Page 34 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
Adriana had been the Stolen Princess. I was the Lost Daughter. How ironic.
The forehead and chin always gave my family away. Strong and stubborn, my mother used to say. I clenched my haw. I needed to remember who I was. “Yes, I am.”
Zandyr narrowed his eyes. “Then why did you tell me you can’t do magic?”
Ah. So that’s why he’d given me his real name, not as some grand gesture of trust.
“Because I can’t.” I took a step back, suddenly cold. His hands fell to his sides. “I never learned how.”
Not properly, at least. Sometimes I thought I could sense magic, but it might have just been wishful thinking.
Zandyr tilted his head to the side again. Analyzing. Calculating.
“But I want to learn,” I said, meaning it as a threat.
“Good.”
I gawked. Just like that? “That would make me more powerful.”
“Obviously. My Clan needs a strong queen.”
I blinked my surprise away. How far could I push my luck? “That means I have to talk to one of my cousins. Alone.”
The Protectorate guarded their spells and magic. Every Clan did. We didn’t know how the Blood Brotherhood’s magic worked, just that it involved blood. Only a Clan member could teach the proper spells to another. They wouldn’t work if you read or stole them.
“Of course you do.” There was that icy smirk again; like he didn’t believe what I said, but played along.
“And–” I gulped. “I have some men I need to find.”
The short one with the scar that ran all the way from his top lip to his eyebrow.
The one with the eagle tattoo on his wrist.
The one who was tall as a pine tree, had one blue eye, the other black.
The three assassins. With Fabrian dead, finding them would be more difficult. But not impossible. If those hadn’t beenhis men, someone else had wanted my parents dead and me delivered back to Aquila, and I had to discover who.
“Planning on starting a harem already?” Zandyr asked with a bite in his tone. There was a sudden tension in his neck, tendons bulging. “As your future husband, I would be in my rights to, shall we say, make them vanish.”
“As if I need more men and murder in my life.” I grimaced. “They have something I need.”
Answers. How they found us, and, most importantly,why.
The strain in his shoulders loosened. "As long as you don't threaten me or my Clan, don’t leave the palace grounds unescorted, and stick to the contract’s clauses, do whatever you want.”
After a lifetime of being told what to do and how to think, it sounded too easy. "Whatclauses?"
"No cheating.” He sent another slashing grin my way that should not have made my breath hitch. “No subterfuge, no assassinations. The usual."
Way too easy. "What else?"
Zandyr’s mighty brows furrowed. "That's it. You'll have a copy of the contract soon, you can look over it."
It wasn’t possible. Nothing in this life was simple.
Or maybe my existence had been that awful until now.OrI needed to be even more careful around the prince than I’d imagined.
I narrowed my eyes, suspicion coursing through me. “What happens after that?”
