Page 136 of Prize for the King
“Thank you, my queen.”
We sit in silence for a while, and I let my feelings come close to the surface. There’s affection, gratitude, admiration. All the ingredients are there, but when I try to say it in my mind—I love Raduna—a fear presses at my heart, a slimy nauseating darkness similar to what I felt sitting in my father’s lap.
He’s not my father. He’s nothing like him!
Uncertainty creeps in, because how do I know? Of course, I know Raduna as a person. I know what he’s like, I know his passions, and I know I can rely on him. But what of other things?
“How did you get the scar on your face?” I ask softly.
Arvi turns, his eyes narrowed as he watches us without a word. Raduna takes a deep breath and stops kneading my shoulders.
“I’d prefer it if we were face to face for this conversation, my queen.”
I stiffen, instantly knowing I stepped into something serious. His voice is neutral and low, and I turn at once, searching his face. He looks sad. Oh, so very sad.
Clearing my throat, I get up and sit next to him, and Raduna nods.His hands lay in his lap, fingers uncurled but tense, and I take one into both of mine.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I remind him. I say that so often, it’s a wonder they haven’t realized what my predicament is about yet.
Though maybe it’s only obvious in my head.
“I’ll never hide anything from you,” he says seriously, looking into my eyes. Some of my darkness melts and softens.I believe him.
“You can tell me another time if today is too hard.”
He smiles with infinite understanding, the patchwork of his scars stretching into a new shape. “It will always be hard. The scar—I got it eleven years ago. I was twenty-eight. You don’t know this, because it’s something I have difficulty speaking of, but I was married back then. I had a family.”
My lips part with the faintest murmur of dismay. That simple word,had, conveys an ocean of sorrow.
“One night, I was out drinking with friends. We were farmers, and the reaping was finally over after a grueling harvest. My wife encouraged me to go out and celebrate, and I went gladly. We stayed out long into the night until one of my neighbors burst into the tavern, screaming that my house was on fire.”
I press my hand to my mouth to trap the sounds of pity lodging in my throat. Raduna’s face is calm, his voice almost serene, buthiseyes, oh, they brim with grief.
“I ran as fast as my legs allowed, but when I arrived, it was clear nothing could be done. I went inside anyway. We had a small cottage, just a kitchen with a sitting room, and the bedroom in the back. It had its own door. When I forced it open, I saw at once our bed was engulfed in flames. My wife was gone. But my daughter’s small bed was closer to the door, and miraculously, hadn’t burned yet.”
“You had a girl,” I whisper, almost choking on my words.
He nods slowly, and his fingers spasm in my palm. “She was five years old. I carried her out, grateful that I could save her, at least. But when I laid her in the grass, she wasn’t breathing. She suffocated from the smoke. I lost everything in one night.”
We sit in silence, and I swallow tears, desperate not to add the burden of my grief to his own. And still, a tear I can’t hold back rolls down my cheek. Raduna smiles sadly and wipes it away with a trembling hand.
“She’d be sixteen if she lived,” he says with infinite sadness and longing. “My sweet, pretty girl. I miss her every day. My wife, too, but my daughter the most.”
Oh, it’s so much worse than what I anticipated. Images of Raduna with a female Agnidari child with red hair race through my mind. I want to know what kind of dad he was. His daughter would have been like me, growing up with only a father.
I don’t know how to put my questions into words, and I have no right to pry into his pain. I clear my aching throat and squeeze his hand. “I am so, so sorry. It must have been terrible.”
He holds my gaze. “It was. But it’s in the past, Caliane. I learned how to live without getting crushed by it. That night, when I realized my child was dead, I tried to rush back into that house and die with her body in my arms, but my friends and neighbors held me back. I buried her by the ashes of our house and her mother, and I left the village. For a year, I wandered the country, doing odd jobs here and there for food and a place to sleep. Then Magnar became king and started building his army. I enlisted.”
“And now you’re here,” I whisper, feeling so guilty I can’t love this man.
He hums. “I’d never cheapen their death by saying it happened for a reason. That’s not how it was. But after it happened, kind fates led me to Magnar’s side on that battlefield. If not for me, Khay wouldbe dead. He was overrun by three skilled warriors and exhausted. I stepped in and chopped off their heads.”
He smiles, his eyes twinkling, and a surprised laughter bursts out of my throat. Even Arvi chuckles, still watching us carefully from his spot by the window.
“Magnar asked me three questions after I saved Khay: was I free of family ties, was I willing to stay celibate, and would I devote myself to him and his queen once he found her. I said yes to all. I meant it. I still do.”
“And he knighted you then and there,” I murmur, remembering that part. “He must have seen something in you. Loyalty. Strength.”
