Page 114 of The Heir's Bargain

I shook my head. "I think some quiet would do me some good tonight."

"Very well."

I reached for the hood of my cloak, but my hand swiped at the air. I groaned. "I left my cloak inside. You go ahead."

He shifted, turning toward the tavern's entrance. "Are you sure? I can?—"

I held out a hand. "Fynn, I'm a big girl. I can handle myself."

Fynn lifted his hands in the air. "I wasn't saying you couldn't, Ferrios. You've put me on my back plenty of times." He cocked his head to the side, a sinful smirk appearing. "Although I recall?—"

"Night, Nadarean," I shouted over my shoulder as I walked away.

"Night, Ferrios," he called after me.

As I swung the tavern door open, I heard Fynn's horse take off down the gravel pathway. Thankfully, Sylvia and Moris were still dancing, so I was able to grab my cloak without being sucked back into the fold of the music.

Cloak in hand, I headed back through the growing crowd and slipped through the door unseen. Or so I thought.

Someone giggled, the sound girlish with a hint of vitriol coating it. A pang of nausea coursed through my veins.

"You are truly the last person I thought the prince would be courting."

My hand fell from the door. As it swung shut behind me, I asked, my voice even, "And why is that, Rosalina?"

I turned and found Fynn's former partner walking toward the tavern from down the street. Her caramel hair was tied back in a clean chignon. She wore a delicate light pink dress and short silk gloves over her hands that stopped just beyond her wrists with a white ruffle.

As I looked her up and down, she raised her chin. When Esmeray lifted her chin and rolled her shoulders back, she exuded power and stability; when Rosalina did it, she looked like a peacock fluffing up her feathers before a python.

Rosalina scoffed, flipping her hand in the air. "He's the heir to the throne, and you? Well, you're just a soldier."

Rolling my eyes, I glanced at the quarter moon shining down. "Is there some other obvious fact you wish to state? I do have places to be."

Her lips parted slightly as if she was appalled I would dismiss her.

She quickly flattened her expression and took a step forward, chuckling. "He was enamored with you at the solstice ball, I will say that. But if you put anyone in an elegant dress, they are bound to catch someone's eye. Everyone is watching you. They're watching and waiting for you to fall. For Fynn to see his mistake in courting you. Now that he has been crowned heir, whomever he marries will become Queen of Pontia. You do realize that, don't you?"

I cocked my head. "Are you planning a coup that I should know of, Rosalina? Because as far as I know, the queen is alive and well."

Rosalina's pale pink lip curled. She wrung her hands together. "I have heard the queen herself say that she will abdicate when she believes her son is old enough and mature enough to sit upon the throne. She is only waiting for him to grow up and to marry."

I placed a hand on my hip. "Let me guess, Rosalina, you believe you are the one he should marry?"

She smoothed a flyaway back down and clicked her tongue. "A queen is not a warrior, Danisinia."

Thinking of becoming Fynn's consort one day left a sour taste in my mouth. He had told me several times how he felt about his former partners being with him only for the sake of the crown. I wasn't Rosalina. I didn't want that title. I didn't know if I even wanted to be married, let alone be married to the future king. What had Esmeray told me the night of the solstice? That even Marc had to make sacrifices he did not wish to make.

Of course, it was too soon to even think that marrying Fynn was remotely a possibility; whatever we were, it was still too new.

Yet, I didn't wish to think about us going our separate ways after I received my promotion, either.

This entire relationship resulted from neither Fynn nor I wanting to be in a long-term relationship despite our mothers' wishes. Although we were no longer pretending, we hadn't outwardly discussed if there was a finite end to our courtship.

Still, there might not have been an official end date, but there was an end. That much was clear.

But I would not let Rosalina know that.

I took a step forward. "If you wish to be Fynn's consort simply to sit on a throne beside him and smile at the crowd, then you are gravely mistaken about what a queen is."

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