Page 60

Gods, he couldn’t breathe around her like this.

Herrick stepped forward toward her, drawn into her space like gravity in a black hole.

Maude quickly stepped around him, but Herrick wrapped an arm around her waist, spinning her so her back was to the wall.

Their positions changed, Herrick put one hand on the wall behind her while his other rested on her hip and leaned in slightly.

Satisfaction flared in him as Maude sharply inhaled at their proximity.

“Now, why would I be doing that?”

“You tell me,” Maude prompted as her gaze met his, the intensity of her challenge burning through his walls.

Herrick was quiet as he thought for a moment. His golden eyes searched her dark green ones. He could not find anything to say other than the truth.

“I think you know,” Herrick finally whispered.

He reached up with his right hand and brushed a stray curl that framed Maude’s face behind her ear.

Unable to pull his hand back without touching her, his fingers grazed the soft skin of her cheekbone.

Maude closed her eyes and exhaled out of her nose, leaning into his touch.

He noticed that where his fingers met with her skin, goosebumps trailed after.

“Did you miss me, minn eldr ?” Herrick said, a small smile playing in the corner of his mouth.

“Never,” she scoffed, a bit breathless as her eyes flashed open in protest.

Herrick leaned in, his lips barely brushing the curve of her ear.

“Liar.”

A shiver ran through Maude, the motion bringing her body closer to Herrick’s. He looked down and saw her hands balled into fists like she was trying to stop herself from reaching out.

Fast-approaching footsteps sounded from behind Herrick, so he straightened and put his back to Maude, blocking her in. Maude smacked her hand against his arm and told him to move. Hakon appeared to be hurrying toward their dark corner in haste, crazed determination shining in his eyes.

“How are you holding up, Hakon?” Maude asked from behind Herrick.

She was still trying to force her way in front of him. Before she could kick him or stab him with the dagger he knew she had on her person, he stepped out of the way.

“I don’t want to answer that right now,” he started. “I need your help, Maude.”

“What’s going on?” Herrick asked his brother, shaking off the heat that had been building between him and Maude.

“I need you to stick to my side. I think if people think I’ve ‘chosen’ you, they might leave me alone. No one really knows who you are, only that you are a guest at the palace,” Hakon said quickly.

“Alva would have a fit,” Maude said, not entirely dismissing the idea.

“Please, Maude. I can’t choose anyone. The sooner we get through this, the sooner I can get back to Eydis,” Hakon begged her .

Herrick remained quiet; he only watched Maude. At the mention of Eydis, Herrick could see Maude’s features soften slightly.

“Okay,” she agreed quietly.

Hakon let out a sigh of relief as he extended his arm to her. Maude took it willingly and began to walk away, but after a few steps, she turned slightly to look over her shoulder at Herrick. He gave her a slight nod.

“Later,” he mouthed.

Heat sparked in her eyes before she continued moving into the light of the ballroom with his brother. Herrick watched her walk away from him again and thought to himself that it was the most painfully beautiful sight.

Spending the night on Hakon’s arm was not as tedious as Maude had thought it might be when he had asked her to play along with his ruse.

She had not spent a lot of time with Hakon and wasn’t sure what to expect, but Maude had enjoyed the evening with him.

They had not participated in any of the dances, choosing to watch and critique the dancers spinning in and out of the garden the ballroom opened into.

Hakon was familiar with all the nobles of Veter that were in attendance and was brutal in his criticism of them.

“The tall woman with the strawberry blonde hair is Lady Clarissa,” Hakon began as he pointed out to a woman clothed in a blush gown that clashed with the red undertones in her hair.

“She is beautiful, to be sure, but has been relentless in her pursuit of my hand. Once, when Herrick and I were young, we passed her and her father in Veter, and Herrick decided to launch a mud pie at her. It splattered onto her curls, and I had felt so terrible that I had offered to escort her home. Since that day, she has told anyone near or pretending to listen that my actions had solidified our union for the future.”

Hakon rolled his eyes, and Maude laughed merrily at the mental image of Herrick cornering his brother into this task.

“Surely you had to have known that Herrick did this on purpose,” Maude chuckled.

