Page 144 of Grim and Oro
Enya slams her new drink on the table. “You will never guess what that barkeep told me.” She turns to me. “Since when are we keeping secrets from each other?”
I blink. “What?”
Her face falls. “You don’t know, then.”
“Don’t know what?” Zed asks from behind her.
I can tell from her expression that Enya doesn’t know if my ignorance is good or bad news. She doesn’t know how I’m going to take it.
“Your brother is betrothed.”
My first thought is to say,No, he isn’t. But I haven’t seen him in days. Ever since he became king, a gap has opened between us. Instead, I say, “To who?”
“Aurora.”
Zed howls in laughter. “Oh no. Your brother surely doesn’t deserve that.”
Enya sighs. “It’s no secret she’s been infatuated with him for a while.”
She’s putting it lightly. The Starling ruler has trailed my brother around for as long as I can remember. Back when we were children, she was only an heir. Then her parents died in a freak accident, an explosion in the Starling castle stables while they were preparing for a ride. In the blink of an eye, Aurora became one of the youngest rulers in history.
“I still think she killed them,” Zed says, then takes a sip of his new drink.
Calder shoots him a look.
Zed lifts his hands, palms to the air. “What? She wouldn’t be the first to kill for power.”
Enya shakes her head. “No. We heard her, me and Oro. Right before her crowning ceremony. She was a wreck. Sobbing. Still mourning her parents.”
And Egan was holding her, as she cried in his arms. I can’t believe I’m finding out this way. I grip the table, and Enya notices.
“It’s for political reasons, of course,” she says. “Starling is strong as ever. An alliance between them makes sense.”
I must look unconvinced, because she continues. “The war fractured this island. Your brother always puts the good of the people first. It means nothing.”
I consider what Egan said to me aboutduty. She’s right. If anyone would marry purely for political reasons, it’s him.
Zed throws back another drink. “Do you think they’ll have to share a bed?” He frowns. “She’s attractive, but there’s something a little scary about her, isn’t there? She’s always glaring at me.”
“I wonder why,” Enya says wryly, as Zed polishes off her drink.
Calder looks pensive. “This would be the first marriage between rulers.”
He’s right. My parents were both Sunling. My mother was from a noble family, but she was not of royal blood.
“It will certainly make a statement,” Enya says.
She’s right. But I’m not sure if it’s going to be a good one.
Marriage will create unity ... but it might also be a sign of too much consolidated power.
Enya turns to me. “When areyougoing to marry?” I shoot her a look. She shrugs and takes another sip of her drink. “What? I’m tired of people assuming we’re together. When women aren’t drooling over you, they’re glaring at me.” I would say Enya’s exaggerating, but I’m not impervious to the looks. The whispers.
“And it would be nice have another woman in the group.” Enya frowns at us. “No offense, but sometimes you all stink, and maybe if another woman was here to tell you, you’d believe me.”
Zed’s smile is poisonous. “We stink because we actually move all day, instead of letting our flames fight for us.”
At that, a wisp of flame uncurls from Enya’s palm, knocking one of Zed’s drinks to the side. Before it spills on Calder, he freezes it, and it falls to the table, shattering. Zed pops a piece of the frozen drink in his mouth, and Enya rolls her eyes.
