He busied himself rearranging a brass paperweight. “That’s about the shape of it, yes.”
Cold white silence cloaked my mind. Holy shit. Olivian had set me up. He’d taken my measure with frightening precision, then staked Amryssa’s life on my homicidal tendencies. If only I hadn’t swapped places with her, things would’ve happened exactly as he’d wanted.
“You can hate me all you like,” he said roughly, “but youwillfix this. I don’t care what I have to threaten you with.”
I breathed deep. “You don’t have to threaten me at all, actually. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but...I don’t hate you. Not for this. I think... I think...”
Kyven’s words from just minutes ago came tumbling back.I think I’m rather impressed.
“I didn’t know you had it in you,” I said. “I really, really didn’t. More importantly, I didn’t realize you wanted better for Amryssa. I always thought you didn’t care.”
“Of course I care. I’m her father.” Olivian’s voice was cold, but now I sensed an untapped depth beneath the words. “You and I both know these nightmares are killing her. One of these days, she’ll get loose. And when that happens, we’ll lose her. Better she be safe somewhere far away than gone forever.”
Numbness chewed at my limbs. I flexed my fingers, trying to coax some sensation back into my deadened hands.
“And if you must know,” Olivian continued, “Amryssa means more to me than my territory. I care about Oceansgate more than I care about myself, but for her, I’d let it burn.”
The sentiment scoured out my insides. All this time, our purposes had aligned, only I’d been too stubborn to realize. Too hard-headed to consider that Olivian’s gruffness and inflexibility might conceal deep caring.
I laid my hands on his desk, palms up. It was a gesture of apology, and supplication. “Goddess, if I’d known, I never would’ve switched places with her. I mean, I get why you didn’t tell me. You were trying to toss me off a cliff. But the thing is, I would’ve let you. I would’ve jumped on my own, if you’d just come to me and explained. Kyven and Amryssa could’ve said their vows, and then I would’ve waited outside her door until she screamed. And once I’d sunk my dagger into his back, I would’ve held out my wrists for your new lawmen. I would’ve beenhonoredto let them take me away.”
He eyed me. “Would you?”
“For her? Yes. Anything.”
His posture eased as his fury subsided, some. “Well, you can still do that. Once your marriage is annulled.”
“Yes. Give me some paper.”
He pushed a fountain pen and parchment into my hands.
I bent over the desk. The pen’s nib scratched furrows into the silence, inked pleas flowing from my fingers. I detailed what I’d done and begged for a chance to rectify the mistake.
“I realize you love her,” Olivian said gruffly, once I’d finished. “Perhaps I should’ve trusted that more than I did.”
“You definitely should have. You should’ve told me everything. If you had, I could’ve been in prison already. Amryssa would be on her way to Hightower right now.”
He made a thoughtful sound. Long moments passed, but the abrasiveness of our usual dynamic had faded—for once, we actually understood each other.
“So now what?” I said.
Olivian dripped wax onto my letter and stamped it with Oceansgate’s seal. “It’ll take a month for this letter to reach the king. Then another for the annulment certificate to arrive back here. Once it does, you and Kyven will sign it, and Amryssa will marry him, as planned.”
“And then I’ll kill him?”
“Yes.”
A small, sad smile etched itself on my face. “Because all the king wants is a convenient death for his son, in some faraway backwater where no one will look too closely?”
“Precisely,” Olivian said. “At which point Amryssa will be a widowed princess, in need of care.”
I huffed out a dead laugh. Dear goddess, I’d come so perilously close to breaking this. I’d nearly let Kyven make me his wife in full. I’dwantedto.
Clearly, something was deeply, deeply wrong with me. Merron was lucky I’d cut him loose.
“You might be given a life sentence,” Olivian said. “I’ll do what I can to avoid that outcome, but I have very little influence.”
“I’d appreciate you trying.”
