Protect the Prince (A Crown of Shards Novel) Read online

  But I was a Bellonan, and I knew how to play the long game. So I could see how the marriage would benefit me now—and just how much more it would benefit Heinrich and Andvari in the long run.

  Heinrich already had two heirs—Dominic and then Gemma. He would sacrifice Dominic to me and send his only living legitimate son to Bellona, but he would keep Gemma here at Glitnir and groom her to be queen of Andvari.

  On the surface, it seemed like a simple trade—until you factored in whatever children Dominic and I might have. And those children, well, they could lead to other possibilities.

  Very dark and deadly possibilities.

  “Well?” Heinrich asked. “What do you say, Everleigh? Shall we unite our kingdoms in marriage?”

  Despite all my misgivings, I still seriously, seriously considered it. Marrying Dominic might be distasteful, but so were lots of other things I’d done lately, and many more things I would do as queen.

  For the first time since I’d taken the throne, I didn’t look to my friends for guidance, support, or approval. I was the queen, and this was my decision.

  I was also very careful not to look at Sullivan again. My feelings for him couldn’t be a factor. Not in the slightest. This was about what was best for Bellona, not for my heart. For the first time, I got an inkling of what it really meant to be a Winter queen, and it wasn’t about magic at all. No, it was about making the hardest choices under the most difficult circumstances to achieve the greatest good.

  I breathed in and out, trying to slow my pounding heart and calm my frayed nerves. The nobles’ floral perfumes and spicy colognes filled my nose, along with the lingering scents from dinner, but there was another, stronger aroma that surprised me. Sour, sweaty eagerness, mixed with a large dose of rotting desperation—and it was coming from the king.

  I stared at Heinrich again, and I finally noticed how pale and strained his face was, despite his stern expression. His blue eyes seemed weak and watery as well, and Dahlia kept sneaking glances at him, a concerned frown on her own face.

  In that moment, I made my decision.

  “No.”

  Everyone stiffened, shocked by my cold, flat refusal, and that tense, heavy silence dropped over the room again.

  “No,” I repeated in a louder, stronger voice. “I will not marry Dominic.”

  Heinrich blinked a few times, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard me correctly. But then my words sank in, and an angry flush swept up his neck and flooded his pale cheeks. “Perhaps you should reconsider, Everleigh. After all, you’ve only been queen for a short while. Perhaps you need more time to think things through and truly appreciate my generous offer.”

  I let out a small, bitter laugh. “Oh, I’ve been queen long enough to recognize a scheme. Although I will say that yours is one of the most subtle and skillful that I’ve heard in a long, long time. Even the Seven Spire nobles would be impressed by it, and believe me, they are not easily dazzled.”

  Heinrich’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  I stabbed my finger at him. “You know exactly what I mean. So does anyone with even half a brain. You keep Gemma here to be your queen, while my children inherit the Bellonan throne. But they would also be your grandchildren, wouldn’t they? And if something unfortunate were to happen to me, some tragic accident, well, I’m sure that Grandfather Heinrich would be more than happy to step in and raise my children. That, in essence, would give you not one but two kingdoms.”

  “That’s not what I had in mind,” he protested.

  “Oh, I think it’s exactly what you had in mind,” I snapped back. “Vasilia killed Frederich, and you want revenge. How could you not? Bellona took your son away from you, and now you want to take Bellona away from the Blairs, away from me. I don’t blame you for your desire for revenge. But it won’t get you what you want, and it certainly won’t help you protect Andvari from the Mortans.”

  More anger stained Heinrich’s cheeks an even darker, uglier red. “If you don’t agree to marry Dominic, then there will be no alliance between Andvari and Bellona. Not so much as the smallest trade agreement.”

  I shrugged. “Fine. If that’s how you want to play this game.”

  Heinrich slammed his hand down onto the table hard enough to make the tea slosh out of his cup. “This is not a fucking game!”

