The Wish Granter (Ravenspire #2)(16)

“Your Highness.” Makario bowed low, and the rest of the group followed suit.

Sebastian came to his feet in one fluid motion, and the girl’s gaze instantly landed on him.

He bowed quickly, though she was already waving her hand in the air as though she was shooing a cloud of gnats.

“No bowing. Just . . . as you were. Go back to throwing shiny things, or whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Would you care to join us, Princess Arianna?” someone asked.

“Trust me. You don’t want to hand me a dagger and tell me to throw it. Somebody will need medical attention.” She aimed a smile at the crowd in the arena, but her eyes were still on Sebastian.

He watched as she approached and remembered at the last minute to loosen his grip on the sword he held, though the air of confidence surrounding the princess said she was the one person in the arena who would follow her words with decisive action.

“I hope I’m not disturbing your work,” she said as she reached him.

He blinked and glanced at the whetstone beside him. Since when did nobility care if they interrupted anything?

“You’re my brother’s new weapons master, aren’t you?” she asked.

He nodded cautiously and waited for her to tell him to fetch a jeweled dagger to match her dress.

“I assume that means you’re an expert at both using and creating various weapons?”

He nodded again and began praying inwardly that she wouldn’t ask for something awful like a weapons demonstration in front of the gathered crowd. He’d do it—he didn’t dare turn down the princess—but the thought of being on display in front of dozens of people wrapped a fist of panic around his lungs.

The people in the arena had yet to continue their games, and the princess lowered her voice as she asked, “Would you happen to have some free time to make me a few weapons and then teach me how to use them?”

He stared at her. Weapons for a princess? She’d want pretty daggers or finely wrought swords—both of which were beyond his skill level. What would she do to him when she found out he wasn’t fully qualified for the job he’d taken? The silver coin in his pocket felt like fire against his thigh as he drew in a deep breath.

He had to earn enough coin to pay for the freedom he so desperately wanted. If that meant he needed to figure out how to make a set of jewel-crusted daggers for the princess, then that’s what he’d do.

Somehow.

“Is it . . . Did I ask for the wrong thing?” the princess said quietly, and Sebastian was hit with the terrible certainty that she was paying attention to him. Not to his role as a servant of the king but to the stillness of his body, the watchfulness of his gaze, and the muscles that bunched in his shoulders.

“We’re operating under the assumption that he’s an imbecile,” Makario said. “He barely speaks. Of course, you can’t always assume the same intelligence in the servant class as you can in the nobility.”

The princess’s spine snapped straight, and fire lit her eyes as she whirled to face the rest of the arena. “You forget that until my brother was crowned king, I was a member of the servant class. Are you questioning my intelligence as well? Or are you simply confusing idiocy with his choice to not spew every thought that crosses his mind? Because, I can assure you, you would do well to keep a few of your own thoughts private, Makario.”

The fist around Sebastian’s lungs unclenched.

“I can help you,” he said softly, and hoped it was true.

The princess stared at the crowd. Several of them glared back. “Games are over for the morning. There are peach tarts, biscuits with fig butter, and freshly squeezed juice set out in the dining hall. Feel free to help yourselves.”

Her tone was a clear dismissal, and no one hesitated to return their weapons and file out of the arena, though there were murmurs of discontent to go with the sharp looks aimed at her. When there was no one left but Sebastian and the princess, she turned back to him and held out her hand.

He stared at it. Did she want to try one of the weapons he’d set out? Which one? Was he just supposed to read her mind?

“I’m Ari,” she said, and his cheeks heated as he realized she was simply offering him the customary hand-clasp greeting used between those of equal class.

It would be a terrible insult to refuse to touch her. He didn’t think she was the type to dismiss him from his post over it, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

Quickly he pressed his palm to hers, surprised to feel calluses on her fingertips, and then pulled his hand away.

He curled his fingers into a fist, and then flexed them again in an effort to look unthreatening.

“What kind of weapons do you want?” he asked, his voice louder than it should have been because she was watching his fingers curl and flex, and he couldn’t shake the sense that she was seeing far more of him than he wanted her to.

She tossed the burlap sack to the floor between them. It landed with the sharp clink of metal striking metal.

Her voice was firm. “There are large pieces of iron in this bag. I need them turned into weapons. Something for the king, and something for me. Something I can keep with me at all times. Nothing that’s too hard to carry. I don’t want it to kill me when I trip on the stairs.”

“When you trip?” He raised a brow.

“It happens with alarming frequency.”