Page 176 of Prize for the King
We get discounts, the sellers happy to serve us. “Anything for Queen Caliane,” a seller of beautiful umbrellas says, adding a beautiful pair of red gloves to our purchase for free.
When I look at Magnar, he shakes his head in bafflement. Arvi stays on to question the seller and comes back, grinning from ear to ear.
“You won’t believe it. Caliane is hailed as the savior of peace in the Citadel! People say she sacrificed herself to marry the Tyrant and stop his march through the Eleven. The war is over thanks to her.”
Magnar laughs under his breath, looking a bit rueful. “Ah, yes, youmade an enormous sacrifice. You’re positively a martyr! There is no greater ordeal than being my wife.”
I scoff, shooting him a quelling look. “Oh, stop it. The Citadel has been the seat of the Master of Peace for centuries. People here abhor war and revere peace. I suppose that’s why they see it this way. I, for one, am happy. Hopefully, this message spreads fast to the kingdoms, and our ride home will be more pleasant.”
We watch a performance in the main square, men and women wearing skintight suits dancing in a way I’ve never seen before. Their bodies seem to be liquid, stretching inhumanely, and we clap along with everyone else, delighted and awed.
After the sky darkens, we stay to watch fire dancers, who wave around flaming balls on long chains to the rhythm of drums. Magnar holds my hand all the time and laughs a lot. He’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him.
Back at our apartment, he pulls me into the bedroom and closes the door. “I want to be alone with you tonight. Please. No feast today. We’ll eat in bed.”
He makes love to me, slow and sweet, and then we eat. Magnar feeds me bites of food with his fingers, watching my face with a dazed, loving smile, and I get lost in the pleasure and luxury of it. Oh, if only every day could be like this.
He fucks me again after we eat, and it’s rougher, almost desperate. He pulls out multiple times to kiss me, and his breath is hot and frantic, hands roaming me without stopping, as if he tries to memorize every inch of my skin. I kiss him back fervently, wishing I could say I love him. It would almostnotbe a lie.
When he makes me come lying on top of him, and my body locks him in, he rolls us to our sides and strokes my hair and back, my buttocks, my arms. When I try to shift away so I can see his face, he presses me to his chest with a growl.
“Stay, love. You have to stay like this. I need you.”
I don’t try to pull away again, and he caresses me with a happy sigh, his voice a low, pleased purr.
“What do you think we should name our baby? Have you thought about it?”
I shiver, tensing with unease I cannot place. “Um, I haven’t. It’s still very early.”
“Mmm. I’ve been thinking. I like Sameel for a boy. It’s an old name, true, quite unfashionable. But it means ‘beloved’. He will have all the love in the world, and I’d like to think he will be a good, just king, cherished by our people.”
I am quiet. There’s a tightness in my chest, sweat on my palms, and I don’t understand why I feel this way.
“I would love to have a son,” Magnar says, voice dropping into a soft whisper. “But I think I’d love a girl even more. A girl with your eyes, my hair, a vibrant little thing. I’d love to hear her laugh filling the halls of the keep. She’d give the knights gray hair, making them run after her or fish her out of ponds. What do you think? Could you be carrying a girl?”
I freeze completely. It’s like a carefully built structure in my mind shatters, revealing things I refused to see, things that terrified me so much, I kept them hidden in the dark. They are out, showing me their sharp teeth.
What if it’s a girl? What if I have a daughter? A girl. A girl. A girl.
My child.
What if Magnar hurts her?
I don’t breathe, lost in this horrible, illogical, terrifying revelation. The reason why I can’t love him. Why I keep forgetting I’m pregnant. Why nothing is as it should be.
“Caliane?” he asks. “Are you asleep?”
I force myself to take a deep, even breath and let it out slowly.He hums, taking my silence for confirmation, and I ease in another breath, then another, while I struggle with my fear.
Of course, Magnar won’t do to our daughter what my father did to me. But then—my mother must have thought the same thing. I’m certain it never crossed her mind to suspect my father of such deviance.
Then she was gone, and I had no one to protect me.
What if I am gone? What if Magnar hurts my daughter?
But he won’t, he won’t!
Except, I trusted my father, too. Until his very death, I was convinced I loved him. I tried so hard to grieve him and thought something was wrong with me. I am not a good judge of character. What if I’m wrong about Magnar?
