I had a talk with Sariel about Ivetta’s workload. It was a more friendly discussion than I expected, as he was already planning to lighten her schedule. His most important goal had been to teach her what she specifically needed to be ready for the coronation and engagement ceremonies. Now, with nothing in particular that she needed to learn or achieve before the wedding, he was going to focus on generalized knowledge covering the variety of topics she would have learned had she been raised as royalty. As I told her, she didn’t need to learn it all overnight. There was time.
And there was far too much time left until the wedding.
My workload continued unabated, but her relaxed schedule meant it was easier for me to see her well before the dangers of evening came. After a day of lessons and the occasional social engagement, she was in the library until dinner, and then she spent the rest of the night in her room. Whenever possible, I tried to join her in the library for a few minutes. It couldn’t be for long. Just the sight of her smile was enough to light a fire in me at this point.
One afternoon, I arrived to find her searching the shelves that housed foreign texts. It was easy enough to guess what she was looking for. I had told her what her father’s journal said, and Sariel and I had summarized the documents Gilbert brought, but she wouldn’t be satisfied until she could read it all for herself. Language studies were part of her curriculum now. It was only natural that she should try to learn the language of Garnet. Those shelves weren’t going to be much help to her, though. Garnet had been northwest of Obsidian prior to its invasion and subsequent dissolution; Rhodolite was southeast of Obsidian. The physical separation had imposed a political separation as well. Rhodolite’s dealings with Garnet were few and far between.
I walked up behind her, smirking when I realized how totally immersed she was in her search. She didn’t hear me at all. I stopped behind her and leaned in to speak directly into her ear.
“What are you looking for, little dove?”
She jumped and spun around to face me, her cheeks bright red and her green eyes flashing.
“Chevalier! Don’t-”
I cut her off with a kiss. She pounded at my chest once, and then curled her fingers into my shirt and melted against me, as I knew she would. I was finding her all too amenable to my advances recently. Spring wasn’t coming fast enough.
“Well?” I asked, forcing myself to pull back.
It took her a moment to respond, obviously flustered after the surprise I’d given her.
“You’re impossible,” she muttered, glaring at my chest. She took a deep breath and looked back up at me, her green eyes contrasting violently with her flushed cheeks. “I’m looking for a book written in the language of Garnet, but anything about Garnet would do. There just doesn’t seem to be anything in the library.”
“Rhodolite’s dealings with Garnet were few due to Obsidian physically separating us,” I explained. “You won’t find anything here.”
I took her hand and pulled her toward my library, where the only book from Garnet resided.
“Is there something in your library?” she asked hopefully.
“You should know,” I replied, glancing down at her with a smirk. “After all, you picked it out for me.”
“When?” she asked, surprised. “Oh, the Foundation Day festival?”
She couldn’t have known the contents, though. Her selection had been based on the cover only, recognizing it as something I didn’t have in my collection. I pulled the book of poetry down from its shelf and turned back to her. She was biting her lower lip with nervous excitement. It was such a small thing, but it affected me greatly. And since we were alone, I had no reason to hold back.
“You’re impossible,” I muttered, repeating her own words back to her as I set the book down and pulled her into my arms for a deep kiss. She gasped softly as I nibbled on her lower lip, something I wanted to do every time I saw her doing it, something she made worth my while every time I gave into the impulse. I moved away from her sweet lips to nuzzle into her neck, breathing in the scent of lilacs, feeling her curves against me, wanting to break the clock that was quietly ticking away in the background.
“What…what was that all about?” she asked softly, leaning her head to the side, inviting me to kiss her neck.
“The way you bite your lip,” I murmured, obliging her unspoken request all too eagerly.
“Oh.” There was a note of surprise in that single syllable, and she pushed me back, her blush reaching the tips of her ears. “I…didn’t realize.”
“I know,” I said, shoving my frustration down. “Here.” I handed her the book and sat down in my chair, picking up my own from the end table. As if I was actually going to get any reading done while we were together.
“I do remember this,” she mused, flipping to the first page. Her fingers froze when she saw the inscription.
“That was how I knew,” I said quietly, propping my elbow up on the arm of the chair and resting my cheek in my hand as I watched her wide green eyes.
“What does it say?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
I knew she wanted to know more about her father, beyond the minimum facts. That was why she asked Gilbert to look for any old documents that mentioned him. His name was Arvon; he was the king of Garnet; he had arranged for her mother to escape the siege while he stayed behind and died in battle. That last detail didn’t necessarily account for feelings on his part. He could easily have been looking to preserve the possibility that Garnet could rise again from the ashes of Obsidian’s invasion. His journal was full of cold, impersonal accounting of court life, with little mention of his wife. Beyond that, I knew nothing about the man himself. Neither did Ivetta. These few lines she traced with her finger were the only insight I had to tell me who he was as a person.
“To Evelyn, my love and my queen. May these few verses keep you warm during the nights when we cannot be together. From your devoted husband and king, Arvon,” I recited from memory.
“He really loved her,” she said softly. “I guess I always assumed he did, especially when I thought he was just a normal person, but…it’s not so common among royalty, is it?”
She looked over at me questioningly, her long, silky black hair forming a curtain over her far shoulder, a few strands falling across her cheek nearest to me. I reached out to twirl a lock of her hair around my finger, a small piece of her, the woman who had unexpectedly invaded my life and brought out feelings I never wanted to feel. Before her, the entire marital process was just another duty I would eventually have to fulfill to ensure the family line.
