Page 7 of Princes of the Outlands (The Castles of the Eyrie)
Chapter 7
Trei
The heavy snowfall had kept Trei up late, helping the castle’s woodcutter haul in extra logs for the two monstrous fireplaces at either end of Barendur Hold’s great hall. For most of the cold winter months, the castle’s servants and many townspeople from Barendur Village slept on the great hall’s floor for warmth. They even brought their livestock into the heated space so that now, cattle, sheep, and sleeping bodies covered the floor.
Though Trei shared an upper chamber with his brothers where they had cots and wooden chests for their clothes, they, too, tended to sleep in the great hall during this time of year, in part for the fireplaces’ heat and in part to show solidarity with their people.
When he finally finished with the wood and splashed icy water over his face and hands, most of the castle was asleep. He stepped carefully over the slumbering bodies until he reached the dais near the northern fireplace where his family laid their bedrolls. His father was asleep, but his two brothers’ bedrolls were empty.
Valenden was at the tavern, no doubt, keeping warm with a belly full of ale. But it wasn’t like Rangar to stay out all night.
Trei grabbed his wool bedroll and dragged it into the alcove near the courtyard with the yew tree. He looked back toward the great hall, where a few villagers were still awake chatting, a single musician toyed with his lute, and a few couples had absconded to the room’s shadowy corners and grunted and moaned under blankets.
“There you are.”
He twisted to find Saraj, yawning and wrapped in a blanket, shuffling up to him. She plunked down next to him, leaning her back against the wall. “Do you mean to freeze, sleeping out here practically in the courtyard?”
Her rejection from earlier in the day still stung, but he tried not to show his wounds. “Why are you awake so late?”
“I was waiting for you.” Mischief glittered in her eyes as she pulled a basket of raspberries from under her blanket. “I borrowed these for you from the kitchen. Figured you’d be hungry.”
All Trei could think about was the first time he’d caught her stealing when he’d been barely a teenage prince and she a scrappy orphan girl, and he’d spied her pilfering raspberries. Was this why she’d chosen raspberries now? To remind him of their history?
“When I got you the position at the falconry mews,” he said, popping a raspberry in his mouth, “I thought your little habit would come to an end.”
“Stealing?” She gave him a small smile. “Come on, you know that I never take anything valuable.”
“You do it for the thrill.”
She reached up to brush a spot of berry juice off his lip. “I do like thrills.”
Trei looked off toward the snow falling gently in the uncovered portion of the courtyard. Quietly, he said, “Is that why you don’t wish to marry me? Life with me wouldn’t be enough of a thrill?”
She took her time swallowing down another raspberry and then met his eyes directly. “Maybe. Yes, maybe that is it.”
His chest tightened at yet another rejection, but she rested her hand on his arm. “You’re a good man, Trei. You care about your people. You’ve been up all night hauling in extra wood to keep the villagers and livestock warm—do you think arrogant Prince Mars of the Mirien does that for his subjects?” Her eyelids lowered slightly. “Besides, every girl in his kingdom has a crush on you. They call you the Saint of Stolen Hearts behind your back. I can’t tell you how many jealous looks I get each day.”
By the saints, could she be any more beautiful like this, with the distant firelight warming her face?
“And yet I haven’t stolen your heart,” he said.
She sorted through the basket of berries but didn’t eat more. Finally, she whispered, “Are you so sure about that?”
A flutter of hope moved in his chest, but he quickly squashed it, unwilling to get his hopes up again.
“Saraj—”
“I love you, Trei.”
He froze. They had never spoken those words aloud, though he felt confident that she knew he’d been in love with her for years. After all, the entire kingdom knew.
He dared to raise his gaze to her face. Her lips were stained with red berry juice. Her green eyes were on fire.
“I love you, Trei,” she repeated. “Despite my best efforts not to fall in love with you, I have. I don’t think there’s any point in denying it to myself anymore, and the gods know how much I’ve tortured you by never saying it.” Her voice broke. “However, I don’t want to be queen. I’m scared by all that I’ll lose should I take that role.”
