Page 47 of Beholden
Though the questions swirled within me, I refrained from asking them. I didn’t want to waste any of our last minutes together worrying. He was safe, and that was what mattered.
As we danced, the sun set, and servants lit more candles throughout the grand hall. After several dances, he leaned closer, pressed his face into my hair, and drew in a deep breath. “When I came to Warwick, I never planned to get involved like this, but I did.”
Came to Warwick? What did he mean?
“You changed everything,” he whispered before I could voice my query. “And no matter what happens, I know I’m doing the right thing.”
My heart lurched with misgiving. “Whatever do you mean?” I pulled back slightly to read his expression.
He didn’t meet my gaze and instead turned his attention to the balcony. “When you leave here tonight, I want you to go with Ty. He’ll take you away from Warwick back to my homeland. There you will never have to worry again.”
My feet stalled. I was thoroughly confused. If he wasn’t from Warwick, then why had he been sentenced to work in the mine?
He stopped dancing too, his focus on the queen.
I cupped his chin and gently turned his head back to me. The blue of his eyes was icy, frozen with determination. “Where is your homeland?”
He hesitated.
“Please tell me.”
“Scania.”
“Then why are you here in Warwick?”
“Ty will explain it to you later.”
“I cannot go with Ty.” I stroked his cheek. Though he’d shaven, a slight layer of stubble remained and was rough beneath my fingers. How could I explain my mission tonight? That I might not survive? “Remember the enemy I told you I must kill?”
His eyes narrowed. “I’ve already discovered your true intentions, Gabriella. And that’s why I’m here tonight. I won’t let you fight Grendel.”
I should have known that by departing from the mine so close to Midsummer’s Eve, he would easily add up everything I’d told him. What I couldn’t have anticipated was that he’d leave and try to stop me. How had he managed to get out?
No matter how he’d done it, he wouldn’t be able to make me change my mind. “Someone must fight. And I would that it be me and not one of the other young maidens.”
“It shall be none of you, ever again,” he whispered fiercely. With that, he released me. Before I could grab him back, he was maneuvering away from me through the swirling nobility, and I lost sight of him.
I stood on my toes, searching frantically, a terrible premonition rising within me. He was planning to do something, and I dreaded what that might be.
“Your Majesty.” His voice boomed above the music and conversation.
As the other dancers slowed to stillness, I glimpsed him at the bottom of the queen’s balcony, his handsome head held high and his broad shoulders straight.
What was he doing addressing the queen? My pulse picked up pace, a warning thrumming through my blood, a warning that his interaction with the queen would only end badly.
As silence descended over the grand hall, the queen, in quiet conversation with the priests who stood on either side of her, paused and glanced down at Vilmar. Irritation flickered across her features, the kind that said she’d hoped to avoid such a scene tonight and was frustrated she must now confront a protestor.
Invariably, such confrontations happened every year. We heard about them after the ball, the rumors regarding one family member or another who experienced a breakdown or went mad. The queen almost always locked such protestors away in the dungeons until after the sacrifice.
Such madness was to be expected from the people who had to forfeit their loved ones in so brutal a custom. Even so, I couldn’t let Vilmar say anything. I pushed through the crowd, desperate to stop him before he put himself at risk.
“Your Majesty,” he said again, his tone filling with authority. “I am Prince Vilmar, son of King Christian of the Holberg kings from the great kingdom of Scania.”
Gasps and murmurs rose into the air around me. But the surprise of the other guests couldn’t compare to my own. My feet slowed to a halt, and every function within my body seemed to cease.
Vilmar was a prince?
I shook my head, trying to deny his words. He’d been a slave in the mine pits. And he’d labored next to the rest of us without any privileges, facing the same dangers and experiencing the same deprivations. How could he be a prince? Was he merely saying so? And for what purpose?