  I let out another laugh, this one louder, harsher, and tinged with even more bitterness. “It’s all a fucking game. I’ve known that ever since I was a child. If you don’t realize it, then you’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

  “And you’re not as clever as you think you are,” Heinrich hissed. “Because this is how deals get done. Perhaps you should ask your advisors for their opinions before you so recklessly throw away my more-than-generous offer.”

  More cold rage surged through me, and this time, I didn’t try to hide it. I planted my elbow on the table and leaned forward, staring him down. “I don’t have to consult with my advisors. I am the queen. Face it, Heinrich. You need me far more than I need you, and your proposal reeks of desperation.”

  His blue eyes glittered with rage. “I am the king of Andvari, the wealthiest kingdom on this continent. I don’t need help from anyone, especially not some lowly noble with no money and no magic who only sits on the throne because all her other stronger relatives are dead.”

  People gasped at his insults, and his words were as sharp as a sword plunging into my heart. Heinrich had just voiced all my doubts and insecurities, and all the things that the nobles, servants, and guards had been whispering behind my back for months now at Seven Spire. That sickening uncertainty filled me again, and I ducked my head, half expecting my crown to fall off and roll away in agreement.

  But my crown didn’t fall off—it didn’t move at all. Even more surprising, it didn’t feel nearly as heavy as before. In fact, for the first time since I’d put it on, it felt right.

  Everything that Heinrich said was true. I was only queen by chance, by accident, but I was queen. It didn’t matter how I had gotten here, only what I did while the crown was on my head. And that would always be protecting Bellona and her people—and fuck Heinrich and anyone else who was stupid enough to doubt me or tried to keep me from doing my duty as queen.

  More of that cold rage filled me, along with strong, hard confidence. I lifted my head and squared my shoulders, sitting up tall. Then I smiled at Heinrich, but there was no warmth in my expression.

  “You might have money, thanks to your gold and diamond mines, but your kingdom is small, which means that your population is small, which means that your army is small. And we all know that the Mortan army is not small.”

  Heinrich’s lips pressed together, but he couldn’t deny the truth of my words any more than I’d been able to deny his.

  “Now, you could use some of your glorious wealth to buy legions of mercenaries to shore up your army, but mercenaries fight only until the money runs out. The Mortan king can throw his army at you for years and slowly chip away at your own ranks, along with any mercenaries, until he finally bankrupts you. Once that happens, the mercenaries will flee, and Andvari will be left utterly defenseless.”

  I wished that Captain Auster was here. He would have been so proud of me for finally putting my military history lessons to good use.

  Heinrich kept glaring at me, and his hands curled into fists on top of the table, but I wasn’t done with him. Not by a long shot.

  “More important, your kingdom is the one that Morta will invade first, the one that they will swallow up first, to get all that wealth you’re so proud of. And once the other rulers see that happen, I imagine that they will all be quite happy to align with me then.”

  I gestured at Xenia, who was still standing along the wall. “Lady Xenia is a cousin to the Ungerian queen. Tell me, Xenia: Do you think your cousin would be more amenable to aligning with Bellona than King Heinrich is?”

  Xenia stepped forward and bobbed her head, playing her part perfectly. “Of course,
Your Majesty. I’ve already spoken with the queen about an alliance, which she is quite eager to make.”

  I dropped my hand and leaned back in my seat. “An alliance that won’t cost me anything, especially not my hand in marriage now and my throne, life, and kingdom later. So you see, Heinrich, you might have great wealth, but in the end, that’s all you have. So why don’t you consult with your advisors before you so recklessly throw away my more-than-generous offer.”

  My insults and demands delivered, I surged to my feet, threw my dinner napkin onto the table, and stormed out of the dining hall.

  * * *

  I strode down the hallway, cold rage still coursing through my veins.

  What a blind, stubborn, stupid fool Heinrich was. Why try to force me into a marriage that neither his son nor I wanted? Why not just align with me outright? Didn’t he see that I was trying to do what was best for Andvari and Bellona? Didn’t he realize that Morta was the true threat to us, along with our people?

