse, driving it forward. Only Thao was quiet, if we ignored Owen's snoring.

"I'm sorry, I should've asked the rest of you where you might've liked to stay," I said, realizing that Prince Thao would probably have preferred a night in a proper bed at an overly hospitable lord's home. It was only that I wasn't feeling especially fond of the aristocracy at the moment, and I'd known that Aric had expected me to prefer pampering to seeing what common men and women of my kingdom were living with daily.

And I just desperately wanted Aric to be wrong about me, so much so that I was confusing myself about what I really preferred.

"I don't like him. I don'ttrusthim," Thao said, glaring out the window. "Whatever your own faults, youarea princess and—"

Wendell's foot shifted and struck Thao's, cutting off the prince. "Oh, apologies," Wendell said, while glaring at his lover.

"Aric has a good heart, if a prejudiced one," Cosmo murmured to me. "I don't condone his rudeness, of course. I only…"

"I will have to earn his trust before he gives me any reason to build my own for him," I said, raising an eyebrow.

Cosmo flashed a smile at me, his eyes flicking down to my mouth, and then the low collar of my gown before his head quickly lifted. "Just so, Your Highness. If it's any consolation, I've told him he's an idiot."

"We all have," Owen grunted, frowning and twisting awake, his head knocking against the roof of the carriage as he tried to sit up. "I may take a horse for some of the night myself. I feel wadded up in this little box."

My lips twitched as I watched Owen try to work out the kinks of sleeping without elbowing Wendell in the gut or kneeing Cosmo in the groin. I was tempted to offer to switch places with Wendell, but that little blooming feeling I'd discovered for Owen just a day ago had yet to abate and I wasn't sure what would happen if I were pressed up against him.

The carriage slowed as we reached the edge of a village, the sunset turning the mildewy browns and greens of the dilapidated buildings into a silky and jewel toned range of darkness. The inn we were waiting outside of was a low building with a peaked roof that sank in on one side. The windows of the inn were parted, letting the sounds and smells drift out to the street. Our carriage door opened, Owen jumping out, all too eager to stretch his long legs…and his broad back, and his muscular arms, and rolling his head on his dense shoulders. I swallowed and shook myself out of my staring, only to choke lightly on a whiff of the inn's stench. Sausage and stale ale and… My nose wrinkled. Was that the smell of piss?

The men emptied the carriage, and it was Aric who stepped up to the door, holding out a hand to help me out. No, not to help me, to stop me.

"I've charmed the carriage to avoid attracting attention, but I think we'd better do the same to you, if you don't object, princess," Aric said, quiet and low. He had a cloth bag in his hand and a few beads of sweat on his brow that hadn't been there when he'd spoken to us before.

My eyes widened, and I nodded before I'd even thought it through. Aric's hands raised to cup my face, the bag dangling from his wrist, and it was the first time he'd touched me since the night of my choosing. I held my breath at the prick of his magic dancing over my skin. For a brief moment, it was suffocating, like someone had pressed a pillow over my face, and then it gentled and sank in—a tight feeling, and a little itchy, but manageable. His fingers trailed down my throat to the collar of my dress, and my lips parted as his touch skimmed over my breast bone.

In books, a hero was always described with 'heat in his gaze,' but I couldn't tell if that was what was in Aric's eyes. It was certainly…focused, and it brought goosebumps out all over me and made my breasts feel both heavy and tight. And then my gown whispered and shifted from golden silk to a slightly rough texture and an earthy green.

"That should do," Aric said, words scratching against my ear, his breath short and rapid.

And then he was gone, leaving me gaping in my seat, and with no escort down from the carriage until Wendell appeared a moment later, gallant and golden. His eyebrows bounced as he took me in.