Page 40 of The Cursed Crown

Khal only thought of their safety. He remained careful, watchful and confident in his ability to protect them from upcoming danger. Rissa couldn't deny that the two men's presence made the trip considerably more agreeable than her initial plan of traveling alone would have been.

For one, Khal knew how to cook. Rissa could roast a rabbit and pick enough berries to sustain herself in the wild, but in her years in the darker woods, she'd barely eaten anything else.

Teoran shot a pheasant on their first day, and with just a few roots and herbs, Khal turned it into a soup worthy of the royal cooks in the Old Keep.

They polished off what was left of it at high noon, cleaning up their wooden bowls with the last of the bread she'd packed.

"We should purchase some food when we next pass a village," Rissa suggested.

They could always hunt if necessary, but game was rare in winter. The bread and cheese had been valuable late at night.

Khal nodded slowly.

"Why not halt in Deanon?" Teoran frowned. "We're close enough."

Deanon housed the Court of Bones. To Teoran, stopping there was logical.

Rissa exchanged a look with Khal, and the seelie prince didn't miss it.

"I feel like I'm out of the loop here. Why are we avoiding every city, every royal court?"

She bit her lip.

"Are we not seeking allies?"

"Your queen has specific ideas about the ally she's looking for," Khal said, with something that sounded like disapproval.

He hadn't said a word against her quest until then. Rissa didn't like it. Rydekar's disapproval was a given, but she'd been under the impression Khal understood her better. Apparently not.

Teoran turned to her, staring pointedly, demanding an answer.

She swallowed. "I'd like to reach the cursed mountain, and free Tharsen. It's but a four-day ride to the Wilderness, and then perhaps another day or two to reach the mountain. Then, we could return south together, gathering the courts on our way."

Why did she feel foolish laying out her plan right now? It was sensible enough. Rydekar's dismissal must have hit harder than she intended to let it.

Teoran's astonished stare certainly wasn't helping. At long last, he asked, "Whyever would you want to do that?"

Wasn't it obvious? "He can unite Denarhelm better than I ever could. None of the kings are likely to listen tome.They didn't respect me as a princess. They'll never obey me as a queen."

Teoran snorted. "The great lords don't respect anyone but themselves, that's why they're lords. It doesn't change the fact that they're sworn to obey the high crown—and that you're next in line to inherit it."

Rissa shook her head.

"No, listen to me. As royals, we're never going to make anyone happy. It's not in our nature. Siblings will see us as potential rivals; our parents, as their replacement; our subjects, as tyrants. They want to crush us. If not our flesh, then at the very least, our spirits. I was dragged through mud, dropped down a well, and left to drown as a child. I pissed myself out of fear when my cousin abandoned me near a pack of wolves. I was seven."

Rissa gaped as she stared at the fae. Young, he may be, but he radiated confidence and strength. She couldn't picture any of what he'd just confessed.

"How did you kill them?" Khal asked. "The wolves."

Teoran rolled his eyes. "Straight to the killing. How boorish. I befriended them, you brute."

Khal snorted. "He's right, though. There's a reason my parents sent me to Rye as a child. My siblings didn't take kindly to a brother gifted with a blade. It was safer to get me out of the way—for me and them. As for Rye, he had to deal with his father, who tried to kill him at puberty just as soon as he started to grow into his powers."

Rissa was too shocked to say a word, barely capable of imagining it. As a teenager, she might have had to deal with bullying from gentry children, but her father had showered her with as much affection as Titus Braer was able to spare on anyone.

You love your father,Rydekar had told her, and he'd sounded a little surprised. As though, to him, fathers weren't entities one could love.

"I can't rule Denarhelm. Tharsen was raised for it. He knows how to—"

---