Page 70 of Fragile Oath

Dinner had been predictably terrible,between Davin’s distant presence, Fiona’s blatant flirting, my uncle’s subtle glowering, and the smug satisfaction of the court members who were far too happy to see the lofty house of Lithlinglau under fire.

I hated all of them.

Though if I was being honest, I hated one of them a little more than the rest. Picturing her chiming laugh and her wandering hands made bile rise in my throat, but I stuffed it down before Anna could ask what was wrong.

Instead, I directed her attention to the herbs on one of the small dressers. Despite her best intentions in caring for my plants while I was gone, Anna had both overwatered them and exposed them to too much light, her overly nurturing nature getting the better of her.

And my poor herbs.

Dead leaves littered the pots like sad, wilted corpses, though the plants themselves were still technically alive. It felt like an unfortunate metaphor for my own wellbeing, one I had no desire to examine.

I smiled and thanked Anna for being so thoughtful and attentive to them while I was gone. Then I spent my morning sipping tea, gathering the dead leaves to store while Avani’s maid readied her at the vanity. Her plump rodent leapt from her shoulder to her lap and back again, letting out squeaks that sounded more like a language than should have been possible.

And Avani seemed to understand each squeak.

I wondered briefly if it was just her nature to talk to the creature, or if, like Gallagher, she had some tie to thevilaas well.

They left shortly after she was dressed, though Anna remained. She chattered about court gossip as she braided up my hair and applied my cosmetics in her usual maternal way, patting my shoulder and brushing hair back from my forehead in gentle gestures as she worked.

As usual, she took her time tidying up my room when she was finished. Before…everything, she would have waited until I left to come back, and it would have been with the help of a few other maids. Now, no one else was trusted in my rooms, and either Anna knew I couldn’t tolerate being alone or she had been ordered not to leave me.

“I can ask Hamish to escort me to tea early,” I offered, thinking about my plans for the day.

I only had three weeks, but I knew enough about the court here to know how the lairds were swayed by the opinions of their wives. Whether they accepted Davin’s evidence could come down to sentiment in the end, so I had work to do on my part.

“Ach, no milady,” Anna said with an apologetic shake of her head. “Her Highness asked me to wait for her this morning.”

I supposed that made sense, since she would likely be at tea as well. I assumed, at least, though that was dangerous where the Lochlannians were concerned. She could just as soon be out questioning the lairds alongside Davin.

I still didn’t know much more about the princess than I had gleaned that first night, other than she seemed to inherently understand my need for space. Or she just had a need of her own if the haunted, faraway look in her eyes sometimes was any indication.

I couldn’t help but wonder if it was her husband she was thinking of, if being here was a constant reminder of everything she had lost, since she wasn’t staying in the rooms I knew they shared here.

Either way, she never forced conversation on me. Not that it stopped me from feeling scrutinized when her perceptive gaze reminded me a bit too much of Davin’s.

It was an effort not to pace restlessly around the room, but I didn’t want to make Anna feel uncomfortable. Fortunately, it was only another few minutes before the princess returned.

And she wasn’t alone.

With her was one of the most beautiful animals I had ever seen. Not her ridiculous squirrel, obviously, though Albert was there, too, wobbling precariously on her shoulder. She had brought a dog…or perhaps a wolf, though not quite like any version I had seen of either before.

It was nearly as big as my uncle’s hunting dogs, and somehow fiercer, too. Though it was meekly trotting at the princess’s side, there was a lethality to its every step. I wasn’t afraid, but I would have been foolish to not be wary.

Avani was closely watching my reaction to the creature, so I tried to make my features a bit more even. She smirked, shaking her head.

“You do play your cards close to your chest,” she commented.

“Is that a bad thing?” I inquired.

“Not always.” She shrugged. “But I imagine it gets exhausting.”

Did she mean for me? Or for the people around me, like Davin. I thought about his frustration that I couldn’t tell him the soup I liked, Gallagher’s casual observation that I didn’t trust anyone, even Gwyn’s accusations, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to argue with her either way.

“It does,” I said instead.

She nodded, like my response satisfied her.

“Is this the newest resident of this room, then?” I asked, stopping just short of sayingmy room. Though I thought of it that way, it felt presumptuous to say out loud.

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