Protect the Prince (Crown of Shards #2)(119)

He stared at me, anguish burning in his eyes, and I grabbed his hand.

“It is not your fault. None of this is your fault, Sully. Your mother made her own choices, her own decisions.”

“But I keep thinking that I should have known more about who she really was. That I should have asked more questions about where she came from and why she stayed at the palace all these years.” He shook his head. “I was always so caught up in how people treated me compared to Dominic and Frederich that I never wondered what she thought about being treated the same way. I never realized how much it hurt her too, or how much she hated my father.”

He fell silent, then raised his anguished gaze to mine again. “Do you think what she said was true? That she . . . loved me?”

I grabbed his other hand and squeezed it too. “Absolutely. She saved you from that assassin, from another member of the Bastard Brigade. She saved your life. In the end, she chose you over her mission, Sully. Never forget that.”

He nodded, and we fell silent. He seemed a little calmer now, although just as sad as before.

“What are you going to do now?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. My father and Dominic have asked me to stay at Glitnir, to help them prepare for war against Morta, if it comes to that.”

“And what do you want to do?”

“I just want to run away again and join another gladiator troupe. Go to some far-flung place where nobody knows who I am, or especially what my mother was.”

“You know, I ran away to a gladiator troupe once,” I said. “It worked out okay for me.”

My joke finally coaxed a small smile out of him.

“Maybe you should do that,” I said, my voice turning serious. “Maybe you should go away for a while. Maybe you should take some time to figure out who you are and who you want to be.”

“Maybe I should.”

“Well, wherever you go, you’ll always have a place at Seven Spire.” I paused. “With me.”

The words hung in the air between us, and I wondered if I’d said too much. No, I decided. One of the reasons we were in this mess was because I hadn’t said enough. I might never see Sullivan again, and I wasn’t going to leave without telling him how I felt.

“And what kind of place would that be, highness?” he asked in a soft voice.

“Whatever you want it to be.”

I meant every word. I didn’t care that Sullivan was a bastard prince. I never had, but now it seemed like the most trivial thing, after all that we had been through. I didn’t care what Sullivan’s title was, or if he even had a title, and I certainly didn’t care what the Seven Spire nobles or anyone else thought about us. Not anymore. All that mattered was how I felt about him, and him about me.

Surprise sparked in his eyes. For a moment, I thought that he might say yes, but then his surprise vanished, swallowed up by regret.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped, “but I can’t. Not right now. Maybe not ever. I’m sorry, highness. I wish things were different. I wish that I were different.”

“It’s okay,” I whispered back. “I understand.”

I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. Unlike the last time we’d been in the gazebo, this was a gentle kiss, just the briefest, softest touch of my lips against his. Still, I breathed in deeply, drawing the scent of him deep down into my lungs and locking it away in my heart. Then I sat back.

“Good luck, Sully,” I whispered. “I want nothing but the best for you.”

“And I want the same for you, highness,” he whispered back.

I got to my feet. I trailed my fingers down his cheek, then turned and hurried away before he saw the tears streak down my face.





Chapter Twenty-Seven


The next morning, my friends and I left Glitnir. We took the train back to Svalin, and we arrived at Seven Spire a few days later.

Captain Auster had managed to hang on to the palace, although a dozen new crises had arisen while I’d been gone. So I busied myself with those, as well as the demanding nobles.

Dealing with these fresh problems helped keep my mind off Sullivan, although I found myself thinking about him every time I had a moment alone. I wondered if he was still at Glitnir or if he had left and gone somewhere else, somewhere he could figure out who he was and what he wanted to do with his life.

As a going-away present, Alvis had given me a Cardea mirror so that I could talk to him, Gemma, and Grimley in his workshop. We spoke every few days, but Alvis and Gemma never mentioned Sullivan, and I didn’t inquire about him.

Part of me didn’t want to know where he was. Because if I did know, then I would have been tempted to go to him, ask him to come to Seven Spire, and stay with me. But I’d seen how disastrously that had turned out for Heinrich and Dahlia, and I wasn’t going to ask Sullivan to repeat his mother’s mistakes or abandon his principles for me. At this point, they were just about the only things he had left.

One night, after a particularly long and boring court session, I escaped to my room. Three weeks had passed since I had returned to Seven Spire, although after dealing with the ever-demanding nobles today, it felt like three years.

Calandre and her sisters drew me a bath and did their usual ministrations. Then, once they had left me alone and I was sure that no one else would check on me, I did the same thing that I’d been doing every single night since I’d returned to Seven Spire—I used the secret passageway behind the bookcase to sneak out of my chambers and go to Maeven’s room.