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“Of course.” The answer comes out as a reflex. I’ve never had a private conversation with Jamys’ father, and this isn’t an ideal time, but I’m too scatterbrained to think of an excuse.
He gestures to the sitting room, and I step inside. He closes the door and turns to me, a thin smile on his lips and ice in his eyes. I slide my hand back to move the contract behind my thigh. It’s what’s making him a prominent figure in my life, which sits even worse in my gut as he looks me over. “I heard you weren’t feeling well last night.”
“It was nothing. I’m only tired from training.”
“Understandably so. And you’re quite certain it isn’t exacerbated by being with child?”
The air stills around us. Dust moats in the light cease moving. My neck and ears feel as if Nina is trying to set me ablaze. It’s a feat to pull my voice past the tightness in my throat, but I go slowly, so as not to tremble. “It’s not a possibility, of course. I don’t know what you’ve come to think of Jamys and me spending time together, but we are quite content to wait for our nuptials.”
“Yes, you’re all too happy to wait, I’m certain. My concern comes from the idea that if a woman is foolish enough to have an affair while betrothed, she might be foolish enough to find herself pregnant.”
Blood pounds through my ears, drowning out my ability to think, much less respond. Apparently, not asking about it when the betrothal agreement was made did not mean the Merricks had no interest in what I did with my body before Jamys and I marry.
“There are options,” he continues, “if that should occur. I trust you’d at least give us the courtesy of correcting your mistakes.”
A burning sensation rises in my chest. I think I’m going to be sick.
“I don’t care if you whore your way through your entire kingdom and mine—it changes nothing in the betrothal agreement you signed. But you will arrive at your wedding with a vacant womb and produce an heir. The Cerauno royal family observes a certain level of decorum apparently unfamiliar here. Once you are a part of it, these”—he gestures to me—“scandalous Alchosian dresses will be a thing of the past, as will your illicit behavior. You will present yourself as a respectable princess, however far from the truth that may be.”
He turns to open the door. His air of casualness after verbally shredding me chills my blood.
“And Princess? It should go without saying, but as your foolishness astounds, your affair with the lordling will cease. The Prince of Ceraun will not share his wife.” He closes the door behind him, leaving me alone.
My eyes sting. He knows but won’t break the betrothal. I knew my affair wouldn’t guarantee a dissolution of it, and I never wanted to use that anyway. Still, if that doesn’t help me… what will?
My lungs push out all their air like I’ve been holding in a sob. I crush the parchments in my fist. My chest heaves, but I’m suffocating. I pull in a deep breath and swipe a soundproof shield around myself before a scream rips out of me—inhuman, animalistic, as ill-bred as King Urian believes me to be. I drop to my knees and let the burning tears loose, too overwhelmed to decide what I’m most upset about.
Grief pours onto the heels of my hands, trickling down to my bracelets and making the metal uncomfortable against my skin.
The door bursts open and shuts again faster than should be possible. Or is it me, stuck in slow motion? How much time has passed?
“Bell, what happened? Are you all right?”
Tomas is at my side, hands on my shoulders, before I can even decipher if I’ve withdrawn my shield. His thumbs rub the tears from my cheeks, and I look up to see his brow furrowed over eyes a darker shade of blue than I’m used to.
My expression shifts to mirror it, though in confusion rather than concern. “Why are you here?”
“Your blood curdling scream suggested you might need help.”
“How did you hear that? Was it audible?” Oh, no. If anyone else heard… If Urian heard…
“Should it not have been? I thought Nina was deaf not to have heard, but she looked at me like I was mad.”
“I was shielded.” I drop my face into my hands. “Perfect. My magic is also cracking. I needed something else to worry about.”
“What were you already worrying about?”
I scrape my bottom lip with my teeth. Tomas might kill Urian for the things he said to me. I still might. We can’t make an enemy of Ceraun, though. Penum would happily scoop them up as allies, then we’d be outnumbered and surrounded by hostile nations. “Everything. Pressure from all sides, expectations, looming changes. I suppose it’s all catching up to me.”
He wraps his arms around me, and I let myself slump into his chest as soothing strokes circle my back with precisely the right amount of pressure to slow my heart and calm my nerves. “Bell, I can’t presume to understand what it’s like to live under the weight of so much expectation.”
“You’re the next Lord of Highbluff. You aren’t free of it.”
“It’s not the same. You’ve got two kingdoms looking to you, and if that weren’t enough, you’ve got the most scrutinizing critic anyone could ever face analyzing everything you do.”
I pull back to search his face.
“Yourself,” he says.
