Page 136 of In Violent Waves

“During the peace negotiations, my father got it in his head that a marriage between our courts was the answer.”

“Marriage?”

“Between me and Odette—the princess of the Mannereds.”

Lyra felt an uncomfortable twisting in her gut.

Wilder took a sip of his tea before setting the cup down on the table. His hand clenched into a fist.

“I couldn’t stomach the idea of being the heir to one throne, much less two. So, like the coward I was, I fled.”

Lyra gasped, covering her mouth with both hands.

“I wasn’t always chock full of duty.” He clenched his jaw. “I had planned to live among the humans, but was kidnapped by wulvers instead.”

Her gut twisted tighter, and she felt bile rise in the back of her throat. She had seen one of the wulvers outside a village they had passed through. They were nightmarish. Mottled fur and spindly legs.

“It took a decade or so for Oberon to broker my release. And I was tortured every day of that time.”

She couldn’t bear it. A heavy weight pressed down on her chest, making it difficult to breathe. Squeezing the arms of the chair, she met his gaze. “Why—why did it take so long to free you?”

Wilder shrugged and picked a speck of dust from his pant leg. “Oberon was making a point at first. I was a coward and deserved to be punished. I’m still not even sure what was promised to free me, but I have a feeling it came at great personal cost to him, for he hasn’t let me live it down a single moment of my life since.”

“I had sensed things were—off between you two, but not with your mother.”

He shook his head then. “No, she has tried to repair the rift between us. I don’t have the heart to tell her it is irreparable.”

“I can’t imagine.”

Wilder snorted. “Ifanyonecould imagine, it would be you.”

She thought back over her life. The contempt she felt for her father and the pain she had endured at his hands.

“I am sorry for your suffering,” she mumbled.

“And I am sorry for yours.”

They sat in silence for some time, sipping their tea and absorbing the stillness of the moment.

“How often do you come out here?”

Wilder frowned and tugged at his black tunic. The evergreen embroidery on his sleeves was nearly black, but Lyra could make out the stitching of a forest.

“Not enough. I felt guilty for fleeing, so now, all I know is duty. Which doesn’t offer a lot of?—”

“Free time,” she finished for him.

“Exactly,” he murmured, taking a sip of his tea.

“That’s unfortunate. I don’t think I would ever leave this place.”

He nodded, and she leaned back in her chair, watching the waves roll in and the surf crash against the rocks. She felt as if she should tell him the story of her horrors. Of being tortured by her father after she had run away.

But now didn’t feel like the time.

“I’m surprised you’re not already in the water,” he said, watching her stare with longing at the sea.

“I’m frightened.”