Page 26 of Bride to the Fiend Prince
Andreas—the king’s chief sorcerer, the one who bound my body with his green lines of magic, who scorched my tongue when I wanted to protest my marriage to the Fiend Prince.
“That’s a very disturbing and invasive notion,” I said haughtily, drawing the robe more tightly around myself. “How long is this ‘blended energy’ discernible after the—after the coupling?”
“For a week or two,” said Onwe. He puckered his broad lips, regarding me and the Prince with serious brown eyes. “I know this makes things awkward, but I thought it fair to warn you.”
“You excel at making things awkward, Onwe,” sighed the Prince. “But we thank you for the warning.” He rose unsteadily and embraced the healer, who muttered something in his ear and clapped his thin shoulder firmly. With a nod to me, Onwe glided from the room.
“Thank you!” I called after him again, and he lifted a hand in response.
I knotted the belt of the robe and paced around the room, rolling my shoulders and testing the freshly healed skin and muscle of my back. Everything seemed to be whole and functional. Experimentally I punched one of the chair cushions and was rewarded with a spray of feathers.
“You seem even stronger than before,” said the Fiend Prince.
“You sound as though you disapprove.”
“Not at all,” he yawned. “But I am heartily jealous.”
I turned toward the bed. Though I was looking at his normal face, austere and handsome, I couldn’t help picturing the seeping, rotting wound of a countenance that had shocked me last night.
“You’re remembering what you saw,” he said. “Horrible, wasn’t it? I knew it would affect your view of me.”
“Not really.” I shook my head. “Perhaps I pity you more now.”
“Pity?” He scoffed. “Pity. How delightful. Exactly the emotion a husband wants to evoke in his new wife.” He rolled over in the bed, burying his head under a pillow.
I stalked to his bedside and jerked the pillow away. “We need to talk about this,” I said. “Do you think what Onwe said is true? Will a sorcerer be testing me? Will they be able to tell that we haven’t been together?”
He kept his face pressed to the sheets, his black hair tumbling in a wavy mess over his ears. “It’s possible,” he muttered. “I’ve heard of court nobles having their wives magically tested when they suspected infidelity—that sort of thing.”
“So there’s truth in it. Damn.” I sank onto the edge of the bed. “If the sorcerer tests me, and he finds out we’ve been lying, what will the Dreadlord do?”
23
The Prince didn’t answer my question at once.
“Galanrae.” I gripped his shoulder. “What will your father do when he finds out you haven’t bedded me?”
“Nothing good.” He flipped over, staring up at me with eyes that shone like dark stars in his thin face. “He might have you imprisoned, punished, removed from your station as my wife—that last is unlikely, though. To my people, the bond of marriage is untouchably sacred. It is meant to last a lifetime, and separations are rare among Terelonian couples.”
“Then if not separation, what else might the Dreadlord do?”
The Prince turned his head away, and I saw a faint flush on his cheek. “My father might decide to supervise our consummation personally. To force it.”
This was what I’d feared, but hearing it said aloud was a shock to my very soul.
I’d heard of kingdoms where royal wedding nights were supervised by nobles and courtiers, where ambassadors and high-ranking officials bore witness to the coupling of the pair. But those were the shocking customs of faraway kingdoms. Brintzia had never followed such traditions, nor did most of the nations around us. After all, some royal pairs in neighboring countries consisted of two women or two men, and creating an heir wasn’t considered so all-important. In this part of the world, we were more enlightened, more civilized—or so I had thought.
Apparently Terelaus was the exception.
I could imagine the horror of being forced, of having my last few choices stripped away. It wasn’t something I’d ever expected to face, being raised under my father’s protection in the safety of the palace. Every time I’d grown anxious about my future husband, I’d reminded myself of my father’s promise to me—that he would let me choose. That I could marry for love.
Never again would I trust in a man’s promise to protect me. Because of my father’s broken vow, I was trapped here, running out of options.
“I won’t do it,” said the Prince fiercely. “I won’t do that to you. They can’t make me.”
“They could probably find a way to get your seed inside me,” I said. “Magically or otherwise.”
“Then I’ll help you escape,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here, somehow. There’s the passage Onwe used to get in—maybe I could smuggle you out that way. I could bribe someone to help—”
