Page 43 of Onyx Cage: Volume II

“Lord Evander,” she said quietly. “I’m?—”

“Princess Isla,” I supplied.

She nodded.

Despite years of training, of reading body language, I was somehow still taken off guard when she leaned forward to throw her arms around me. Like time had been rewritten and she had entered into the very marriage this kingdom had started a war to avoid.

Like she was a parent comforting her child.

I went still, fighting between pushing her away and returning her entirely unfamiliar embrace. When was the last time someone had hugged me? Let alone a stranger, in a room full of people?

Though everyone here was pretending to give us privacy, the reality was that in a culture with as many feelings as this one had, it would be a slight to ignore her.

If I was being honest, that wasn’t the only reason I didn’t pick her up and plop her back several feet away from me. Her remorse was palpable, empathy for a child of the man who tried to barter for her, someone she didn’t know and had no reason to feel loyalty toward. There was something inherently maternal about her, something I couldn’t help but respond to.

I gently removed my arms from her awkward hold and wrapped them around her. Then she said something so low and so unexpected that it took me a moment to process her words.

“I never would have left you there if I had known.”

Pure conviction dripped from her tone, raw and uncompromising. She was telling the truth.

And I had no idea what to do with that.

I wanted to hate her, this woman who started the war that pushed my people into a famine, who was indirectly responsible for me being raised by her monster of a mother.

But it was hard to hate someone when they had suffered at the same hands of your abuser—something I could sense as surely as my lemmikki could sense an oncoming storm.

It was hard to hate someone who would have fought for me, at a time when no one else did.

The negotiations were already going swimmingly, though at least Korhonan wasn’t here since I had reminded him that being her twice-almost-betrothed gave him exactly no privilege in a room discussing my private affairs with her.

“I still don’t understand why you think a handful of days will change my mind when I was already in talks with a perfectly viable alliance.”

I bit back a smirk, half-wishing I had allowed Korhonan to stay to hear the incredibly bland way my lemmikki referred to him.

“Because, while Elk might beperfectly viable, it doesn’t make nearly as much sense as Bear does. The better question is, why wouldn’t you change your mind when it’s the superior choice for your people?” I challenged.

She took a deep breath through her nose. “Because you’re a giant arseling.”

“Rowan,” the queen sighed, but I didn’t blink.

At least she had saved me the trouble of pointing out that the only reason for her to forgo the practical option was to spite me. She wasn’t pretending to the Council Room there was a legitimate reason…or bringing up my father. Arseling, I could work with.

I shrugged. “We won’t have to be around each other if you’re concerned about that.”

Her lips parted at my dismissal. “Ah, yes,” she spat sarcastically. “How could I forget about your glorious plan toinhabit different kingdoms? Because nothing says unity like a couple who can’t even live in the same castle.”

Only she could manage to be this unreasonable when she held all the cards and had all of the decisions at her feet. I fought down a surge of irritation, spreading out my hands.

“You’ve brought up problems, and I’ve provided solutions.”

MacKinnon cleared his throat thoughtfully. “Princess Rowan isn’t wrong, though. If?—”

“No.” The king cut him off with a single, clipped word. “Ye already pushed her into a marriage alliance. She’s doing what she can for her people, at your urging, and I willna stand for more than that.”

MacKinnon raised his eyebrows a bit, enough of a reaction that I could gather it was unusual for the king to shut his council down so unquestionably.

“She is indisputably safer here,” Laird MacBay chimed in. “It would hardly add to unity if somethingelsewere to happen to her on Socairan soil.”