Page 4 of The Royal Curse

What had Mama told him? To treat me like a child, because I acted like one? It certainly seemed so. Her instructions weren’t his fault, but how he acted on them was entirely his responsibility. Apparently he’d chosen to participate in my humiliation rather than minimize it. And I didn’t appreciate it.

“Fine,” I said, with poor grace. “We’ll ride out.” I needed the fresh air more than ever, and stomping off to my rooms without even going out, when I’d clearly intended to, would be the act of a sulky brat.

“Don’t you want the answer to your last question, Your Highness?”

My last question. What had I…and then I realized. Would he really dare? Only one way to find out.

“Go ahead,” I said.

He’d been gazing out at some distant point over the top of my head in true soldier-approved fashion, but as I gave my permission, his eyes snapped down to mine. “I understand you’re a scholar, Your Highness, and I expect you’re far more intelligent than I am. I don’t think you’re stupid at all. But you need to believe me when I tell you: neither am I. I’ve sworn an oath to my queen to protect you with my life, which includes sticking to you like glue, no matter what. And only a very, very stupid man would disobey Queen Melena.”

Well, message received: if I tried to sneak off, he wouldn’t let me get away with it. And much as I wished to, I could hardly argue with his desire to stay on my mother’s good side. He’d shown sufficient tact that I couldn’t really bite his head off, either.

That said…

I raised an eyebrow of my own. Mine were peaked and quite dark against my pale skin. He couldn’t out-eyebrowme, the fucker.

“Which is it, then? Since you’re only here because I disobey Queen Melena on the regular. Am I stupid? Or not?”

A brick-red flush flooded Andreas’s tanned cheeks, and he bit his lip.

Suddenly, he looked years younger. Gods, how oldwashe? A soldier’s life could age a man, I supposed, but sheepish and shifty like this, Andreas could’ve been five years younger than I was rather than slightly older.

“You’re Her Majesty’s son,” he said at last. “The same rules don’t apply to you. I assume she doesn’t have you sent off to guard one of the royal gold mines in the mountains when you don’t do as she says.”

I couldn’t help laughing this time, little as I wanted to unbend. But I tended to have a time limit on my temper. That might owe more to resignation than to natural calm, but I’d learned, since my magic manifested at thirteen and then started trying to kill me at fifteen, that it didn’t do a lot of good to shake your fists at the sky, my moment of rebellion in Philippa’s study earlier notwithstanding.

Allowing myself to be amused by this insolent fellow didn’t mean I liked him.

“No, she doesn’t,” I agreed. “Instead, she’s chosen to saddle me with you.”

The corner of Andreas’s lips twitched, and his eyes gleamed. “She does seem to favor punishing thosenotin her favor by putting us—I mean them, of course—in company they wouldn’t choose.”

That—actually hurt, a little twinge beneath my breastbone. Twilight mages, with our reputation as the gods’ least favored children, weren’t anyone’s favorite choice of company. That didn’t make it more pleasant to have it rubbed in.

“Touché,” I muttered, and turned away. “Speaking of saddling, get your horse ready, Andreas. I’d like to be back before dinnertime.”

“Your Highness, I didn’t mean—”

“Now, if you please,” I said, in a tone that anyone who served royalty would recognize as an absolute command.

“As you wish, Your Highness,” he said quietly.

We didn’t speak another word the entire ride. When we returned, he escorted me silently to the doors of my suite, bowed, and disappeared down the corridor.

He didn’t need to say anything. I knew he wouldn’t be going far or giving me any breathing room. My mother had made sure of that.

“Your new guard’s not very friendly, is he?” Amara whispered, bumping her shoulder against mine. “Not hard on the eyes, though.”

“Are you—your eyes must be broken,” I hissed in reply, and then quickly spun around and put my very stiff back to the parapet of my suite’s terrace as Andreas started to walk along the path below us. His tall, dark, nearly silent figure was distinguishable mainly by the breadth of his shoulders. You couldn’t even pick him out of the night by moonlight glinting off of his weapons or armor; he had his sword hilt wrapped in leather and wore his chain mail under a black tunic with black trousers and black boots. The all-black ensemble wasn’t just for guard duty, either. I’d never seen him in anything else.

Very practical. And while I preferred function over form too, that didn’t make his aggressively competent midnight prowling under my windows any less irritating. “Shut up, will you?” I growled at Amara. “Hiseyes and ears work just fine.”

Amara sighed, shook her head, and leaned over the edge. Framed by the vines that grew all over the pillars and hung down from the roof, she looked like something out of a tale: a girl waiting for her lover to climb up for a kiss.

Ugh. Perhaps I ought to trade rooms with her. This terrace, with its potential for romance, was entirely wasted on me.

“We can talk,” she said after a moment, leaning back up again and propping her hip on the parapet to face me. “He’s gone. Doing his rounds again. Does he sleep? He knows Surbino hasn’t been attacked in fifty years, doesn’t he? And that there are guards on the walls of the palace in any case? And that if someone did want to sneak in and murder someone, they’d go after Mama or Phil, not you?”

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