Page 49

Only this time, the casks were rolled miles from the camp into the woods.

A pyre was built, the demon’s massive corpse hauled atop it—an effort that would have taken a quarter of the century if they’d been sober, but as it was, took half.

Gone were the tables, the stuffy ranking they’d created, the barriers between the legionnaires, the aides, and the Aureans in their midst. There was only joy and merriment, and one song in particular that Mira wasn’t around to stop, another of Bronwyn’s old favorites, which Carrick and Sawyer belted with so much enthusiasm that they blew out their throats by the end of it and finished in croaking gasps like prepubescent teens with the rest of the decade howling in laughter piled at their feet on the edge of the fire.

It was in this state—red-faced, tear-streaked, and convinced she’d never breathe properly again—that Kat realized she had a shadow.

She glanced back over her shoulder and caught Adrien’s eye.

The prince had kept his distance. Not just from the common soldiers, but from everyone, even Bodhi’s persistent attempts to draw him into the toasts the rest of the highborns were making together.

Adrien had barely touched his drink, though he seemed to be clinging to it to keep up appearances.

He jerked his chin—ambiguously enough that Kat could dismiss it if she chose.

It was so generous of him that she figured she might as well oblige.

“Gimme a second,” she said, patting Emory on the shoulder as she pushed herself reluctantly up from the warmth she’d found sandwiched between him and Ziva.

“Can we speak privately?” Adrien asked, nodding to the cover of the clearing’s edge.

“We can try,” Kat replied with a dubious look at the rowdy, drunken antics playing out on all sides of the demon pyre. She caught the concerned glance Emory threw her way and dismissed it with a subtle salute as she followed Adrien into the brush.

“So here’s the thing,” Adrien said once he’d decided they’d gone far enough, clapping his hands together. “I think tonight might have fixed everything.”

“It better have. Even if we don’t know which of your companions was sending them, there are no more Lesser Lords for them to throw at you. And if there are, so help me hosts—”

The prince held up his hands, chuckling. “I swear to you, you will never fight another demon as long as you live. But I’m afraid I may need to ask something far worse of you.”

Kat couldn’t imagine anything much worse than the terror of battle. She was properly drunk, buoyed still by the adrenaline of living through the fight, and part of her took it like a challenge. A dare. You say you’ve found something worse? Let me atit.

She was about to say as much, but by the time her inebriated brain had found the words, Adrien had already barreled forward.

“Now that peace has been achieved, it must be sealed. The kingdom must believe in a future again—one that all people can enjoy under the prosperity my rule will bring. The road is an excellent first step, but there’s more I can do.

I didn’t understand that very well at the outset of the campaign.

I thought it was up to me to think in big-picture terms. Things like roads, infrastructure, policy.

That, after all, is the domain of kings. ”

Kat fought back a snort at the dramatics. She didn’t want to interrupt this fascinating tear Adrien had found himselfon.

“But as we’ve traveled through these lands, I’ve seen those massive policy decisions through a different lens entirely.

All these little negotiations about where we’d lay the foundations for the road.

All the logistics that go into making sure every soldier is fed well and kept happy.

All the ways that the separation between the high and the low limits the possibilities of this kingdom.

And I’ve seen so much of it thanks to you. ”

He met her eyes. She’d never seen the prince so serious.

If he were anyone but the future ruler of the realm, she would have pushed him, told him to knock it off.

Instead, she was trapped under his focus—and for the second time tonight, she realized her fate was in the palm of a being whose power far overshadowed her.

“Your perspective has been absolutely vital these past few months. I thought at the start that the pull of my lucky token was because you were meant to defend me from the Lesser Lords, but I’ve come to understand it’s so much more than that.

There are things I just don’t see— vital things, perspectives on the upkeep of the realm that are never my first thought when I confront these kinds of problems. You, though, you see it right away.

Sometimes I can tell, even when you don’t say it out loud.

You’ll squint or frown a little and I’ll know I need to take a new angle.

I think I’m getting better at it. I am getting better at it, right? ”

“You are,” Kat replied, and it wasn’t just to soothe his ego.

She’d seen it in the recent weeks, the way Adrien had begun to shift his approach to land usage negotiations from using local councils to strong-arm the rights he needed out of their citizens to approaching those citizens directly and presenting them with generous offers that made the deals equally prosperous on both ends.

The road he’d built was as much his people’s road as it was his, and she found herself, annoyingly, proud of the part she’d played init.

Adrien grinned. “I’m better when I’m with you. The realm is better for your part in my governance of it. And I think that makes one thing starkly clear to me.”

Kat froze. Being a foundational part of Adrien’s evolving consciousness was a heavy enough responsibility as it was, but she didn’t think she was cut out for his advisory—especially as a woman without a high name to cement why anyone but the prince should listen to her.

She’d opened her mouth to say as much when Adrien sank to one knee.