“Two months, roughly.” Stitch, stitch. “Less, if we’re lucky.”
“Lucky?” He chuckled. “You almost sound as if you mean that.”
I gave him a withering look, which he endured without appearing to suffer any ill effects. “This might come as a shock,” I said, “but I don’t want to be married to you a second longer than I have to. This whole thing was a mistake.”
“Hmm.” Sparks flew in those skylit eyes. “And yet you didn’t seem to think so last night, when you were making that delightful little whimper and inviting me to do my worst.”
I spluttered. Something red and angry swarmed beneath my skin.
“Oh, don’t look so apoplectic, I’m only joking. And I do have one honest question.”
“Which is?” The words hissed from me like steam jetting from a teakettle.
“How much did the seneschal offer you? To annul our marriage?”
I paused my sewing and waited for the punchline, but not a single one of those chestnut lashes flickered. “Nothing. He didn’t offer me anything. Why would he have?”
“Well, you’re a princess now. You wouldn’t just...sign that away.”
I tensed. “Isthatwhat you think this was about?”
“Well, why else would you have married me?”
I flung the mending into its basket so I wouldn’t accidentally shove the needle into my thumb. Or his eye. Zephyrine help me, how would I refrain from stabbing this donkey’s ass for two whole months? “I already told you. I married you because I didn’t want you touching Amryssa. That was the beginning and end of it for me.”
He made atsking sound. “Come, now. No one would throw themselves into the teeth of an unwanted marriage just to protect a friend.”
“They absolutely would.” I spat the words like gravel. “Not that you’d actually understand that. You’ve probably never sworn loyalty to anything other than your own reflection.”
His chin dipped. “You have to admit, it does inspire a certain sense of devotion.”
I gaped, wordless. If I’d had any skill at drawing, I would’ve marched downstairs to the library, pulled the dictionary from its shelf, and sketched in Kyven’s portrait beside the entry for ‘arrogance.’ Maybe the one for ‘delusional,’ too.
“You wouldn’t have gone to all that effort,” he continued, “then changed your mind without an incentive.”
I slitted my gaze, but...fine, hedidactually have a point. I just didn’t know how to counter it. How much did he understand about his father’s motives in sending him here?
I decided to chance something close to the truth. “I just hadn’t realized Amryssa...and you...would have a place in Hightower, after the wedding.That’swhat made me reconsider.”
Apparently, that didn’t set off any alarm bells, because Kyven sighed, a light exhale that failed to stir the heavy air. “Fine, then, don’t tell me. I suppose it doesn’t matter, anyway. Once we sign the annulment, you can gallop off into the sunset with your newfound riches and try to forget I exist. Not that I expect you’ll have much luck.”
I flattened my brows, unwilling to dignify that with a response. Who cared if he believed me, anyway? “So you’ll marry Amryssa, then? After the annulment?”
His attention arced toward my best friend, his expression softening with the same tenderness he’d faked at breakfast yesterday.
Except...goddess, it didn’tlookfake. Somehow, Kyven had mastered even the smallest tells—his posture loosened and his mouth curved. He looked, for all the world, like a man surveying something fragile. Something he’d rather preserve than break.
I swatted at the errant thoughts. Maybe I couldn’t distinguish performance from reality, but that didn’t mean Kyven wasn’t a monster. Eliana had said so. Olivian, too.
It didn’t matter how convincing a show he put on.
“Ididcome here to marry.” The prince’s gaze swung back to mine, his attention like a boomerang that kept returning to me.
“So...that’s a yes?”
“I suppose it’ll depend on what’s in it for me.”
“What’s in it for you?” My lip curled. “Wow. How very noble of you.”
