Page 13 of The Nightmare Bride

“For a time. But if she’d outlived Kyven, Hightower would’ve taken her in. You understand?”

My throat went dry. He’d said if , but an unspoken, unmistakable when hung in the air.

When Amryssa outlived Kyven.

Olivian stared, his eyes as hard and flat as chips of green glass. His words writhed in my mind until the shape of his plans came into focus.

“Seven hells,” I breathed. All this time, I’d glimpsed the tip of the iceberg without once suspecting a behemoth lurked beneath. “The king didn’t banish Kyven here at all. He sent him to die. His own son. That’s what your half of the marriage bargain was. To make the prince disappear.”

Olivian said nothing.

“It’s true, then?” I continued. “Kyven’s a monster? A...killer? So awful his own father wants him gone?”

The seneschal made a gruff, affirmative sound.

I sat back, my mind awhirl. “But who was supposed to kill him? If Kyven had married Amryssa, he eventually would’ve tried to hurt her, and?—”

It clicked.

A bitter laugh fell from my lips. “Oh, goddess. You wanted me to do it. I would’ve murdered him the moment he touched her, and then you could’ve shipped Amryssa to the capital without getting your hands dirty. I would’ve been the one to bear the punishment. Is that right?”

He busied himself rearranging a brass paperweight. “That’s about the shape of it, yes.”

Cold white silence cloaked my mind. Holy shit. Olivian had set me up. He’d taken my measure with frightening precision, then staked Amryssa’s life on my homicidal tendencies. If only I hadn’t swapped places with her, things would’ve happened exactly as he’d wanted.

“You can hate me all you like,” he said roughly, “but you will fix this. I don’t care what I have to threaten you with.”

I breathed deep. “You don’t have to threaten me at all, actually. And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but...I don’t hate you. Not for this. I think... I think...”

Kyven’s words from just minutes ago came tumbling back. I think I’m rather impressed .

“I didn’t know you had it in you,” I said. “I really, really didn’t. More importantly, I didn’t realize you wanted better for Amryssa. I always thought you didn’t care.”

“Of course I care. I’m her father.” Olivian’s voice was cold, but now I sensed an untapped depth beneath the words.

“You and I both know these nightmares are killing her. One of these days, she’ll get loose.

And when that happens, we’ll lose her. Better she be safe somewhere far away than gone forever. ”

Numbness chewed at my limbs. I flexed my fingers, trying to coax some sensation back into my deadened hands.

“And if you must know,” Olivian continued, “Amryssa means more to me than my territory. I care about Oceansgate more than I care about myself, but for her, I’d let it burn.”

The sentiment scoured out my insides. All this time, our purposes had aligned, only I’d been too stubborn to realize. Too hard-headed to consider that Olivian’s gruffness and inflexibility might conceal deep caring.

I laid my hands on his desk, palms up. It was a gesture of apology, and supplication.

“Goddess, if I’d known, I never would’ve switched places with her.

I mean, I get why you didn’t tell me. You were trying to toss me off a cliff.

But the thing is, I would’ve let you. I would’ve jumped on my own, if you’d just come to me and explained.

Kyven and Amryssa could’ve said their vows, and then I would’ve waited outside her door until she screamed.

And once I’d sunk my dagger into his back, I would’ve held out my wrists for your new lawmen.

I would’ve been honored to let them take me away. ”

He eyed me. “Would you?”

“For her? Yes. Anything.”

His posture eased as his fury subsided, some. “Well, you can still do that. Once your marriage is annulled.”

“Yes. Give me some paper.”

He pushed a fountain pen and parchment into my hands.

I bent over the desk. The pen’s nib scratched furrows into the silence, inked pleas flowing from my fingers. I detailed what I’d done and begged for a chance to rectify the mistake.

“I realize you love her,” Olivian said gruffly, once I’d finished. “Perhaps I should’ve trusted that more than I did.”

“You definitely should have. You should’ve told me everything. If you had, I could’ve been in prison already. Amryssa would be on her way to Hightower right now.”

He made a thoughtful sound. Long moments passed, but the abrasiveness of our usual dynamic had faded—for once, we actually understood each other.

“So now what?” I said.

Olivian dripped wax onto my letter and stamped it with Oceansgate’s seal. “It’ll take a month for this letter to reach the king. Then another for the annulment certificate to arrive back here. Once it does, you and Kyven will sign it, and Amryssa will marry him, as planned.”

“And then I’ll kill him?”

“Yes.”

A small, sad smile etched itself on my face. “Because all the king wants is a convenient death for his son, in some faraway backwater where no one will look too closely?”

“Precisely,” Olivian said. “At which point Amryssa will be a widowed princess, in need of care.”

