36. James

36

JAMES

" A re you out of your bloody mind?" my father thundered, his voice resonating through his study with enough force to rattle the ornate frames on the walls.

At least he was shouting at me within the privacy of his chambers, rather than in front of palace staff or any visiting members of the peerage. Still, given how no secret was truly sacred in this damn place, I was sure his outburst would be making the rounds with the servants in under an hour.

"I don't know what you mean, Father." I strived for a calm tone and politeness in the face of his ire. "I thought you wanted me to find a woman I liked."

"And you chose this one? A foreign princess with dangerous capabilities that we haven't gotten to the bottom of yet, and who managed to seduce you into kissing her by talking about proper growing conditions for fruit?"

Ah, so that was what her language model had ended up talking about. I could work with that.

My father waved his hand at me. "She must have put something in your drink or used some sort of enchantment on you."

"I assure you that she didn't. I was taken by how passionate she was about the subject." I was struggling to keep a straight face. "I love when people are so deeply committed to their interests."

My father's expression turned even more incredulous. "She was commenting on hours of sunlight versus inches of rain—hardly a passion-inspiring speech. This is ridiculous, and it's not like you." He grimaced. "Well, maybe it is. After all, you fell for that thief girl."

It was getting harder to keep my emotions in check. "You said I could choose my bride."

"I said you didn't have to marry Lavanya. I didn't say anything about making a worthless alliance with a foreign princess that will do nothing for Londabad. You should choose a known quantity from Londabad's peerage." He drummed his fingers on his desk. "Maria St. Vr?—"

"She's a spy for her father's interests," I cut in. "She'd try to bleed the palace dry."

"Suri Ashveth, then!"

I couldn't suppress an eye roll. "All she can talk about is fashion. I would lose my mind within a week."

"The Gurat sisters..."

"I suspect that both are already secretly engaged, and their parents are keeping their engagements under wraps while throwing the two of them at me. They hope I will choose one of them and dissolve her prior commitment." I shook my head. "Even if I wasn't interested in someone else, I wouldn't have chosen a bride that was sure to resent me."

"No," my father muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You'd rather have a foreigner we know nothing about who could be a much more dangerous spy than Maria St. Vrak. We can't trust her."

"Yes, we can." My patience was wearing thin.

He scoffed and began to pace, his ornate robes swishing with each agitated step. "Do you take me for a fool? Never mind answering," he said before I could deny it, "I know that all youths think their parents to be fools. I thought so myself when I was your age. But, despite some… discordancy in our recent history, I know you, James."

Calling Adina's murder a stumble was like throwing salt on an open wound, and I wasn't able to keep myself from glaring at my father.

He hurried things along. "I know what you like in a woman. You like fire; you like someone you can have a good battle with. It's one of the reasons I thought Lavanya would be a decent match even if you didn't love each other—she'd always be up for a fight."

He couldn't be more wrong. "There was a time when you would have been right. I thought I would never find a wife who could understand my desires, so I was willing to settle for one who would challenge me. But Aramar and I connect on many levels."

"You barely even know her!" my father roared, his face flushing an alarming shade of red. "What, is she divinely touched to inspire such rapid loyalty in you? What is it about her that you can't find in someone else?"

"She understands my need for adventure," I said before I could stop myself. I braced myself for my father's reaction, and he did exactly as I thought he would.

He began to laugh, a harsh, incredulous sound. "Need for adventure?" he gasped. "Need for adventure? What adventure is fitting for a prince, hmm? How about the adventure of keeping millions of people in your city safe against the destruction of the waste? How about tackling issues of sanitation, and food supplies, and fuel shortages? Those are the adventures that await you, my son, those are the responsibilities and duties of a king. None of your fanciful running away. Adventure." He said it like it was a dirty word. "Ridiculous."

"Not so ridiculous," I argued, feeling a surge of passion I hadn't experienced in months. "There are many ways to experience adventure, that's true, and Aramar exemplifies one way of doing that. You offer another. I think I'd like to have something in between both of those extremes. Fine, I won't run away from my responsibilities—" not anymore, at least "—but you're going to be the king for the foreseeable future. It is reasonable to expect that I could do more than watch you work for the next few decades. There are so many things beyond the city gates that might be of use to Londabad."