His throat was dry. “What of all you’ll gain?”
She threw up her hands. “I’m not suited to be queen, Trei! You know my past. Sacred hell, I’m an orphan…”
He dragged his thumb over her cheekbone. “You’re also the youngest head falconer the kingdom has ever seen.”
“I’m a thief…”
He dropped his thumb to the corner of her lips. “I don’t think they throw people in the dungeon for stealing raspberries.”
“I’m not a virgin.”
“Ha,” he barked. “And aren’t I glad for that.”
“Stop it, Trei. You know it will never work between us. I want you and only you—not what comes with you. The crown. The kingdom.”
Saraj rarely cried—she rarely showed any emotion at all. So the tears wetting her eyes made Trei spring into protective mode. He pulled her into his lap and wrapped his arms around her back.
He whispered, “You don’t have to be queen for us to be together.”
She sniffled as she leaned her head against his broad chest. “So you’ll take me as your whore while you marry someone else?” There was no barb in her words, only an honest question. “My mother, god rest her, would have wanted more for her daughter than to follow in her footsteps.”
What little they knew of Saraj’s mother had hinted at a disreputable lifestyle, but Trei had never actually heard Saraj admit that her mother was anything more than a vagabond.
“Of course not.” He gripped her face in his palm, forcing her to read the sincerity in her eyes. “If I’m with you, there will be no one else.”
She scoffed, “The crown heir of the Baersladen will never marry, then?”
“That’s right,” he said gravely. “If it isn’t with you, then I’ll remain unmarried.”
She stared at him, too shocked to wipe away her tears. She sputtered, “You have to marry.”
He smoothed a hand over her silky hair, letting his gaze fall to those berry-red lips. “I told you, Saraj, this isn’t like the Mirien. The same archaic rules don’t bind Baer royals. I can marry a commoner; I can also choose never to marry if I wish. Frankly, I can do whatever the hell I want once I’m king.”
Her eyes were drying. She shifted in his lap, tugging the blanket up further around the both of them. Trei silenced a groan—her sweet little ass was impossible to ignore against his hips.
“So we dine together and travel together and fuck together and never marry?”
He tilted his head up. “That hardly sounds like torture.”
She blinked slowly. “And…children?”
He adjusted her on his lap, finding the more she shifted her hips, the harder it was to focus. “Children are only bastards if their father never acknowledges them. If you bore me an heir, married or not, I would proudly proclaim that child as mine to every ruler in the Eyrie.”
She bit her lip, and he fought the urge to capture her berry-stained mouth and ravish her right there in the great hall alcove—they’d hardly be the first couple to make love under the cover of a blanket.
Cupping her jaw instead, he said sincerely, “I shall lay my heart bare: I want to marry you, Saraj. I want you to rule the Baersladen by my side as queen, and I do not doubt you’d make as strong a ruler as you do a head falconer. But if that is not your wish, then I’ll take whatever life I can get with you.”
The lingering tears in her eyes made her pupils look even bigger, and Trei found it harder and harder not to grab her around the waist and kiss her.
“Do you mean it?” she whispered.
“By the gods, what more do I have to say?”
She gave a small chuckle that made her cheeks turn pink. Under the wool blanket, her hand found his shirt collar, toying with the laces.
“Then you be the thief now, Trei Barendur, and steal a kiss.”
A wave of desire rushed through him. He grabbed the corners of her jaw with both hands, leaning in until their lips were a breath away.
“You’ll be mine, Saraj?”
“If you’ll be mine.”
She tasted like everything he knew she would—the raspberries, the woodsmoke from the fires, the hiss of snowfall. His hands pet down her body beneath the blanket until he found her hot center, and after a little more shifting, they were moaning together like the other couples throughout the shadowy perimeter of the great hall.
Trei meant what he had said: He fully believed she would be the kind of queen the Baersladen needed. Saraj was strong but not domineering, kind but decisive. He didn’t know if Saraj would ever be his queen, but he felt certain that now that their souls were intertwined, she would be the only woman to ever be his heart’s true love.