I huffed out a dead laugh. Dear goddess, I’d come so perilously close to breaking this. I’d nearly let Kyven make me his wife in full. I’d wanted to.

Clearly, something was deeply, deeply wrong with me. Merron was lucky I’d cut him loose.

“You might be given a life sentence,” Olivian said. “I’ll do what I can to avoid that outcome, but I have very little influence.”

“I’d appreciate you trying.”

He nodded, businesslike. “While we wait for the annulment, I want you by Kyven’s side at all times. Don’t let him near Amryssa. Or any other woman in this house, for that matter.”

Bitterness flooded my tongue. “You mean...you want me to babysit him?”

“Yes.”

“What about at night?”

“Especially then. He can’t be permitted to go prowling the halls. You’ll have to keep him in your room.”

“Oh, great.” A laugh scraped up my throat, but I’d dug this hole myself. Now I would have to dig myself out.

“And try not to kill him. Not yet. If he makes an attempt on you, you’ll have to deflect it without slitting his throat.”

I grumbled. “Now you’re just taking the fun out of it.”

His gaze thinned.

I raised open palms. “Sorry, sorry. Just kidding. Sort of.”

“Hilarious,” Olivian said stonily. “And do not, under any circumstances, consummate this marriage. If you do, the annulment will be out of reach forever.”

The memory of Kyven’s tongue stirred a crackling heat inside me, but I shoved the feeling down into the darkest parts of myself. Of which there were plenty, apparently. “Come on. Do you really think I’d stoop so low?”

“You’re young. Which is synonymous with idiotic. And Kyven’s pretty. Prettier than Merron, at least. Even I can see that much.”

Blood crept into my cheeks. I hadn’t realized Olivian knew about my dalliances with the steward, but apparently I’d misjudged a whole fuck of a lot. “I’m twenty-seven, not a teenager. I can control my baser urges, thanks. Not that they were ever that depraved to begin with.”

“Good.” Olivian’s attention slid to the corner. He startled, so subtly that I almost missed it, but then that look crept over him again. Haunted. Hunted.

With our typical animosity stripped away, I found the courage to finally ask.

“What’re you looking at?” I said. “When you do that. Who is it you’re seeing?”

Olivian’s jaw flexed. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer, but he grunted and said, “My wife.”

My eyebrows rose. “Amryssa’s mother, you mean?”

He looked away. Not toward the corner again, just...not at me.

“You can see her even though she’s gone?” I pressed.

He sighed, irritated. “If she is, that hasn’t stopped her from expressing her displeasure at how I’ve handled things with our daughter.”

I frowned. “Is that why you want to send Amryssa away, then? Because her mother’s ghost tells you to?”

He emitted a cold bark of laughter. “No. Just the opposite. She keeps asking me to turn Amryssa loose. Into the marsh.”

My gut lurched. “What? No. Don’t listen to her. She’s not real.”

“I know. It feels that way sometimes, but...” He picked at his leather blotter. “I know. It’s just a splinter of the nightmares, lodged in my brain. Mostly, I ignore her.”

I nodded, only halfway mollified. I’d never met the Lady Marche—she’d died before I’d been made keymistress, one of the nightmares’ earliest casualties.

But Amryssa always spoke of her mother in reverent tones, and in Oceansgate, people whispered about how deeply the seneschal had loved his wife.

Back then, they said, Olivian had governed fairly.

Only after the Lady’s death had he descended into callousness and obstinacy.

“That was hers, you know.” He gestured to the dagger. “Before that was yours, it belonged to my wife.”

I startled. He’d never so much as hinted at the dagger’s provenance before. Briefly, I considered asking for more, then decided it wasn’t worth the trouble. The weapon wouldn’t belong to me for much longer.

Because... Shit. I’d left Amryssa alone with Kyven, hadn’t I? The very thing Olivian had asked me not to do. “Well, thanks for the chat.” I stood, itching to go.

“Harlowe.”

I paused.

“My daughter’s lucky to have you.” He grimaced, then swallowed, as if the sentiment had sliced his tongue on the way out and now required him to gulp down a mouthful of blood.

Probably not far from the truth. “Thanks,” I said, then smiled thinly and closed the door, leaving him to his darkness and ghosts.

On my way back upstairs, the magnitude of my mistake dragged at me like ballast. I’d been so sure that marrying Kyven equated to a masterstroke of strategy, but now I was sickened by what I’d done.

I’d jeopardized Amryssa’s welfare. Come this close to robbing my best friend of a future.

At least Olivian had gotten my head on straight. And, knowing what I did now, I could fix it. I could bide my time, unmask my new husband’s darkness for myself, and dispense with him when the time came.

I would clean up the awful mess I’d made, whatever it took.