Chapter 6

The library was one of the few unguarded parts of the castle. Even so, I was cautious as I moved down the rows of shelves groaning with books. I didn't often venture into the stacks.

Well, perhaps "often" wasn't the best word. "Never" was probably more appropriate. It wasn't that I disliked learning. But I could never manage to stay still long enough for information to stick in my mind. Growing up, the moment one of my tutors had plunked a book down in front of me, my brain had immediately offered a dozen different strategies for escape.

I'd spent plenty of time standing in front of Ronan's desk, explaining why I failed a test. Eventually, he announced we were "trying something else" and started quizzing me while we walked in the garden or visited the villages around the castle on horseback.

I stifled the smile that tugged at my lips. Ronan was an asshole. I had to remember that. He'd kissed me and then deserted me.

And he was still gone.

Two nights had passed since I visited the Covenant. When I emerged from the Winter Forest, I'd expected to stumble into a search party. But the road to the castle had been as deserted as I left it. In a turn of good fortune, I found Davina nibbling grass outside the darkened stables, and I quickly brushed her down and tucked her into her stall. Then I wove my way through the tunnels and climbed into bed before dawn.

The next morning, Cyra had woken me as usual, but she'd made a disapproving sound as she helped me dress.

"What's wrong?"I'd asked, thinking she'd discovered my trip to the barrier, after all.

She huffed. "It's not right of Lord Ronan to leave you to deal with the suitors alone again."

I kept my voice carefully neutral. "What do you mean?"

She'd touched my shoulder. "Apologies, Princess, of course you wouldn't know, having gone to bed when you did. Lord Ronan rode to Tur Dorna last night. He told his men he'd be gone at least a week."

A board creaked under my foot, and I froze in the middle of the library with my ears pricked. After a few moments of silence, I released the breath I was holding and continued down the stacks.

As it had for two days, anger stirred in my gut. Apparently, ordering me to bed in the Old Language wasn't good enough for Ronan. He'd been so disgusted by our kiss that he fled to his estate. Maybe I'd been wrong about him having a human lover across the Covenant. Maybe she was in Tur Dorna. He could have bound her to him. Frostbound. The other elves had various names for the magical bond between elf and human.

Except Ronan would never break the law that way. A thousand years ago, when elves and humans lived side by side in Andulum, the practice of binding human to elf had led to war. Being bound vastly extended a human's lifespan, but it also put them completely under the elf's control. The way the histories told it, some humans preferred early deaths to service. They hid their children, allowing them to grow into adulthood without a magical bond. After decades of plotting, the unbound humans launched the Incursion, overthrowing elven rule and threatening to obliterate the elven race. In their wisdom, the ancients created Ishulum and promised to never bind humans again.

Ronan's father had helped bring Ishulum into being. Ronan wouldn't dishonor Sylvar's memory by flaunting the rules. Whatever he was doing in Tur Dorna, he wasn't entertaining a human lover. But no matter. It was none of my business. He could keep his secrets.

And I'd keep mine. As Sigurn Brighthelm had said, a meeting was only scandalous if others knew about it. No one could ever find out I'd crossed the Covenant and talked to a human. I needed to forget it ever happened.

So why was I looking for books about the Kingdom of Nordlinga?

My face heated as I moved through the library. There was no harm in reading about the human lands. I wasn't going back to the Covenant. I certainly wasn't going to meet Prince Sigurn again. For all I knew, he wasn't even really a prince. He'd been an unrepentant flirt from the moment we met, his brown eyes shimmering with amusement and his teeth flashing white in the thick beard that hugged his jaw.

Men in Ishulum didn't wear beards like that. They didn't crop their hair in tousled waves, either. They certainly weren't built like draft horses. Even the most accomplished warriors of Winter were lean and wiry. But Prince Sigurn was as wide as he was tall, with muscular shoulders that strained the seams of the quilted jacket under his cuirass. When he'd given me his dagger, his hand had nearly swallowed mine. He'd looked more like a giant than a prince. But in stories, giants were always ugly. No one would ever say that about Prince Sigurn.

You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

No temple or palace or work of art compares to you, my lady.

I suppressed a snort. Under no circumstances was I meeting him again.

With a glance over my shoulder, I entered the section of the library that housed books about the human kingdoms of Andulum. After a few minutes of searching, my gaze landed on a thick volume bound in red leather with The Kings of Nordlinga in gold lettering on the spine. I carried the book to a nearby table and flipped to the last few chapters. Sunlight fell over the parchment as I ran my finger down the page.

Wars.

Wars.

A detailed narrative of the reconstruction of Castle Nordlinga after a siege.

Battle scenes. Descriptions of battle armor.

An account of the second reconstruction of Castle Nordlinga.

Wars.

Another battle.

"Gods," I said under my breath. Did they do anything in Andulum besides kill each other and rebuild their castles?

I flipped forward a few more pages—and a name leapt from the page.

Sigurn Erlandson, the Crown Prince of Nordlinga. Called "Brighthelm" after he earned his spurs in the Battle of Bleakpoint.

My heart sped up. I turned my head toward the window, which overlooked the road that led to the Covenant. Sigurn had told the truth. The kings of Nordlinga were elfkin—the scattered, secret descendants of human-elf pairings. Unlike elves, the elfkin weren't bound by the Covenant, which meant they could work magic within Andulum. But as Sigurn had said, the "pureblooded" humans of Andulum had waged a relentless crusade against people suspected of having an elven ancestor. My tutors had always claimed the elfkin were long gone.

