“I didn’t touch her. Tahra.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Lorcan. Do whatever you want. I’m not your keeper.” I tossed the pebble I was idly toying with.
“It does matter.” He exhaled in a huff of frustration. “I want to win your trust again, Zosia.”
Not Princess. Not Highness. Zosia. Stupidly, this softened my resistance toward him a tiny bit.
“You have it. I trust you with my life, Lorcan.” Not with my heart, though. He had it once and didn’t value it. Doesn’t need it. He won’t let me die, though; I can count on that. He came close, but if not for him, I wouldn’t be alive now.
“That isn’t what I mean, and you know it.”
I rested my chin on my knees, arms tight around my shins, my body curled into a ball. “If we were to marry and you chose to take up with a lady at court—assuming I am successful at reestablishing the nobility and restoring the castle—or a maid, or the governess of our children, I would have no choice but to look the other way and pretend I didn’t see it. I can’t accept a life of humiliation.”
The one I’m forced to lead is hard enough, without knowingly adding to the burden.
Lorcan edged closer to me. Cautiously, he dropped to the earth, sitting straight-backed a few feet away.
“I won’t do that. I still love you, Zosia. I couldn’t let you go. I should have told you in Trissau. Confessed everything. I wish I’d handled it differently.”
Events had unfurled at breakneck speed, in part because of me racing to save my country. I’m responsible for how things played out between us, too, which makes me feel even worse.
“I can’t do this,” I muttered, throwing another pebble.
“Do what?”
“I am not equal to the task of rebuilding this country.”
“Shh. You don’t have to do it alone, or all at once.”
“My mother would be so ashamed of me right now.” I almost choked on the words.
“No, Zosia. Why would you think that?”
I haven’t cried since I was nine years old. Not when my father was murdered. Not when my friends were shot down before my eyes, or the man I loved nearly died, or I found out the depths of his betrayal, or when I learned I had a half-brother.
I didn’t understand, at first, why my face was wet. The hot, itchy tightness in my chest was nothing new, nor the burning sensation in my eyes, but the liquid on my cheeks? That was unfamiliar. I swiped my cheek and stared at my hand in disbelief.
To my absolute horror, I sniffled.
“No one wants a princess who cries, Lorcan,” I whispered. “Much less a queen.”
“Did you ever think that your father was wrong, Zosh?”
“Constantly.”
“Then why do you accept that as truth?”
“Because he was right. People want…” I stopped short, sniffling again, feeling the wall I’ve painstakingly erected around my emotions crumbling. Panic rising to replace it. I don’t know what my people want. I’m not my mother, who spent as much time as she could outside the castle. Listening to her people. Approachable.
Whereas I’ve been hidden away, learning my father’s approach to governance, which was capable as far as it went. But while he was respected, my mother was adored.
Raina cries, and no one thinks less of her for it.
Lorcan might have a point, the bastard.
“After everything you’ve been through, you didn’t snap your fingers and right the world overnight? No one expects that of you. Least of all anyone who cares about you.”
Cares about me.Is it possible I’ve had what I wanted all along, and couldn’t see it?