“No, it’s not.”
The dusting of pink on her cheeks, her shy green eyes - I never stood a chance, did I?
“Chevalier, I have a favor to ask.”
I had to smile at that. She didn’t have to ask for a favor or permission. Whatever it was, it was hers.
“Go on.”
“I’d like to try learning this language on my own. Without your help. Is that okay?” she asked shyly.
“On one condition.”
She opened her mouth slightly, catching herself and shutting it again quickly without biting her lip.
I shouldn’t have told her about that.
“What is it?”
I released her hair and set my book on the end table, standing up and walking over to the shelves again to retrieve the journal.
“You will stop here,” I instructed her as I sat down again, flipping to the end of the journal where a blank page faced the last of her father’s handwriting.
“Why?” she asked, taking it from me and sliding her finger under the next page. I set my hand on the page, stopping her from turning it.
“When you are ready for my help, I will explain,” I said firmly.
“I see.” Her green eyes sparkled mischievously, and she smirked and snapped the journal shut, seconds before I slipped my hand free. “You think I can’t do this.”
“That’s not what I said.” I hooked a finger under her chin and leaned in closer. “You have my terms.”
“And if I don’t need your help?” she asked teasingly.
“Then you will wait to read past that point until I give you permission,” I replied, close enough to feel her breath on my lips.
“So, you would prefer that I ask for your help.”
I answered her with a kiss. It was always my preference that she ask for my help, but barring that, I at least wanted to be with her when she read her mother’s letter to me. I hadn’t told her what it said. She had a tendency to get emotional even talking about her mother, and I didn’t like the thought of her crying alone in her room.
“I’d still like to try on my own first,” she murmured, her lips brushing mine.
“Do what you will,” I replied, closing the minimal distance between us for another kiss.
Fifteen minutes was never enough. Especially when most of it went toward talking, a significantly safer pastime than kissing. She asked me questions about the content of her lessons; I told her the bits of my work that were safe to disclose; and we made plans for the future. We had to be careful on that last topic. Those discussions tended to get a bit heated, in a manner of speaking.
It wasn’t uncommon for me to take a long walk through the snow-covered gardens after spending time with her.
“There you are,” Leon greeted me as I came inside from one of those cold walks.
“What do you want?” I asked irritably. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anybody. One month left until the wedding, and I was on the verge of escaping to my family’s territory for the remainder of that time.
He fell in step beside me. “We haven’t talked for a while. You doing okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said shortly.
He glanced over at me and grinned. “Really? Because you seem awfully tense lately.”
I gritted my teeth, ultimately deciding not to respond to that.
“Sariel was looking for you. He wants to discuss your living arrangements after the wedding.”
“That’s not his concern.”
“I guess if you want to leave things how they are, that’s up to you, but I thought you’d at least want adjoining rooms.”
This topic was not helping my building frustration, although it was an important subject. Commoners moved in together when they married. Nobility and royalty didn’t. It wasn’t unusual for the wife to remain at her family home, only occasionally seeing her husband for conjugal visits.
That wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted her in my room, in my bed, at my right side, in the spot she’d occupied just once and made hers.
“Whose room are you going to use the most?” Leon asked.
“This isn’t your affair,” I said coolly.
“Sore area, huh?” he asked sympathetically.
“Tell Sariel I will discuss this with him tomorrow,” I said firmly.
“Okay, okay, no need to bite my head off. Maybe you should head back outside for a few minutes longer. A dive in a snowbank might cool you off.”
I shot him a glare, but he was already leaving. The snowbank wasn’t a bad idea. Instead, I went to my room and opened the window while I read for a while.
It wasn’t unusual for me to stay up late. That was my habit before she came along. Starting my day at noon necessarily meant that I ended it later, too. Work kept me busy most of the afternoon, and after dinner, I retreated to my library or my room to read. But it was becoming more and more tempting to visit her room, where I knew she was up late, too, studying the language of Garnet. I didn’t. One month until the wedding. Surely, I could wait that much longer.
The night after that talk with Leon, there came a knock at my door. My heart rate immediately spiked. She was the only one who knocked. I forced myself to walk to the door, calmly, coolly, as if my heart wasn’t pounding out of my chest.
It wasn’t her.
“My apologies for the interruption, your highness, but Julius sent me,” her guard said.
I frowned. There had been no nightmares in a long time, at least, none that made her leave her room in the middle of the night.
“What is it?”
“It may be nothing, but Prince Clavis just stopped by to see Princess Ivetta,” the guard replied hesitantly.
My first instinct was to belt my sword over my pajamas and head down to her room to kill him. But that was a severe overreaction. Ivetta was completely trustworthy, and Clavis knew better than to try anything untoward.
And if he did, Julius would kill him for me.
“If he doesn’t leave in fifteen minutes, come get me,” I decided.
“Yes, your highness.”
I closed the door and flopped back onto my bed, staring up at the ceiling as I fingered my sword hilt beside the pillow. The cool leather under my fingers and the cold air from the open window did nothing for my boiling blood. Clavis had no business being in her room at night. I could only think of two reasons he would be there now: a misplaced attraction toward her, or a desire to provoke a response from me. Knowing him, there was another, far more twisted and calculated reason. I would have to address this with him. Tomorrow, if at all possible. There was too much risk of me decapitating him tonight.
It had been a while since he’d tested my limits.23Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQaqZVPOnnA
