Page 27 of Fit for a Prince (Fit For A Crown #1)

Chapter twenty-six

C edric called me to his study every day after that. Each time, he assured me that his work was completed and that he had plenty of time to chat, though we never talked about much.

I should have been happy that one of the princes had started taking a genuine interest in spending time with me, but he wasn’t the prince I needed. Nevertheless, I didn’t mind spending time with Cedric. He was thoughtful, smart, and far more sensitive than his brothers.

Except he wasn’t in line for the throne.

I paced around my bedroom, turning my plans over and over again in my mind in search of any way I could use Cedric instead of Atlas, but nothing worked.

Cedric was nothing more than a ticket to my survival.

If I was going to save more than myself, I needed the power Atlas could give me.

The only other option would be to marry Cedric, kill him, then remarry when the time was right.

Except then I’d have to kill the kindest prince I’d ever met .

Though he was still far from a saint.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t even hear the knock on the door or notice Mara rush to answer it until it was already half-open. I looked up just in time to catch her lips mouthing the name Atlas.

“Finally,” I whispered.

Only moments later, Mara was running a brush through my hair, jabbing me with pins, and trying to make me look as perfect as I possibly could in the drab forest-green gown I’d been assigned to wear by the housekeeper.

I rushed out the door and followed my escort to the battle I’d been itching to fight.

The escort was an older man with a set frown and a narrow nose that barely held up his spectacles.

He grumbled about me the entire way, going off about how he had better things to do than to babysit a wannabe royal.

He moved more slowly than a hibernating snail, and for a moment I considered whether he’d go faster if I pushed him down the stairs.

As tempting as it was, I didn’t want to risk Mara’s neck by breaking someone else’s.

I had expected to be led to the library, a lounge, or perhaps the prince’s study, so it came as a shock when the old man led me through the exterior doors that opened up into the arena .

The cold air raced across my bare arms, spotting me with goosebumps and running a wicked chill over my neck. My escort shivered so aggressively one might have thought someone had dropped a spider down the back of his tunic. He cursed at the cold, then faced me with a chattering frown.

“Here we are. The prince will arrange an escort for you to return to your chambers when he’s ready,” he said between shivers, then hurried back inside before I could so much as ask him where the prince was.

The cold was biting, and the dress I’d been given had short, banded sleeves and a scooped neck that exposed my collarbone. The fabric was thick, but I could already feel the sting from the wind that crept into the enclosed arena.

The escort had dropped me off in the seating area that overlooked the left half of the arena. I walked through the rows of benches until my ears caught the clash of blades. Down on the arena’s floor, two men were sparring with glittering silver swords.

Prince Atlas.

I found a seat as close as I could to the fight, crossing my legs under my skirt to trap in as much heat as possible.

The prince and his sparring partner were dressed in long-sleeved wool shirts that honestly looked a little heavy to be battling in, but they performed well despite the extra weight.

I envied their attire but was too distracted by the moves of the match to linger on their clothes for long.

Atlas’s partner was slower than him, and he had a slight delay in his left leg that was probably from an old injury. Atlas picked up on this and targeted his left more often, but what his partner lacked in speed, he made up for in strength.

Their blades crossed, but despite having the upper hand, Atlas was pushed back by his partner, almost losing his footing on the slick ground.

Snow flurries always seemed to be present in the Aemastian sky, but today it was more like a soft sprinkle of sleet.

I endured the cold as best as I could, focusing on perfecting my posture so I would be less likely to shiver.

When Atlas regained his footing, he glanced up long enough to notice me in the stands. He only seemed to catch my eyes, but it was enough of a distraction to earn another blow from his partner’s sword hilt.

“It would seem our audience has arrived, Roy,” Atlas said to his partner while successfully blocking his next blow and regaining the ground he’d lost. “Are you enjoying the show, Lady Diaspro?”

Another hit. He must have been trying harder now that he knew I was watching. How cute. It almost made me want to root for him to win. But I never cheered for the loser.

“I’m enjoying watching you lose,” I called out with a coy smile, catching another quick glare from him. He stumbled again, clearly not learning his lesson from the last time he’d looked away from the fight.

“Hear that? Your bride’s on my side!” Roy laughed, lunging forward with another clean strike against Atlas’s blade.

