Page 64 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Irefused to give much credence to the bone-deep relief I felt when the weight of Enora’s head settled against my shoulder or how her exhausted sigh made my chest ache a little. There were already too many damned things I needed to unpack about this woman’s forceful insertion into my life.

Enora’s resiliency going into the initium was not something I doubted—she’d thoroughly proved how headstrong she was in the exceedingly short time I’d known her.

I had even instructed Gallan to be dangerously lax in his assessment of how fit she was to continue, because that was my only genuine fear—she would never cede, but he might find himself forced to decide for her. The looming potential of having to navigate the bargain I’d sealed if she was disqualified left me pacing in the atrium, surrounded by people I didn’t have patience for.

The cards, drinks, and general merriment that came with waiting for the contestants to complete their initiation grated on me in a way it never had.

How Jasper slipped right into it all, like nothing was at stake, was beyond me. He took a seat at one of the hauled in tables, took a hand of cards, and didn’t glance my direction again until his swift departure at sunrise. Clearly, he was vexed with me over the terms of my bargain with Enora—as if we’d had any other tangible option. He’d rambled all goddess-damned day about how I should’ve been more forthcoming about how she and I had bound ourselves to each other, about how bargains like these really worked. To me, they were pointless semantics to someone staring down her death otherwise.

But Jasper could hold a grudge worse than anyone I’d ever known.

“You’re going so fast.” Enora’s raspy mumble tore me right from my thoughts, and I glanced down at her.

Her eyes remained shut, but she creased her brow and curled her fingers tightly into my shirt. I possibly had been taking the winding steps out of the caves two at a time with no consideration for her comfort, being jostled around in my arms.

“Sorry about that. Just want to get you upstairs.”

“S’okay.” Enora licked her lips and seemed to wage some internal battle as her brow knit farther and her jaw tensed, but all she did was sigh. I wasn’t going to press her.

Against my instincts, I took the rest of the steps at a slower pace. Enora had settled again once I leaned my weight into the door leading back into the lower halls and headed away from the atrium. The last thing either of us needed was to be confronted by a few dozen drunk or delirious Elixia members. Thankfully, the Keep had plenty of means of discreet travel.

A few brief moments, and we were heading up another enclosed staircase that staff made the most use of, exiting onto the central hall of the second floor. Well, away from the rumble of laughter and noise rolling up from the atrium.

Just as I’d asked of her earlier, Malva was waiting for us a short distance from Enora’s bedroom. There were few staff I’d trust the princess with in such a vulnerable state, but there were also not many who’d shown up the day after I beheaded my father and demanded they be given a job. Even fewer still I would’ve granted a role to. Malva’s mother had served as one of a gaggle of Umbrite women my own mother had trusted implicitly to keep her house running, and she should’ve been among their numbers one day.

Even though Malva had been a fixture in the Keep for years now, I could never fight off the pang of guilt I felt whenever I saw her. The crippling injuries she’d sustained in the desperate lines of work she took on with all the other women who were exiled from the palace after my mother’s execution were just impossible for me to rationalize.

“She actually did it?” Malva asked, her raspy voice unmistakably awestruck as she scoured Enora’s half-conscious frame with her single, green-black eye, her hands clasped in front of her. Her other eye was nothing but an empty socket now, covered with a mess of scarred flesh, courtesy of a disgruntled brothel patron some decades ago.

“Mina, give her some credit,” I chuckled. “She did well.”

Malva’s mouth gaped, and she hobbled after me. “That’s not what I meant. She’s just…” Malva frowned. “Never mind.”

I cocked my head at her, but Malva waved me off, reaching up to untie Enora’s sandals even as we were still walking. Ever the one to not waste time. Malva managed to remove one, tucking it under her arm, and had just undone the knot on the other when Enora let out a low whine.

The princess shifted in my arms, turning her face farther into my chest as she gripped my jacket a little tighter, and I slowed my pace dramatically. Her room was so damned close, but she let out another noise of discomfort I wasn’t sure how to handle. Malva was clearly undeterred as she finished unwrapping Enora’s other sandal and hobbled briskly to open the door.

“Everything alright?” I asked quietly.

Enora let out a huff to put all others to shame. “Don’t wanna see him again,” she mumbled, though I wasn’t confident I’d heard her correctly.

I didn’t exactly have anything to say to her either, so I yielded to Malva’s impatient waving over, hurrying the rest of the way to Enora’s room. At least we had a measure of privacy with the door shut behind us.

“Maksym,” the princess warbled, and I tensed. Enora was looking up at me, her hazel eyes awash with tears and her chin trembling. “Don’t wanna see him again.”

Goddess below, maybe I was just exhausted, but I couldn’t fathom what she meant. My mouth opened and closed twice in my confusion before I asked, “Who don’t you⁠—”

“Don’t worry, miss. You won’t see anything else; your mind’s clear of it all now.” Malva was there suddenly, smoothing back Enora’s damp strands and fixing me with a brief, annoyed glance that solidified how lost in my damned head I was.

I’d pulled Enora out of the initium; of course, there was someone or something she didn’t want to see again. Her mind probably treated her to an entire evening of particularly unsettling images, as it did for most participants.

Thankfully, that reassurance seemed to do all the work needed.

“Now, can you stand for me?” Even with the hardened rasp in Malva’s voice, the result of another patron incident, she could rein it in to something downright gentle when she needed to. “I’ve salted broth here for you; help get your strength back.”

Enora let out a bone-deep sigh, already squirming to get out of my hold. “I think so.”

I doubted that statement, but I didn’t have any choice in helping the wholly unsteady woman onto her feet as she nearly tumbled right out of my arms. Her knees didn’t seem to want to support any weight, and she swayed right into me with a quiet curse, but Malva was already stuffing a broth-filled mug into her hand and guiding it up to her mouth.