Page 22 of The Princess's Chosen

"You made sure to keep it from me," he challenged, lifting an eyebrow.

"It's not really your business, Aric," Cosmo muttered.

"I didn't want you to be angry with me, and I gave into the cowardly impulse not to tell you," I said, trying to hold myself tall. Aric was slouched in the chair, and even from there, he made me feel small. And yet Istillwanted to melt into him, to perch myself on that extended thigh and press myself to his chest and take deep whiffs of him, peppering kisses over his throat until he forgave me.

"To be angry with you? For making yourself a fancy little cake of a palace with all the pretty shiny toys a princess could want?" he asked, eyes flicking cruelly over my shoulder to Wendell.

"The palace?" I squawked, jaw dropping. "I—we didn't—I didn't even know what the Hunger coulddo. The palace just happened. It wasn'tall—"

"You didn't know you were filling the woods with magic? You didn't mean to make that orchard burst with fruit?" Aric snapped, sitting up.

"Well, yes, but—"

"And you didn't think I, a northern mage, might need to know about the sudden flood of power taking place?"

I gaped at Aric, looking to Cosmo and Wendell for help, but they looked as startled as I did. "Is it—have I done wrong?" I asked, my voice shrinking.

Aric's expression fractured then, the anger cracking and revealing something almost like sympathy or perhaps worry.

"Aric, Iamsorry for not telling you when it should've come up, but the Hunger hasn't changedme. It hasn't changed what I want for Kimmery, what kind of leader I want to be," I said, stepping forward slowly as if I were approaching a feral animal.

"Princess, there's enough magic in the trees of the woods that a new mage could take a twig and accidentally blow their own face off in a simple working. You've upset the balance," Aric said softly, making my steps stall.

"Aric, I think we both know she's trying to restore it," Cosmo growled at him.

"Blindly!" Aric answered, standing up like a shot. "Naïveté is charming for a young woman, certainly, but it looks poor on one trying to race into being a queen."

I flinched and resisted the need to spin away, Wendell's hand pressed flat to my back in support.

"What can I do to fix this?" I asked, trying to swallow down the tears in my voice. "We've beentryingto be careful, to learn what I am capable of."

"I think what you are capable of was made pretty clear in the orchard," Aric growled.

"Aric!" Cosmo roared, standing.

Aric and I both withdrew, his face paling and eyes dropping to the floor as I stumbled back into Wendell's arms.

"I—For—" He looked up, eyes landing on Wendell's arms around my waist, his expression hardening. "Try not to turn the whole north wild with magic for the time being. At least until I know what to do about the changes you've already wrought."

Had he meant making the apples grow, or my act with Wendell and Thao? I couldn't tell, and I didn't want to ask. I generally didn't care who saw me with my Chosen, but that was certainly not the way I would've wanted to be observed by Aric. And whose fault was that, anyway?

"Perhaps before you return, you might send word next time," I said, straightening and glaring back at him. "You've made yourself clear on the matter of being my Chosen. The palace isn't yours to wander."

His gaze flashed on my face, fire in the usually cool gray depths of his eyes. It drew my blush out, but I refused to back down. Aric had intruded on a moment that wasn't his to see. I had lied to him.

And now we were…fractured.

I couldn't breathe under the force of his stare, and I wanted to smash the tension to pieces and fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness, which only made me angrier. I'd apologized for what I'd done wrong already and I couldn't change those choices now.

"Can I have a moment alone with Bryony?" Aric asked, voice rasping.

"No," Cosmo, Wendell, and Cresswell all answered at once.

Aric glowered, but their defense made the painful knot in my chest ease slightly, and I gave Cosmo an imploring glance until he sighed.

"We'll be in the hall," Cosmo said, jerking his head to the others and then grabbing Aric's arm and hissing something in his ear that made the older man's frown deepen.

Wendell kissed the corner of my jaw, catching my eye and reassuring himself that this was what I wanted before moving to the door, but it was Cresswell whose feet dragged the most, until they were finally all outside of the greenhouse.

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