Page 28 of The Orc's Princess Bride
“But they’re not his words!”
“The words align perfectly with everything else,” he growled. “The coded messages about grain shipments. The missing silk used to bribe the stable hand who sabotaged the patrol route. The assassination attempt that nearly succeeded.”
With each accusation, her eyes grew wider. “You think I—” She stopped, her voice failing her. “You think I’m part of a conspiracy to kill you?”
“The evidence speaks for itself.”
She stared at him, and something in her expression shifted from shock to a dawning, terrible understanding.
“Last night meant nothing to you,” she said softly. “You shared your fears with me, you let me comfort you, you kissed me—and still, you think me capable of this?”
The reminder of his vulnerability, of what they’d shared, stoked his rage higher. “A clever performance,” he said coldly. “I commend your skill.”
“You want to believe I betrayed you?” She stopped, swallowing hard. “You would rather believe I am a traitor than trust what is between us?”
“There is nothing between us,” he said, the words cutting his own heart as deeply as they must cut hers. “There never was.”
She flinched as if he had struck her, her composure cracking. For a moment, she looked small and lost, a girl far from home, surrounded by enemies. But then her face hardened into something he’d never seen before—a cold, regal fury that matched his own.
“How dare you,” she whispered, her voice shaking. “After everything—after I tended your wounds, after I came to you in the night?—”
“After you arranged for me to be crushed under a rockslide,” he cut in. “After you plotted with Lasseran against my kingdom.”
“I did none of those things!” Her voice rose, echoing in the vast chamber. “I would never betray you or Norhaven! That letter is not from my father! Someone is trying to frame me!”
“A convenient defense.”
“It’s the truth!” Her eyes filled with tears, but they were tears of rage, not fear. “Elspeth gave me that letter last night. She said a messenger from my father had just arrived. I was exhausted, distracted. I took it to my room, read it, and knew immediately something was wrong.”
“Elspeth,” he repeated flatly. “Your Almohadi lady-in-waiting.”
“Yes, and I believe she’s the one working for Lasseran, not me!”
He laughed humorlessly. “So now you accuse your own servant? How convenient.”
“She’s been feeding me information, little hints about traitors in the keep. She suggested I write a note to the Captain of the Guard about suspicious activity. She drafted it for me. She’s been manipulating me, and I was too blind to see it.”
The explanation was so outlandish, so desperate, that it only hardened his resolve. She was grasping at straws, throwing blame at an easy target.
“Enough,” he growled. “I want the truth, Jessamin. Now.”
“I’ve given you the truth!” Her voice cracked with frustration. “I am not working with Lasseran! I would never betray you!”
“Then explain why your father is negotiating with him!”
“He wouldn’t! He sent me here to protect me from Lasseran!”
“Protect you?” he said bitterly. “By sending you to marry a Beast? Sending you to a kingdom of monsters? That’s how a father protects his precious daughter?”
“Yes!” she cried, her hands balled into fists at her sides. “Yes, because Lasseran is the real monster, not you, not your people!”
Her words battered him, but he refused to let her see the impact. He’d been a fool once; he wouldn’t be again.
“You expect me to believe that your father, the Priest King of Almohad, sent his only daughter to marry an orc to protect her from his own kind?”
“Yes, because—” She stopped, something like terror flashing across her face.
“Because what?” he demanded.
