The bearers were well aware that their lives depended on their skill. I remained perfectly still, even though I knew the knives brushing my skin were held with cautious hands. I lay naked, facedown on a stone- hard table, my eyes focused on the floor beneath me while strangers scraped my back with dull knives. By this point, numbness had overtaken me, but then midday approached, and my heart galloped again as I faced the last of the steps that kept here from there. The prescribed liturgies passed as they were ordained, the rituals and rites as each had been precisely laid out, all a testament to the greatness of Morrighan and the Remnant from which it was born. I pushed away from the window, fogged with my own breath, and left the endless hills of Morrighan to their own worries. I closed my eyes against the thought, knowing that soon the day would cleave in two, forever creating the before and after of my life, and it would happen in one swift act that I could no more alter than the color of my eyes. There was no escaping what was to come.įor good or bad, the hours were closing in. It was the first of June, but cold gusts bit at the hilltop citadel as fiercely as deepest winter, shaking the windows with curses and winding through drafty halls with warning whispers. " Who was this girl who thumbed her nose at two kingdoms and did as she pleased? I wanted to know.Today was the day a thousand dreams would die and a single dream would be born. I was angry because she’d had the courage to do what I hadn’t." I’d thought of it long ago, when the marriage was first proposed by my father, but he had convinced me the union was for the good of Dalbreck and everyone would look the other way if I chose to take a mistress after the marriage. “I wasn’t angry because she’d thought of bolting before I did. I was probably the most untried soldier in history.” I was an accomplished soldier, due in no small part to him, excelling in all my training, which only made it all the more biting. I had spent more years under Sven’s tutelage than I had with my own parents. I was given to him as apprentice at eight, became a cadet at twelve, pledged at fourteen, and was a fully appointed soldier by sixteen. The Prince reveals that "Princess Arabella" sent a note, asking to "inspect him" before the wedding - and now, she will. He asks Sven to tell the King and Queen he is sulking at the summer lodge. With his extensive military training and tracking skills, the Prince believes he can find Lia quickly. The Prince insists it's about curiosity, not anger, but Sven isn't fooled. Sven, his friend and mentor, tries to talk him out of it to no avail. The Prince prepares to go after Lia, having been jilted. Kiss of Deception, Chapter 4 The King of Dalbreck has taken Lia's flight as a grave insult and has deployed extra soldiers to border garrisons, intent on a show of force to Morrighan.
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