Page 43 of A Curse of Salt

‘It’s been a pleasure, as usual,’ I snapped, shoving my chair back and heading for the door.

To my chagrin, he followed, reaching out to hold the door open as I stalked out into the hall, hating how easily his long legs kept up with my angry strides.

‘Bane wants peace,’ Sebastien said, walking in a steady rhythm beside me. ‘He thinks he can get it by burning Oren’s kingdom to the ground and building a new one in the ashes. It won’t work. At the end of it all, he’ll just be another tyrant in a wooden chair, while the world weeps cinders around him.’

‘He wants to be king,’ I echoed. ‘So he’d have to kill me, to get to the throne?’

‘Marrying you would be more effective.’

My feet faltered. I tried to swallow, my throat suddenly drier than stone. ‘That’s it, then?’ I asked. ‘I’m supposed to sit back and wait for some man I’ve never met to lay claim to me, just so he can use me against my own people and burn my homeland to the ground?’

We reached my room and Sebastien pushed his way inside, turning on me the moment I crossed the threshold behind him.

‘Nobody’s claiming you,’ he growled. ‘Bane’s dead the moment I see him, and you’ll be free to go back to that damned life and suffocate.’

I faltered, my anger quashed by his quiet intensity. ‘Why do you care?’

‘My crew seem to think it matters whether you’re miserable or not,’ he snapped back.

‘Your crew, huh?’ I stepped forward, closer than I meant to, my chin tilted up in challenge.

His breath fanned against my face when he spoke. ‘Believe me, I don’t care what you do after this. But you’re a fool if you think you’ll ever do more than survive, back in that place you came from.’

‘What choice do I have?’ I snarled. ‘I didn’t ask to be a princess, to have to hide, but I’ll do whatever it takes to save my sister.’

I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth before I could stop the words from escaping. Fool.

‘I—’ I stammered, but it was too late. My sister . . . what else could I have meant? I glanced up at the King, afraid to find out what my slip-up would cost me.

A huff of laughter fell from beneath his hood. ‘You don’t think Mors tells me everything?’

That old bastard, I cursed. All this time, he’d known. ‘You know that I’m not . . . that my sister . . . ?’

‘If you really thought you could fool me, then you aren’t as intelligent as I thought,’ the King mused.

‘So, what,’ I spluttered, ‘you’ve just been letting me pretend this entire time?’

His lips twisted. ‘Seemed like the polite thing to do.’

I wanted to slap the smirk off his face. ‘So, what now?’ I asked, my irritation melding into a thousand new worries. This is what I get for trusting a pirate.

‘You’re still a princess. Good enough for me.’ Sebastien – the King – shrugged. ‘So long as nobody ever knows of your sister, this can all end with Bane’s blood beneath my boots.’

Blood. Had these brutes never heard of gold? It seemed death was the only currency they had any interest in, and the wager just happened to be staked on my shoulders.

I swallowed. ‘Like I said . . . I’d do anything to protect her.’

The King stared down at me for a long moment, the silence weaving its net around us. ‘Aye, I know.’

I stood close enough to feel his words breeze against my cheek, yet I could still see nothing beyond his square jaw and almond lips. My eyes caught on their slope.

Tentatively, I lifted a hand, compelled to reach past the shadows, to draw back his hood. My fingers whispered over hard, stubbled flesh, cheekbones, tangled hair. Proof that there was a man under there, after all.

His hand closed around my wrist, stilling it. Stopping me from revealing too much. His fingers were long, calloused, the graze of his warm skin tugging at some unfamiliar heat within me. It’s the wine, I told myself, shaking it off.

He let go quickly, as though he didn’t like to touch me. But his other hand reached out, tipping up my chin. Forcing me to look into his darkness.

‘Don’t waste your time searching for something that isn’t there.’

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