Page 149 of Fate's Sweetest Curse
I glanced over my shoulder at the man I loved, still resting on the cot. While I’d been out, a healer had come to assess Noble again; Kalden had reported to me that he was stable, but asleep. The update gave me a reticent sense of hope.
“Our reunion was a coincidence,” I murmured.
“An act of Fate,” Kalden mused, and he sounded serious.
I met his eyes again. “You truly won’t let me go?”
“Raina is not yet married.”
“And next year, when sheismarried?”
“The risk—to Marona, to Lothgaim, to the realm—remains. Fenrir’s treasonous dealings only makes our unity with Lothgaim more important.”
“So, death, then?”
“I will escort you back to Marona,” Kalden said cooly, “where we will speak with King Braven about how best to proceed.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. I will not go to Marona.”
“Hattie,” Kalden said gently—too gently. “So long as you—”
I sprang to my feet, my chair toppling behind me. “So long as I breathe, I am seen as a threat, is that it? No matter how much I don’t want my claim? No matter how many times I promise I will not come forward? No matter how vehemently I insist that I would never,ever, endanger Raina’s future? I amstillseen as a threat?”
“This isn’t just about your potential actions,” Kalden said, resting his fists on the table. “You have already been recognized. Rumors are already spreading—just as they did before.”
“Rumors can be dismissed!”
“Rumors,” Kalden enunciated darkly, “have a mind of their own.”
“But what do they matter, this far from Marona?” I pressed. “That was part of your logic nine years ago, wasn’t it? Get me so far away from Castle Wynhaim that I become invisible.” Kalden opened his mouth, but I continued. “I’ve been living in hiding for nearly a decade, just to preserve what little freedom I found in Waldron. Why do you not trust me to continue as I did before?”
“There is the matter of your name,” Kalden said.
“I use a fake name.”
“Census Ledgers can’t be forged, though,” Kalden said—back to that gentle, pitying tone, a tone that struck genuine fear in my heart. “As long as you remain unmarried, you can be traced. No one might’ve been looking for you before, but according to Captain Harrow’s spies, you recently announced yourself in the middle of Fenrir City. Witnessescouldbe looking, now.”
“I think you’re overestimating how much Fenrirans care about Maronan and Lothgaimian court politics,” I argued.
“It is my duty to overestimate all potential threats to the crown.”
“So, what, you’ll marry me off again?” I asked, voice strangled and shrill. “Send me to a more remote territory this time? Tuul, perhaps, or Vernfal, or—” I broke off as a sob worked its way up my throat. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Notagain.
Kalden rose from his seat and approached me, placing a huge hand on my shoulder. I didn’t feel threatened, but his touch wasn’t a comfort, either. Because it was pitying.
“I do not relish this, Hattie.”
“Is there no other option?” I whispered.
“She could marry me.”
Kalden’s hand fell from my shoulder as I whirled toward the familiar voice.
Noble was sitting upright on his cot, rubbing his temple as if he were nursing the remnants of a terrible headache.
