Page 2 of Hollow Court
But it was onlyher. The typical, boring lady I was beginning to suspect perhaps wasn’t. Why was she here?
“Come to revel in my pain?” I asked her in the common tongue.
No sense in giving away how much Socairan I knew.
This was really the only logical explanation since she had never even glanced in my general direction.
“You’re alaskipaa,” she responded, her fingers prodding along the back of my skull.
I couldn’t really deny being an idiot right now, so I didn’t try.
“Was your uncle really looking for them?” I asked, my words slurring.
Even under the hazy night sky, her expression was easy to read. It was more or less a repeat of her previous statement.
Of course, Sir Mikhail hadn’t needed those soldiers coincidentally right now. So she had lied, rather quickly and quite well…and for my sake.
Why?
I must have said the word aloud because she let out a sigh in a single white puff of air.
“Tensions are high enough without you dying,” she muttered, her voice only faintly accented. “Now, I need you to stand. I can’t carry you back to your rooms, and you’ll freeze to death out here.”
Had I ever heard her string so many words together before?
I dipped my chin in assent, waiting until I was standing on shaky feet, half supported by her before I spoke again.
“Thank you,” I said, closing my eyes against the stars that swam in my vision. “I owe you my life.”
“Those are serious words here,” she cautioned.
“I mean it. I owe you a…” I tried to think past the pounding in my head, casting about for the term. “A life debt.”
She scoffed. “I’m sure I’ll be demanding a great many things from a Lochlannian guard.”
That struck me as unreasonably funny under the circumstances.
Of course, she didn’t know how seriously she could take my vow. Lady Galina thought I was their captive princess’s guard, rather than Rowan’s cousin. Certainly not the marquess of the largest holdings in Lochlann.
And I couldn’t very well tell her the truth. My cousin was in plenty of danger without word getting out that she had lied to their precious, omnipotent dukes.
I let out a low chuckle, and Galina gave me that look again—the one that said I was an idiot.
Her pale blue eyes glinted silver in the moonlight, ethereal and fathomless, like the fabled lakes from the isles of the fae. It was probably just my burgeoning concussion that made me feel like I was falling into them.
I meant to tease her, but my response came out low and earnest, the three words falling softer than the snow around us.
“You never know.”
ONE
Galina
Present Day
There was no escaping now.
I had done everything in my power to avoid Davin’s farewell ball. Well, technically, it was a ball for all three of the visiting Lochlannian royals, but I had no reason to avoid his cousins.