Sigurn was living proof that was false. The elfkin were alive and well—and ruling Nordlinga. And for some reason I couldn't fathom, he'd shared that damning knowledge with me.

Well, perhaps I knew the reason. "It's an even exchange," he'd said, a roguish smile playing around his lips. "You keep my secret, and I'll keep yours." He'd wanted to establish some kind of connection between us. Maybe he'd counted on me liking him more if I knew he had an elven ancestor somewhere in his family tree. But as he'd said, the connection was almost certainly distant. Elves and humans hadn't mixed since the days before the Covenant. Even then, elven-human pairings had rarely produced offspring.

Whatever elven blood he possessed, it wasn't much. And telling me his heritage didn't really put him in danger. I could hardly walk into Andulum and shout the news. Without my magic, I was helpless to defend myself. The humans could capture me and hold me for ransom. Or kill me. Sigurn could have killed me. It would have taken nothing at all for him to wrap one of those big hands around my throat.

But he'd been honest about meaning me no harm. The truth had shone from his big brown eyes, which had rooted me to the spot despite my best efforts to leave. Throughout our discussion, his eyes had danced with humor and a kind of seductive mischief. But something deeper had flickered among the two lighthearted emotions. It wasn't quite sadness. More like…melancholy.

Or maybe I'd imagined it.

Shaking my head at my foolishness, I lowered my gaze to the book, where the next few passages recited Sigurn's lineage.

Son of King Erland. Grandson of King Roddard the Usurper…

I stopped, my finger under "usurper." Sigurn's grandfather had stolen the throne? I skimmed the next few pages, my eyes glazing over when I encountered the list of names that stretched back generations. Maybe genealogists found such things interesting, but the names told me nothing. And there were a lot of names. Humans lived such short lives. Their family trees had more branches than the Winter Wood.

Frustration rising, I flipped ahead, searching for more information about Sigurn's grandfather. Finally, I landed on a section called "King Roddard and the Midden War."

Roddard, Lord of the Frostfort, overthrew King Tola the Bitter in the eighteenth year of the Fourth Era. For a time, Nordlinga was prosperous, but the peace did not last. Twenty years after Roddard took the throne, remnants of Tola's supporters ambushed him on the road to Coldvalley. Eager to avenge their deposed king, Tola's supporters killed Roddard and threw his body in a midden behind the castle at Coldvalley.

Disgust shivered through me. Perhaps Sigurn's grandfather had acted dishonorably when he unseated Tola, but nothing justified throwing his body in a garbage dump. I read on.

After Roddard's death, Roddard's heir, Erland Roddardson, struck back against his father's killers. Together with his young son, Sigurn?—

My heart thumped harder.

—he fought to eliminate Tola's supporters in a conflict known as the Midden War. After eight years of fighting that turned brother against brother and brought Nordlinga much suffering, Erland and his supporters secured victory. A triumphant Erland was restored to his father's throne. Shortly after he was crowned king, Erland named his son Sigurn Brighthelm as his heir.

I looked up, my mind spinning with information. It was difficult to square the smiling, teasing Sigurn from the Covenant with a man who'd helped his father fight a bloody civil war. Although, the book said he was "young" when the war began. Maybe enough time had passed for him to feel secure in his position.

Frowning, I ran my finger up the page, pausing at the start of the passage. "…the eighteenth year of the Fourth Era."

The date was meaningless. Some kind of human calendar.

A whisper of sound made my heart lodge in my throat. Moving fast, I closed the book and replaced it on the shelf just as Ronan appeared around the end of the bookcase.

I stared at him, the kiss and its aftermath rushing through my mind. He'd only been gone two days, but it felt longer somehow. He was the same, though. Tall and noble, with an arrogant sensuality that made him impossible to ignore. The top half of his hair was drawn back from his face. The rest trailed over his shoulders, the strands uncharacteristically tangled. As always, he wore black. Water droplets clung to the toes of his boots. Leather gloves were tucked into his sword belt.

The sting of his command lingered in my memory.

I kept my expression neutral. "You're back."

"I've just returned." He moved toward me, his boots loud on the flagstones, and I realized he'd cloaked his presence when he entered. Whatever noise I'd heard hadn't come from him. I said a silent prayer of thanks to the gods for my good fortune.

Ronan stopped a short distance away and ran his gaze over the bookcase. "Human history?" He looked at me. "This is a new interest."

"You're right." I bobbed a quick curtsy. "I suppose I should have asked your permission, Glesso. My sincerest apology. It won't happen again."

Disapproval flashed through his eyes. "Don't do this, Liria."

"What is it I'm doing? I only wish to obey you. Otherwise, you might hurt me with another command."

He closed his eyes. When he opened them, regret swam in the icy blue depths. "I'm sorry for everything that happened between us that night."

Including the kiss.

"Is that why you came back early?" I asked, hearing the stiffness in my voice. "Because you're sorry?"

"No."

"So you're not sorry?"

His mouth tightened. "I didn't say that, either."

All the hurt and humiliation of the garden maze roared back, and my voice trembled as I gathered my skirts. "Well, when you deign to enlighten me, you know where to find me." I turned away and started for the opposite end of the bookcase. A firm hand spun me around, and Ronan's fierce blue eyes filled my vision.

"I'm not sorry I kissed you," he growled. Then he pulled me against him and crushed his lips to mine.