Page 11 of Crimson Kingdom
It wasn’t onlyhimI wondered about. I thought about all of them, Kirill, Taras, Yuriy, and Mila. Especially Mila.
The birds were technically reserved for official use only, so I had only received one short letter from her.
I miss you, Scarlet Princess, but I’m glad you’re safe now.
At least I would see her soon enough and hear all about the adventure her marriage to Taras had surely been. It was hard to imagine the very proper lord paired with my outspoken friend, but Mila was more like Davin in that she was better at quashing those tendencies when she needed to.
Unlike me.
Ellie tugged on my hair a little too hard, effectively pulling me from my thoughts of stupid Socair and its stupid Clan Bear.
“You’re right,” I told her as I carried her back into the nursery, shutting the doors behind us. “You’re always right.”
A small grin stretched over her mouth before she yawned, curling in a little closer to me. Warmth flooded through me. Not for the first time, I wondered what gift our fae heritage had given her.
Did I always feel better when I was around her because she was my little sister and endlessly adorable? Or was it something more? She seemed to sense whenever I was in a bad mood, and without words, she comforted me.
I shrugged, rocking her to sleep before it was time to make an appearance at the nightly court dinner. I supposed it didn’t truly matter either way. Maybe she was just more like Mamá, her warmth exuding from every fiber of her being.
Either way, I greedily soaked it up, grateful for this brief reprieve from the world outside.
CHAPTERSIX
Amessenger came before I was even awake to let me know that Theo would arrive this morning.
Excitement and nervous tension flooded the castle as rooms were prepared. The ballroom was being decorated, and everyone waited for the first Socairan lord to step foot in Lochlann in over twenty years.
Taisiya helped me to dress for the day, pulling out a deep forest-green gown that came up high around my back and covered my shoulders before dipping low around my bust. It tapered at my waist with a woven gold belt, flowing into full skirts that grazed the floor.
Then she rested a golden tiara with large, sparkling emeralds upon my head. I looked every inch a Lochlannian princess. A far cry from the girl who had been a prisoner for months.
Albeit, a fairly well-taken-care of prisoner. Flogging aside.
Taisiya arranged my curls and applied my cosmetics as my mind spun around in circles. The last time I saw Theo, he had said he would fight for us.For me.
And that was exactly what he was doing.
He was traveling through a kingdom that despised him and blamed him for his brother’s decisions, a kingdom that called for his head on a silver platter, all to ask for my hand in marriage.
The thought made my stomach twist and my heart pound. I let out a long, slow breath, trying to steady myself.
“Are you ready, Your Highness?” Taisiya asked from where she’d been standing by the doorway for the past several minutes.
I gave her a quick nod, and she opened the door, following me out into the hall.
Each step closer to the drawing room had my breaths coming far more quickly than I would have preferred. I counted the individual stairs as we descended them, timing my breaths with the measured steps.
This is a good thing.
Once we made it to the room, Taisiya went to wait with the rest of my family, who had very reluctantly agreed to allow me to greet him first.
Though I had been preparing for this moment, I wasn’t sure that anything could have ever truly prepared me to face it.
To facehim…
It felt like a lifetime ago that I was in Socair.
Nothing had felt right since I came back, despite my family’s assurances. Something was still missing or wrong. Or maybe it was just me.