  But I supposed it didn’t matter anymore. Once again, I had let my temper get the best of me, and I’d probably insulted Heinrich too badly for him to consider any proposal I might make now. Instead of being a good queen, a wise queen, and helping my kingdom, I’d just mucked things up even worse. I wasn’t a mere pretender—I was an epic failure, plain and simple.

  At times like this, I desperately missed life at the Black Swan. Things at the gladiator troupe had been black and white, more or less, with only a few shades of gray. Work, train, fight in the arena. Simple, clean, brutal.

  Being queen was none of those things—except brutal—and there were so many damn shades of gray that I’d forgotten what black and white, wrong and right, even fucking looked like.

  I was so angry that I didn’t pay attention to where I was going, and I wound up in an enormous library. Floor-to-ceiling cases filled with books covered the walls and stretched up three floors to a round, domed ceiling made of black, white, and gray glass that formed a gargoyle face. A fire crackled merrily in the fireplace in the wall, driving back some of the drafty chill, while cushioned settees and chairs were scattered throughout the rest of the library, along with tables covered with books and maps.

  I should have turned around and tried to find my way back to my chambers, but I was still too angry for that, so I marched over to the far wall, which was made of glass and overlooked the Edelstein Gardens.

  I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, glaring out into the dark, shadowy night, but eventually, footsteps sounded behind me. I drew in a breath, and a familiar scent filled my nose—vanilla mixed with spice. I sighed with relief. Sullivan was here.

  I opened my mouth and turned around to call out a greeting, but the words died on my lips. Because Sullivan wasn’t standing in the library—Dominic was.

  “May I come in?” he called out in a low, cautious voice.

  I shrugged. “It’s your library.”

  He strode over to me, and together, we stared through the glass. Outside, several fluorestone streetlamps burned along the cobblestone paths, tinting the trees’ metallic leaves a soft, shimmering gold. But I soon grew tired of admiring the view, and I studied Dominic out of the corner of my eye.

  Dominic looked eerily like Sullivan, but he was taller and thinner than his younger brother, and his scent was more warm spice than cold vanilla. But the real difference was that he didn’t bring a smile to my face or make my heart trip over itself the way that Sullivan always did. And he never, ever would.

  “I’m sorry about my father,” Dominic said. “I haven’t seen him lose his temper like that in a long time. Not since the day he realized that Sullivan had left Glitnir.”

  His choice of topic surprised me, but I decided to play along.

  “And why would your father care so much about that?” I asked. “Sullivan’s not the crown prince; he’s not the heir. It’s not like you ran off and joined a gladiator troupe.”

  A faint smile curved Dominic’s lips. “True. But as you saw at dinner, my father is used to getting his way, and he wanted Sullivan to marry into another noble Andvarian family. We all love Sullivan, and we all felt sorry for him when Helene called off their engagement. He should have stayed here. We could have helped him through his heartache.”

  And that was probably another reason why Sullivan had left. The proud magier wouldn’t have wanted anyone to pity him, especially not his own brother.

  “But perhaps things will finally work out for Sullivan and Helene, now that he’s back home,” Dominic continued. “It would be nice if someone around here finally got what they wanted.”

  He stared out into the gardens with a calm expression, but he couldn’t quite disguise the bitterness that tinged his voice.

  “And what do you want, Dominic?”

  “To apologize for my father,” he repeated. “And to explain. My father has not been . . . well. Frederich’s death, and then fearing that Gemma was dead as well—it’s all taken a great toll on him.”

  I thought of Heinrich’s pale, strained face and weak, watery eyes. For the first time, I felt a bit of sympathy for the king. Losing his son had obviously broken his heart, and he was trying to deal with his grief and protect his people from the larger Mortan threat at the same time. No wonder he wasn’t well.

