Page 60 of Fragile Oath

Excepting her clear resemblance to her family, there were also only so manyhighnesses in the kingdom, and only one that would be close to our age. Davin’s cousin, and the widow of his best friend.

Add to that the wall of portraits in the family hall depicting the princess with a variety of creatures, and it wasn’t hard to put together.

What I didn’t know was why she was here.

She nodded while she openly examined me, her expression reserved but not unkind. When she was finished with her assessment, the corner of her mouth tilted upward in an expression so reminiscent of her cousin’s, only hers didn’t quite reach her serious eyes.

“Lady Galina. Well, it all makes sense now.” Her accent was refined, like Davin’s, with the barest hint of her father’s brogue.

“Does it?” I asked.

“I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing here,” she said, skirting around my question as she stepped further into the room.

“Did you come to discuss Davin?” I asked, though it wouldn’t explain why she had come instead of one of the others.

She took a moment to read my expression before answering, her tone grim. “I’m afraid there’s not much more in the way of news. They’re conducting a formal investigation, and we have roughly three weeks to find the real murderer. That’s all we know for now.”

“Thank you for telling me,” I said neutrally. Not that I didn’t appreciate the information, but it was certainly something that could have waited until breakfast.

A beat of silence fell, but it wasn’t precisely awkward. I got the feeling the princess knew how to wield silence to her advantage, a laughable contrast to both Rowan and Gwyn.

But I was Socairan, and her silence didn’t faze me.

Much.

Until a knock sounded on the door, the same single, heavy beat that had always heralded Alexei’s return from the privy or seeing to his men or whatever other small errand would pull him away from our rooms for far too short a time.

My blood ran cold, and I froze, trying and failing to force a breath into my lungs.

“It’s only a guard with my trunk,” Avani said in a voice gentler than the one she had used so far.

She turned to open the door, but rather than let the soldier enter, she shooed him away, dragging the trunk in herself.

“You don’t have to–” I began, shocked out of my stupor. Though I shouldn’t have been, knowing what I did of Lochlannian royals.

“Please,” she grunted. “I’m training with Gwyn first thing in the morning. This is nothing.”

“I meant any of it.” I gestured vaguely to her trunk, the fact that she was clearly planning to stay here for reasons I wasn’t sure I wanted to understand.

Because they didn’t trust me alone? Because I was too weak to manage even with guards outside my door? It was worse because it was fair. All of it.

She closed the door, then sat on her trunks, more casual than she had been since she walked in.

“Well, Davin is…” she only hesitated briefly, but it was long enough to let me know whatever she was about to say next was a stretch on the truth, if not entirely a lie. “Confined to his suites at night.” She gestured across the hall. “And Gallagher staying here would be wildly inappropriate, even by our standards. Gwyn could have come, but we wanted you to be more safe, not less.”

Her mouth quirked up like she might have been joking but probably wasn’t.

I had a feeling she knew precisely how much I had been wanting to know why the others hadn’t come, that she had been holding on to that information intentionally until she gauged whether I was deserving of the knowledge.

It wasn’t surprising that either Davin or Gwyn chose to avoid me, but it still bothered me more than it had a right to.

And now this stranger – the heir to the throne – was staying in my rooms to protect me…for political reasons? As a favor to her cousin?

I didn’t know. But between worry for Davin and seeing my uncle and the unexpected knock at the door, I was too exhausted to ponder it further. All I wanted was to sleep, which I could reluctantly admit might be easier with another person who didn’t seem inclined to kill me in the room.

“All right,” I finally said, any remaining fight or curiosity leaving me in a single breath.

She furrowed her brow in a small show of concern I found I couldn’t tolerate right now.

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