Page 92 of Keeper of the Word
“Lady Elanna, I beg you! Please, cease!” Dashiell stepped forward.
“Nay, Lady Elanna,” King Rian said, “but it shall be in three days hence! Will I ever grow accustomed to your riddled speech?”
“The prince is meant to marry another.”
Several men sputtered out gasps or coughs.
King Rian was not one of them. He clasped his hands behind his back and gave his son a sideways glance. “Go on.”
“For the last time, I beg you, Lady Elanna, this will not turn out as you wish.”
“Quiet,” King Rian said, nodding for one of Dashiell’s guards to step closer to the prince. Dashiell appeared as though he’d like to vomit and slumped into the nearest chair.
Elanna paused. Closed her eyes. Begged the stars for guidance. For any sign that when she spoke, it would be right.
I must save the realm.
She exhaled.
“The prince holds favor with another lady from Grenden.”
The sovereign’s surprise transformed into relief. “Why did you not tell me?” he asked the prince.
Dashiell, his head in his hands, leaned his elbows on his knees.
“Son, this is glad news. If the lady be from Grenden, then everything is balanced and as it should be.” Behind him, two of the Warins’ expressions brightened. Elanna expected to see that from all in the room, but some, like Daved and Griffith, were more reserved watching the prince.
The sovereign knitted his brow in confusion. He sought Elanna’s eyes. “Who is the lady?”
Elanna’s gaze steadied on the prince.Pray, let me not to have acted wrongly.“My prince?”
Finally, Dashiell raised his head, seeming surprised to have everyone’s focus on him. The blaze of anger in his eyes was directed at Elanna. “The woman is no lady, Father.” He rose and stood nose to nose with King Rian. “She is no countess, nor duchess, nor even a dame. She is a Grendenian peasant. A daughter of a late constable. ’Twas happenstance that we met last spring during the Rapture Moon Hunt. She is fair and intelligent and very much born from Grenden.” He retreated and raised his palms in the air. “I await your blessing to wed her.”
The next moment was one suspended in time for Elanna.
Everyone froze.
“Escort my son to his rooms and keep him there under lock and key. He is to leave for no reason.”
In the morning,Elanna still hiccupped from the weeping she’d done all night.
Fool!
How could she have intervened? How could she haveacted?StarSeers were not meant to act.
Thecrackthat had exploded through her ears as soon as the sovereign spoke further proved that.
After Dashiell had been “escorted” from the Royal Solar, King Rian had not minced words that he wished to do the same to Elanna buthopedhe wouldn’t find it necessary. Elanna had fled the room. She hadn’t missed the downcast expression from Daved or the way his eyes chased her out of the room.
Everything was a mess.
The news that Hux brought, after disappearing all night, had not helped. The ravenmaster had evidently been taken to the dungeons, and a rumor had leaked that the prince was being sequestered in his rooms following a “discussion”–as Hux had heard it called—with the sovereign. A second rumor floated through the castle that the prince’s three guards had also been placed in the dungeons. And the sovereign had canceled all courtly appointments today.
Hux seemed pained to give her this report and had not made one jest.
“How may I help you most?” he asked as they stood in the courtyard outside the Delara. “Would you like me by your side, or may I best serve you being your eyes and ears?”
Elanna ignored that they gazed at each other’s hands. She needed to pull herself together before Joss and Barrett joined them.