  “Frederich was the youngest,” Dominic said. “He was always the lightest, the happiest one of us, always playing peacemaker between Sullivan and me, always laughing and joking. Frederich was my father’s favorite because of that. He was everyone’s favorite because of that, and we all miss him terribly. And then seeing exactly what happened with the memory stone, how Vasilia just . . . Well, I don’t think it helped my father. Not really. It certainly didn’t help me.”

  His eyes dimmed, his face darkened, and his shoulders slumped. The scent of ashy grief gusted off him, along with a strong tang of garlic guilt. I frowned. What did he have to feel guilty about?

  “But maybe the worst thing is that part of me is glad that Frederich was the one who died,” Dominic said in a low, rough voice. “Better him than Gemma. Better my brother than my daughter. When I thought that she was gone, when I thought that she was dead . . .”

  His voice trailed off, and he couldn’t finish his awful thought. He scrubbed his hand over his face, but the motion didn’t hide the anguish in his features.

  “My father lost his son, but I got to keep my daughter. And I’m happy about that—happier than you could possibly imagine.” He grimaced. “Does that make me a horrible person?”

  “No,” I replied in a soft voice. “It just makes you human. I was happy that I survived the massacre, even though everyone else died. I’m still happy that I’m alive. And guilty. And confused. And wondering why I lived. Why me, instead of someone else?”

  Dominic didn’t respond. Neither one of us had an answer for that.

  “It wasn’t my intention to cause you, your father, or Rhea any more pain by showing you all the memory stone,” I said. “I’m sorry for everything that has happened to you and your family. Truly, truly sorry.”

  On impulse, I reached out and laid my hand on his shoulder. Dominic seemed surprised by the gesture, and he turned toward me, his gaze locking with mine.

  Dark brown hair. Blue eyes. Strong, handsome features. Once again, I was reminded how eerily similar he was to Sullivan, right down to the lightning magic that I sensed coursing through his body. In some ways, Dominic was even more handsome than his younger brother. His body was taller, his shoulders were broader, his nose was straighter.

  But his nearness didn’t make my heart stutter, my breath catch in my throat, or my body hum with desire. And perhaps most important of all, he didn’t look at me with the same fierce intensity that Sullivan always did, like he wanted to hold me close and devour me at the same time.

  “You have lovely eyes,” Dominic said in a low, husky voice, studying my face. “I’ve always heard about the Blair eyes, the tearstone eyes. They really are gray-blue, just like people say. Although y
ours look bluer right now, as dark as the tearstone shards in your crown.”

  I grimaced at the reminder that I was still wearing the crown, although I supposed I should be grateful it hadn’t fallen off when I’d stormed out of the dining hall.

  “Do you tell all the women you meet in libraries how pretty their eyes are?” Perhaps it was the warm, romantic glow from the fireplace, or the fact that my fingertips were still resting on his shoulder, or his resemblance to his brother, but my own voice came out a bit huskier than I expected.

  A teasing grin curved his lips. “Just the ones who refuse to marry me.”

  I barked out a laugh, and some of the tension between us eased. I dropped my hand from his shoulder, but Dominic kept staring at me, and I did the same thing to him. Emotional confessions aside, I was a queen, and he was a prince, and we were both trying to figure each other out—

  More footsteps sounded, and I turned around, expecting to find Paloma with her mace in her hand. But once again, I was wrong. Paloma wasn’t here.

  Sullivan was.

  He was next to the fireplace. His mouth was open, as though he was going to call out to me, but his jaw clenched shut at the sight of me standing so close to Dominic in the dark, dreamy shadows. I knew what it looked like, what Sullivan thought it was. I could see the hurt shimmering in his eyes and smell his peppery anger all the way across the room.

  “I came to find you, highness,” he growled. “To apologize for how my father treated you, but I see that Dominic has already beaten me to it. He looks like he’s doing an admirable job of consoling you. Then again, his nickname is Prince Charming.”

  “Sully, wait . . .”

  He whipped around and stormed out of the library. I sighed. I didn’t blame him for that, or for jumping to conclusions. But I got another sickening surprise as Sullivan marched into the hallway.

  He hadn’t come here alone.