Page 51 of Pearls of Salt and Sacrifice

The servant’s entrance had been bolted from the outside. A wooden plank ran across the doorway, held in place by two makeshift brackets. It wasn’t uncommon for guests to bolt the door from the inside when they didn’t want to be disturbed. But why had the servants barred the door from without?

The door shook with renewed banging.

“Let me out!” came the muffled bellow from within.

“Who’s in there?” she called back.

“I am Prince Felix, third son and heir to His Royal Majesty—”

Reva unbolted the door and yanked it open, allowing the third son and royal heir to spill into the hallway. He staggered and gripped the doorframe to catch his balance. The sunburn on his nose was further complimented by the fiery red blush staining his cheeks.

“You!” He jabbed a finger at her. “You’re back!”

She resisted the urge to slap away his finger. “I am. Why are you locked in a guestroom? What did you do?”

“What did I do?” His face deepened to an even more unsightly shade of red. “I didn’t do a blasted thing. It’s your stepmother. She’s gone completely mad!”

Reva shushed him by waving both hands. “Lower your voice and tell me what’s happened. Calmly.”

He inhaled a ragged breath and leaned against the doorframe, mopping his forehead with the sleeve of his wrinkled tunic. “Your stepmother has taken leave of her senses!”

“So you’ve said. Why did she lock you up, Felix?”

Felix’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned toward Reva, lowering his voice to barely more than a whisper. “Because I told her I wouldn’t go along with her dirty scheme any longer, that’s why.”

Reva’s jaw tightened, her pulse thundering against her temples. “Pray tell,” she began in a deadly calm whisper, “what dirty scheme is this? The one where you force me into marriage so that she can steal my kingdom? Or the other one where you plan to have me assassinated?”

He’d already begun to forge ahead but faltered into silence as her words actually penetrated his deaf ears. “Don’t look so angry,” he said, uneasily flicking away a bit of lint on the front of his shirt. “None of that was my idea. We both know she’s a conniving old hag, the way she’s been trying to force me to marry you.”

Reva pursed her lips and wondered if she could believe anything he said. “So you want me to believe the marriage scheme wasn’t your plan?”

Felix shot her a withering look. “You don’t think I wanted to marry you, did you? No, Cassandra found out that I’ve been—that I may have—never mind, she found out something I’d rather my father not know, and she threatened to expose me if I didn’t do what she wanted.”

“What did she find out?”

“That’s none of your business—”

She grabbed the handle of the door and began to swing it toward him. He caught it with one hand and wedged himself in the doorway. “No, no! Wait! I’ve been siphoning money from the royal coffers, and somehow her spies found out about it. It’s for purely selfless reasons, I can assure you—”

Somehow, none of this surprised her or seemed unbelievable. Why would he make up such a horrendous lie? “You’re a petty thief. Just like Rency.”

His eyes narrowed. “I am not. I can’t believe you’d compare me to a pirate.”

“But you’ve been stealing from your own father!” Reva leaned her weight into the door, but the prince of Desta wouldn’t budge.

“Because I’m trying to save the woman I actually want to marry from slavery, that’s why! When my father found out about me and Felicity, he sold her to the mainland as an indentured servant.”

Reva eased her weight off the door, staring at the prince. “You’re trying to tell me that your father actually sold your lady fair into slavery because he didn’t want you to marry her?”

“He did.” When Felix pushed against the door, she eased back and let him. “He has higher aspirations for me, but I want Felicity. I don’t care if she’s a commoner. I’m going to marry her, and I’ll steal every penny out from under his nose if that’s what it takes to free her.”

Reva squeezed the bridge of her nose. This was the most ludicrous tale she’d ever heard, but somehow she didn’t think Felix possessed enough creativity in him to make it up. “And when you told Cassandra you’d changed your mind about marrying me, she locked you up?”

“Well, no, not exactly. When I told her I was going to have her hanged for blowing up the Endellion, that’s when she locked me up.”

Reva exhaled slowly to mask a small shard of disappointment, of pain. A part of her had still been clinging to the hope that Cassandra really wasn’t to blame for any of this…that she hadn’t been scheming all these years.

Smiling in Reva’s face when she planned all along to stab her in the back.

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