Page 73 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

Amoment of peace was too much to ask for in Grimm’s Keep.

I’d walked as fast as my legs would take me through the depressing nytefire-lit halls, praying I remembered my way back and staunchly ignoring the curious looks I received. Despite taking those corridors and stairwells with as much urgency as I could, an all-too-familiar buzzing caught up with me just as I’d finally caught sight of the doors I wanted to disappear behind.

“Princess, wait!” came a tiny squeak.

“I’m not in the mood tonight, Eilir,” I called back. “Sorry!”

A curse and another apology tumbled out of me a breath later as I stumbled to sidestep a guard coming around the corner of an offshoot hallway, walking as fast as I was. He tossed me an apologetic wince and kept on his burning path, but it gave just enough time for that fucking buzzing to catch up with me.

Eilir flew right in front of my face, hands planted on their hips.

“What did he do?” they asked with a frown. “I could feel anger brewing off you all the way down in Jasper’s crypt! It was like a beacon.”

“It was nothing,” I sighed. I really didn’t want to get into it and have to relive that abomination of a dinner again. “Did you say you could feel my anger in…wherever you were?”

Eilir nodded. “Of course I could. You give off a lot of potent feelings, princess, but that was foul energy.” The way they said it made it seem like that was a normal topic of conversation.

“Okay,” I drawled. “But you couldn’t feel Maksym’s anger?”

That, I found hard to believe, unless his entire performance had been nothing but that—a charade meant to rile me for a reason I couldn’t fathom. Add that to the growing list of things that made absolutely no sense about my future husband.

Eilir smiled. “No, no. He knows how to shield such things. You will too one day, I’m sure; otherwise, half the kingdom will always know how you feel!”

Fucking wonderful.

“This place just keeps getting better and better,” I muttered as I stepped around the sprite’s fluttering wings and continued down the hall. My room was so damned close, but Eilir was right on my tail.

“Mhm. So, clearly, he didn’t do nothing,” they chirped from beside me. “Did he not like your pants? Or…or your hair? He’s not great with compliments.”

“I wish that were the problem.” I scrubbed my fingers over my forehead and added, “Your king is a right asshole, and I really don’t feel like talking about it anymore than that.”

The sprite tutted a chiding noise. “Not my king, princess.”

I waved my hand. “Whatever he is to you. I don’t care. He’s an ass in every regard. I can’t fathom how he runs this kingdom with social skills like that. How can he handle courtiers and their incessant bickering when he can’t even have a single civil dinner with his future wife? You know, I didn’t even get to ask him about his stupid book like you told me to.”

“Oh dear,” Eilir sighed.

Shockingly, they said nothing else.

Quiet persisted as we cleared the last paces of the hall, but any hope I had of being alone withered when I opened my bedroom door, and Eilir zipped in past me. Clearly, someone had been in already, because a blue flame was roaring in the hearth, all my drapes were shut, and there wasn’t a single linen, article of clothing, or trinket discarded in a hurry.

“He was an awkward child, you know? And he spent a lot of his life alone, not knowing who to trust,” they said just after I turned over the lock.

“Okay.” I fought off my vest and draped it over the vanity chair, then toed off my boots beside it. A slight battle with the laces of my pants came next. “But he’s not a child anymore, and is leading an entire kingdom, so…?”

Eilir tossed me a frown before they flew to my bed and started pulling back the covers.

“You don’t have to do that,” I bit out quickly, hurrying over, but Eilir shooed me away and turned back to their task.

“All I mean,” they said slowly, “is that he forgets himself sometimes, I think. Forgets that he’s not alone anymore. Forgets he has people he can trust. His imprisonment was an act of cruelty, and his exile did little to repair what he had endured.”

At Eilir’s insistent patting, I took a seat on the mattress and sank back against the thoroughly plumped pillows, slipping my legs under the silky-soft, turned-down covers. Finally, something that brokered no complaints.

“He was imprisoned?” I asked. “Why?”

I’d heard mention of his exile a few times now. I wasn’t sure I wanted to broach its subject with how Maksym had fired it at me after dinner, but I’d yet to hear anything about an imprisonment. Not that I knew much outside of the scant facts Eilir liked to sprinkle on me, because King Dearest clearly had no interest in telling me about himself.

The sprite frowned as they rolled up my duvet. “Uprising, the first time. Illegal trade and a plethora of other things the second time. Nasty, nasty place, the jail in Embervale. Most of what goes in there rarely makes it out. Not intact, at least.”