The door creaks open, and Everly stands in the doorway. She pulls her nightdress closer, before quickly pushing her wild hair behind her ears.
I glance inside the room and inhale at the sight of Cenric standing there.
He’s in her bedchamber?
With shaky hands, Everly grips the dressing gown even tighter against her body. “It is not what you th—”
“—it is.” Cenric cuts around both of us and walks down the hallway.
I turn my wide eyes back to her. “What’s happening with you and Cenric?”
She bites her lower lip and stares down at her feet.
The need to understand her relationship with him prompts my next question. “Are you with him?”
She wrenches her fingers together and nods. “He is my husband.”
Surely, she didn’t say what I think she just said?
“I beg your pardon?”
“Cenric is my husband.” She pushes more strands behind her ears. “He has been for more than a summer.”
Cenric is Everly’shusband?
How can that be?
She’s gentle and kind. He’s prickly and dangerous.
“A summer?” Then, she was married to him while Kassandra went through everything in Astarobane. My heart aches as I think of my sweet friend who died way too young.
“We married in secret. Kassandra didn’t know.” She adds in a much softer voice, “Nobody knew.”
“You must have longed to tell her.”
“Yes.” Everly scrubs a clenched fist against her clothes. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s what I think of myself. I am a hypocrite.”
I embrace her. At first, she stiffens before melting against me. “You are not a hypocrite. You were concerned for your sister. We all were.”
The people in Astarobane hated her, judged her, condemned her, and when they were done breaking her, they murdered her.
Everly sniffs and pulls away. “Yes, but I told Kassandra to not marry Luc. I cautioned her to not do exactly what I had already done.”
“Where did you marry Cenric?”
“Here.” Everly looks around the hallway. “Well, not in this palace, but here in Karra.”
“Why is it a secret?”
“Fear. He’s royalty. And I’m an outsider.” She lets out a tense breath. “The red circle may be gone, but it doesn’t erase what I am.”
Knots tighten in my stomach like a tightly pulled bowstring. It’s a reminder that I must do something—anything—to protect Everly.
“I understand. It’s not easy when you’re not the same. He’s the cousin of your chieftain. And your lineage has been shunned for a long time.”
She nods. “Precisely.”
“When did this happen?” I start over. “I mean, how did it happen, and nobody know?”