“She’s not my bride,” Atlas huffed as he dodged another swing. “And I haven’t lost yet.”

His deflated ego must have given him the power of ten men. He pushed forward, landing strike after strike against Roy’s blade and nearly pushing him out of bounds. He might have actually won had he not been so easily distracted.

“On your right!” I called out, and he lost all his focus on Roy’s weak side.

Too bad I had to distract him.

Roy swung hard and fast, hitting the prince with the blunt side of his blade at full force and knocking the wind out of him. The prince landed on his knees, not dropping his sword but still crumbling enough that Roy could claim the victory .

“Ah-ha! The match is mine,” Roy said proudly before offering a hand to the prince. “It’s a rare day that I get the better of you.”

“It certainly wasn’t you.” Atlas begrudgingly took Roy’s hand and rose to his feet. “It was someone else’s dirty trick.” He looked back at me, narrowing his grey eyes like half-moons on a dark night.

“Blaming the lady?” Roy chuckled. “How unbecoming of you, Your Highness.”

“Oh, she knows what she did,” he called out to me, and I rose from my seat to find the steps down to the sparring level. “She wasn’t entertained with a fair fight.”

“Since when do Aemastians fight fair?” I asked as I touched down on the arena floor, my dress flowing down the steps behind me like I was far more regal than I was. “Lochlan hardly wanted to abide by the rules when I surrendered.”

“Yes, but that’s Lochlan,” he said.

“And you’re Atlas,” I said, a slow smile tugging at my lips. “Which already sounds so much worse.”

“Maybe it is.” He stepped closer, waving off Roy with the same movement. His sparring partner left the field, leaving us alone in the center of the frosty arena. “Lochlan went easy on you.”

“Is that why you brought me here?” I asked. “To show me how a real Aemastian fights? Because I can’t say that I’m impressed.”

“Well, I didn’t bring you here to freeze you to death and get tricked into losing my match.” He shook his head at my bare arms, which were now bright red from the cold. “Was this dress another one of your schemes to get attention?”

“Why would I beg for attention when I already have it?” My heart was pounding with every word he spoke.

Cedric had become easy to talk to, and Lochlan had become easy not to care about.

Atlas, on the other hand, was a challenge.

He was never satisfied with what I said or did, and I wasn’t used to not being enough.

I would have to become enough for him. “This dress was assigned to me, Your Highness, and it was you who called me out into the cold.”

“And you didn’t think to grab a cloak?” He raised a brow, understandably skeptical of me.

“I’m afraid my escort had little interest in informing me of my destination,” I said with an honest shrug. “Believe me or don’t. I’m here now, I’m cold, and I’m still waiting for you to prove that you can fight better than Lochlan.”

“I don’t need to prove that.” He scoffed, as he pulled off his chest plate. The piece of iron left an impression in his wool shirt, drawing my attention to his built chest. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t flaunt it.”

He slipped off his shirt, and I felt my breath catch like I’d been squeezed by the throat. The wool tunic slid off his neck, and to both my relief and my disappointment, he was wearing a short-sleeved grey cotton shirt underneath it.

Atlas smirked at my red cheeks, even though the color was due to the cold...mostly. He tossed the wool shirt at me and I barely caught it with my frozen fingertips.

“Fight me, Lady Diaspro.” He picked up his sword, the blade smeared with icy residue. “We’ll see which twin you fare best against.”

I gripped the shirt against my heart, forcing it to stay inside my chest despite its wild beats. “Fight you?” I repeated. “But I’m no warrior, Your Highness.”

“You’re no princess, either,” he said as he raised his sword between us. “Not yet. But any woman who can stand up to a prince who’s superior to her has the right to be seen beside him.”

Was this his way of testing my worth? Was it my chance to earn his approval?

“You assume you’re superior to me?” I asked as I slipped his shirt over my head and pulled it over my shoulders. It was so warm. It vaguely smelled of Atlas too; like cedar and cinnamon mixed with a touch of cinders.

“You don’t?” He flipped the sword around, offering me the handle. I accepted it, immediately recognizing that it was too heavy for me but not impossible to wield. Asking for a better sword wasn’t worth disrupting the prince’s attention on me.

“You shouldn’t.” I brushed the ice off of the sword using the sleeve he’d just given me. “As you said, I’m full of dirty tricks.”