Page 13 of Of Nine So Bold

Now her gaze flicked up to me, assessing and cautious. Her head bowed just a tiny bit.

Moments ticked past.

“If I may, princess?” she murmured.

I nodded for her to go on.

“You are not what I expected.” Her eyes skimmed over the others. “None of you. What you are to one another is… intriguing.”

I tensed at the realization she knew about me and my men. She was dancing around it, yes, but when she looked back at me, there was no question of her true meaning.

She gave me a small smile. “You will find no judgment from me either,” she continued, her voice low. “Love is a gift. I know that well. But I have to ask, how did you come to—” She seemed to search for words. “To see the world as you do?”

“What do you mean?”

Her mouth tightened briefly. “I meant no offense. I?—”

“And I took none.”

She hesitated. “I only meant…somepeople in your position would seek to uphold what came before them. To regain power and then hold on to it by reassuring everyone nothing under them would change. But you…” Her eyes darted around the camp. “You’re changing everything. And from all I can tell, you’re not doing it out of some grand gesture, but out of love and belief that it’s right, and that is…” Her tiny smile from a moment ago returned. “Not what I would have expected.”

I blinked, taken aback. “I suppose…” I thought about it, and then an amused sound escaped me at the truth. “When it comes to things like—” I nodded at her rather than state the nature of either of our relationships out loud where others might hear. “It’s because I read stories I wasn’t supposed to, growing up. Stories of true love and other pleasures that were tucked in the back of the castle library, and that would never have been considered ‘proper’ for a young lady of my station to read. Books were the start of everything, I guess. And then, later—” I smiled at Clay when he sat down on the other side of the fire, and he grinned back. “I met people who showed me the world was more complex and nuanced than I’d been led to believe. More beautiful too.”

Valeria was quiet for a moment. “The day Lord Thomas showed me his libraries, I thought I’d died and found the afterlife.”

I glanced at her in surprise.

She shrugged. “My mother taught me to read. She was a tutor in one of the border cities before I lost her to the war.”

Sympathy made my heart ache for her. “I’m so sorry.”

Silent, she nodded.

“When this is over,” I continued, “perhaps you’d like to see the libraries in Lumilia too?”

She appeared startled. “It would be a great honor, princess. Thank you.”

I smiled, and she returned the expression, suddenly looking younger and much less like a hardened soldier. More like a woman being offered something she adored.

Maybe even like someone I could eventually call a friend.

Silence settled between us again, companionable where before it’d felt tense. I didn’t make a sound to break it. I’d never had many friends at the castle. There’d been a handful of children of various lords and ladies when I was younger, but most had gone to live elsewhere by the time I was a teen. Beyond them, the person who had come closest to being my friend was Fironia, my maid—and even I could see how sadthatwas.

Never mind how her proximity to me had gotten her killed, thanks to my stepmother.

Guilt dulled the edge of my mood. Valeria and the rest would be in danger, too, if they stayed with me.

And that thought only made me feel worse.

With another smile to Valeria—one that, this time, hid how strained I felt inside—I rose and walked away from the fire, heading for the far end of the camp. I didn’t want to give in to sadness, but it was hard when Niko was still missing and the gods only knew what was waiting for us closer to Lumilia—to say nothing of the destruction we’d seen already.

“You okay?”

I flinched. In the shadows, Roan leaned against the side of the carriage. His dark eyes were on me, and between his black hair and pale skin, he looked like a ghost in the night.

At my alarm, he shrugged away from the black lacquered wood, straightening. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

I shook my head. “It’s fine.”

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