“Oh, of course. He came clean that night and confessed that he knew she had been boasting about how she would secure my hand and decided to mess with me,” Hakon responded, laughing with her.

“Gods above, you boys are trouble,” Maude murmured as her eyes inevitably searched for Herrick’s again.

Unable to find him, Maude turned her attention back to Hakon and listened to the rest of his critique of the guests.

Maude could see that Hakon was not overly fond of the nobles in his court but was courteous and charming to all he engaged with.

He introduced Maude as a family friend who came to stay with them for this event, expressing in perhaps too much detail how delighted he was about it.

Maude plastered on a fake smile that she had tucked away in her arsenal from her days in the Palace of Wind and Embers.

Each time her thoughts drifted in the direction of her childhood, Maude could feel her mood burrow further into the earth.

She was starting to get her fill of the polite company, hearing how, even in this kingdom, they spoke with double-edged words.

As the evening wore on, Maude’s mood worsened.

Unused to spending much time in the public eye, Maude had spent the last day and a half holed up in her bedroom with books.

She yearned to return to them now. In her youth, she had read to escape the challenges of her daily life.

The relationship that Maude had developed with books was an everlasting love: to be able to escape to another land for a time, to fall in love with the characters at every turn of the page.

For Maude, to read was to live. She could not have made it through her childhood if she had not found her love for books. It was no chore to hide away from the world before she had to set out with Herrick and his friends.

At last, the music had begun to wind down, signaling the closing of the ball.

Maude could feel Herrick’s eyes on her from across the ballroom.

He tracked her movements like he was a wolf stalking its prey.

Noticing that her partner for the night had gone silent, Maude turned to find Hakon had disappeared from her side when she had searched for Herrick.

The Heir of Rivers had made it all the way to the other side of the ballroom before she noticed. He shot her a quick solute and grinned before he turned into a servant's passage and disappeared.

Maude stared after him, mouth slightly open.

Well then.

Before she could move further from her spot on the outskirts of the guests, Maude felt someone stop to stand with her.

She glanced to her side to find Alva. The Queen was resplendent in a gown of deep sapphire, the shade almost identical to Hakon’s and her husband’s eyes.

Alva’s silver-streaked chestnut hair was coiled into neat braids, and atop her head sat the silver crown with droplet sapphires Maude had first seen her in.

“I didn’t get to say how stunning you look tonight, Maude,” Alva said.

“You have my gratitude for allowing me to take such liberties with my gown,” Maude replied awkwardly.

“How did you enjoy the ball glued to Hakon’s side the way he begged you to be?” Alva asked calmly.

Maude was careful in her response. “Hakon and I have come to be good friends during our time together, and it feels as if we truly understand each other. He saw how I struggled to mingle and offered his support. ”

“Yes, it seemed like you two were getting along so well that the other eligible matches felt they had no chance with Hakon and steered clear of you both, but perhaps I misjudged the situation,” Alva replied.

Choosing to say nothing, Maude snagged a flute of sparkling wine from a passing servant and sipped on it.

“As Heir of your kingdom, I would think you would understand the responsibility Hakon carries on his shoulders,” Alva began, but Maude cut her off.

“It is because I understand that I help him follow his own heart and desires. Spending a lifetime crushed under the pressure of these responsibilities until nothing is left of us in the name of our fate is not a way to live. We would only exist to take our parent’s places, husks of the people we could have been.

This may have been what you and my father accepted, but not I,” Maude seethed.

“I am Heir to nothing. I gave up my title long ago in the pursuit of my freedom, in spite of my fate. You look at me, and you think you know me because you knew my mother, but you are sorely mistaken, Your Majesty ,” Maude said, drawing out her title like a sneer.

Alva scrutinized her for a long moment before she said, “Sylvi would have been proud of you, you know.”

Maude stiffened at her mother’s name.

“I doubt that,” Maude muttered, the grip on her temper loosening more.

“A mother is always proud of her children, even if they don't necessarily make the same choices,” Alva said, eyeing the door Hakon had just escaped through.

“You didn’t know the relationship we had in the end,” Maude said, unable to stop herself.

Alva gave her a small, sympathetic smile .

“You’re wrong,” she said quietly before she walked back to the dais where the King stood.