Excitement energized my voice, especially now that I knew that there was a Vault and that Adina knew where it was. "It's been so long since we've done any sort of survey of the lands surrounding the city. Why not work to reclaim some of what we've lost? Not solely in material goods, either, but in culture, in learning, in understanding our history. I've seen the skeletons of ancient buildings in the distance on the clearest days. How long has it been since we?—"

"Stop!" my father shouted, slamming his fist on the desk. "Don't speak such nonsense! The land outside our city is poisonous. No one can withstand it for long, not even with a gas mask, and that includes your precious Aramar. If she hadn't arrived in a vehicle as rapid as her hovercraft, she would likely have died in the wastes between Londabad and Edinbai. Do you think I would approve sending you, my only son, out into such perils?"

"And yet she did make it here," I said, standing my ground. I didn't like having to double down on the lie, but the truth was that merchants did make it here from other cities—not frequently, perhaps a few times a year—and those times were always events. I had personally overseen some of their welcomes to the palace, including health scans, and apart from consistent but mild dehydration, almost all of them had been robustly healthy. "We have the technology to make ourselves safe from the radiation, sand, and storms. Not perfectly safe, of course, but absolute safety does not exist. Not even here in the palace."

My father pointed a finger at my face, his eyes blazing. "That's enough, James." I went silent and watched as his face darkened to puce. "I will not listen to this from you—no more. I will approve your hasty engagement to Princess Aramar, but only if you swear to me that you will forget this ridiculous notion of exploring the world beyond Londabad. You are a prince. You are my son, and your life is not your own. It belongs to me and to your city. Do you understand?"

Anger boiled in my chest, burning my throat and mouth. He had no right to make demands of me, not after what he had done to Adina, or rather allowed Jeffry to do despite my begging for her life.

I wanted to throw his deal back in his face and make him feel how I felt when he had ignored my desperate pleas. But I also wanted to marry Adina, and the sooner the better.

The sooner we were wed, the sooner she would be protected if and when her false identity was discovered.

But as important as it was for her safety, that wasn't the overriding consideration. She was the one for me, and I couldn't wait for us to be bound together forever.

I'd come to know and love her as Adina, and she, as Aramar, had worked so hard to come back to me and save me from my troubled heart without expecting any commitment from me in return. No one else cared for me this way.

"Fine." I nodded once, swallowing my pride. "You have my word. I get Princess Aramar as my bride, and I give up my plans of exploring beyond the gates."

"Done." He mirrored my nod, a hint of triumph in his eyes. "I'll have the paperwork drawn up. Tell your mother to get things ready. I intend for the two of you to be married before the week is out."

As far as I was concerned, it couldn't come soon enough.

I left my father's study and began to walk back to my suite at a brisk pace. I wasn't worried about leaving Adina with my mother, but I was anxious to return to her. I had a lot to tell her.

Hopefully, she'd be happy to hear my news.

As I passed the hallway leading to the library, I saw Lavanya and Jeffry in close conversation. She looked serious, while he seemed positively dumbstruck, caught somewhere between outrage and awe. It was a disconcerting expression to see on his face.

They glanced my way as soon as I stopped and parted immediately, Lavanya sweeping toward me like a bird of prey about to sink its talons into its kill.

"I hear there's going to be a wedding soon!" she trilled, her face a pleasant mask. I glanced around her but only briefly saw Jeffry's heel as he darted away.

What's this all about? And how did she hear about it so quickly?

"I suppose I should congratulate you." She curtsied very prettily. "I hope your wedding is a happy occasion and your marriage doesn't bore you to tears."

"Gracious as always," I said, putting Jeffry forcibly out of my mind.

Whatever he and his daughter had been talking about was probably nothing. He had lost almost all his status here; even my father wasn't making much time for him anymore. I didn't have to fear him.

"I am gratitude incarnate!" She slipped her hand into the crook of my arm and began to walk with me toward my rooms. "Which is why I will be perfectly polite to your new bride. I assume she's bringing all of her things with her into the palace as part of her dowry..."

"I assume she will."

Why was it of any interest to her?

"Oh good." She looked genuinely pleased. "I want to have a closer look at proper Edinbai fashion. So much of what she wears seems slightly... derivative, but that must just be a result of her trying to fit in here in Londabad." She shrugged. "Or perhaps she's just not all that creative. Not everyone is blessed with a talent."

Was she trying to imply that she had talent?

If snooping around and butting into other people's business was a talent, then Lavanya was indeed blessed with an abundance of it.

My patience wearing thin, I detached her hand. "I can see myself to my rooms, thank you."

"My pleasure." Her eyes glinted as she looked up at me, her lips twitching like she was on the verge of smiling for some reason. "Oh, my pleasure indeed."

As I watched Lavanya saunter away, a sense of unease settled in my stomach. There was something in her tone, in the gleam of her eye, that set my nerves on edge. But I pushed the feeling aside. I had bigger concerns now—namely, getting back to Adina and planning our future together.