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She was Arrik’s key to the kingdom of Lorne.

And then he would take Verlanti.

25

Wren

Her eyes snapped open. Wren had fallen asleep within her enemy’s chambers.

Is he the enemy after last night?

She didn’t know. He saved her life but did that excuse his past actions? It didn’t.

Her head was fuzzy and thick, her limbs heavy. She was exhausted—which wasn’t a surprise, given that before last night, she had been locked up on a ship for weeks and then thrown in a cell. She knew she’d fallen asleep sometime right before dawn, and going by the way the sun shone into the room via the courtyard, it couldn’t have been many hours after that. It still didn’t feel like enough.

Wren could not believe she’d slept. Now that she was becoming more aware of her surroundings, she became furious that she’d so stupidly done so, especially after watching Arrik dispatch the assassin. He was cold, clinical, precise.

He hadn’t hurt her.

The prince wasn’t the one who was meant to kill her like she’d been led to believe. Just some unknown threat. She struggled against the blankets which still held her tight. It was far too hot beneath them. For some reason the idea of an assassin was worse than her husband. At least she knew what to expect with the prince. Wren hated the idea of death creeping around corners, seeking to hunt her down.

The door opened and she bolted upright. Arrik was nowhere to be seen and servants began to file in. She blinked repeatedly as the sun shone in her eyes, the sheer curtains doing nothing to shut it out. A sheen of sweat covered her body as they wordlessly released Wren from the blankets that kept her suffocatingly in place. Guilt pricked her as they began to clean up the shattered dishes and food strewn across the ground. They did not comment on the dented tea tray that lay on the floor.

That wasn’t the only thing on the floor.

Her attention snapped to the side of the bed. The boy was gone. Not a spot of blood, nor any other trace that someone had attempted to murder her in the night.

Wren watched as the servants laid out a selection of dresses on the bed for her to wear, each of them airy and gauzy and ridiculous by Lorne standards, but still somewhat more sensible than the wedding dress she still had on.

Just as silently as they entered, they left, closing the door behind them.

Wren gazed around the huge but sparsely decorated room and swung her legs over the bed’s edge, her toes meeting the warm wooden floor. She stretched her sore body and stumbled over to a large bowl of water which had been warmed by the morning rays of the sun. A small towel sat beside it, so she dipped it in the water and used it to wipe away the sweat from her skin.

She scurried over to the bed and eyed the courtyard to ensure nobody was watching, then she quickly untied her wedding dress, the fabric sticking slightly to her skin. The air had a wet sort of quality to it that she’d not experienced before. She grabbed the most modest dress from the bed and put it on. It was a soft green color, made of a lightweight silk that would have protected against none of the elements of the Dragon Isles. But, in the already startlingly hot morning of Verlanti, the cool material was welcome.

Her bladder complained and she drifted toward the front of the room to an open doorway. It was dim without the light but she was baffled by what she saw. It was a huge room made of stone and silver. A toilet, not a chamber pot, in the right corner but that’s not what intrigued her the most. Wren drifted to the back of the room and ran her hand over the silver levers on the wall and then studied the ceiling. Was this the device her mother used to tell her about? A shower? Where the rain came from the ceiling?

Her bladder complained once more. She’d have to investigate later.

After relieving herself, she washed her hands and exited the privy. Moving over to the table, she sat down and blankly stared at the food. She was not sure if she should eat it or not. Someone tried to murder her last night, after all. What was stopping them from poisoning the food?

But if that was the way it was going to be, then that was the way it was going to be. If someone meant to poison Wren’s food—and continued to do so—then eventually they would get to her. She couldn’t live her life in fear. Plus, the prince didn’t seem like the person to leave things to chance. No doubt he’d had the food tested.

And you trust him?

“Stop it,” she muttered out loud. She couldn’t go on this way.

If Arrik meant for Wren to die, he’d have let the assassin finish her off. Which meant he wanted her alive…for now. Though she could trust nothing else about the man, she could, at least, trust that he did not wish to see her poisoned or dead. They both had an agenda and needed the other to fulfill it.

So, in the end, she relented to the gnawing in her stomach and began eating.

She watched the trees swaying in the courtyard outside as she grazed on unfamiliar foods that had only been brought to Lorne in the height of summer. Strawberries and honey, with thin, toasted slices of bread slathered in butter. A crystalline jug of apple juice was particularly delicious.

All of it was beautiful. The scenery, the food, the clothes.

But it wasn’t home.

A lump formed in her belly as grief struck her heart, and she realized in horror that she was about to cry. But she did not want to risk anyone seeing her do so—least of all Arrik, if he were to return—so she gulped down another glass of apple juice until the tears subsided.