Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(4)
Clean. Swift. Vicious.
Isbe moves toward the draft from a nearby window and slides her finger along the cold glass. William is like a windowpane, she thinks, most of his story withheld, his surface a distraction from the landscape she cannot see. She isn’t sure yet what she thinks of the prince as a military mind, or how to balance what she knows of him already—his alacrity and efficiency, his sometimes overly serious nature, his righteousness, which borders on passion—with the qualities that are still in a state of emergence, like waves of reinforcements arriving from distant lands.
“If you’re not interested in my opinion, why did you seek me out today?” she asks, a mixture of impatience and curiosity coursing through her. The truth is, she hasn’t yet figured out her part in this war. Not that she’d admit that to William. When it comes down to it, she’s just the untrained bastard daughter of a dead king, the product of a meaningless and thwarted affair, the victim of an unjust faerie tithing.
“I am interested. How would you have me respond, though? What would you have me do?” William touches her arm lightly, and she pulls away.
The answer has already been sitting in the room, of course, staring at her like a pig’s head on a platter, an apple stuffed in its jaw, big, obvious, and somehow unappetizing. She turns back toward his voice. “You must marry Aurora, like we planned.”
Not more than a month ago, it had been presumed his eldest brother, Philip, would wed Aurora, and little thought was given to the fates of Philip’s younger brothers, Edward and William. But then Philip and Edward were both murdered on their way to Deluce by Malfleur’s forces, and the alliance relied on Isbe convincing the last remaining Aubinian prince—William—to awaken Aurora and marry her. Only somewhere along the way, William began to doubt his commitment to that plan. He even proposed to Isabelle instead—not once, but twice!
But then Aurora woke up, before Isbe could say yes. And ever since, the prince has been awkward around Isabelle. He has been visiting Aurora’s bedside every day to make sure she’s recovering from her long sleep, and though he hasn’t spoken of a wedding, Isbe figures there is no reason to keep stalling.
The prince releases a breath. “And this will fix Deluce’s ‘attitude problem,’ as you call it.”
She bristles. “Not fix, no. But perhaps it will dull the spike of fear that has them turning against their own land. The people need to feel safe, they need to perceive that we are doubling in size and force.”
“Aren’t you worried a wedding could give the opposite impression—that we’re celebrating instead of strategizing against a common enemy?”
She nods. He has a point, and it’s one she has already been turning over in her mind. “The ceremony should be brief, only a few key witnesses, minimal fanfare. Just enough to make it look optimistic.”
“You don’t sound optimistic,” William says.
Isbe huffs. “What do you want from me, William?” Does he really want her to say the unsayable? Confess to her dreams at night, in which his hands continue to trace patterns on her skin, his breath to dance along her neck, his words to twirl through her veins like silk ribbons, finding their way into her heart, waking something in her? No.
“What do my feelings about this wedding matter?” she presses on, ignoring the tiny break in her voice. “I never suggested anything to you but that you marry my sister in the interest of both our kingdoms.” Her ears burn in anger, in frustration, in all the wanting that she has been pushing down inside her. “Yet you continually question me, challenge me, protest, and put it off. But tell me, is there any good reason to delay further what could be done and over with by week’s end?”
“Over with?” His voice, usually soft, grows hard. “Last I heard, marriage is for life.”
“You know what I mean.” She puts her hands on her hips to still their trembling.
There’s a pause and she hears him sigh. “Then no,” he finally answers, so faintly she’s forced to sway slightly closer to comprehend him. “I see no reason to delay.”
She knows she has no right to let his response—so definitive—disappoint her. It’s what she wanted to hear, what she forced him to say.
Isbe swallows. “Good. Now if you don’t mind, I’ll speak to my sister and begin readying the staff.”
He clears his throat. “Wonderful.”
She pauses, waiting—unable to leave. He’s still standing so near she could reach out and touch him, pull him toward her.
But if he was going to make one last effort, going to beg her to reconsider the proposal he made to her in the wine caves, insist that it is Isabelle and no other woman he will marry, that moment has passed.
She straightens her shoulders. “Excellent.”
She storms off, letting the door gape behind her like an open mouth.
Isbe flies through the stone corridors, dimly aware that only action—violent, halting—will keep her from falling apart, from allowing a scream to erupt, or worse, tears.
By the time she reaches the library, her temper has simmered only a little. Aurora is in her favorite chair, but not reading. Isbe knows this because of the rapid whisper of vellum pages, suggesting her sister is thumbing through them impatiently.
Isbe is not the only one who has changed since the sleeping sickness. Aurora has grown distant or, rather, gathered into herself. Her lack of voice now has a weight to it, the way the soundlessness of being underwater seems to press in on you, enter you and echo, making you less aware of your surroundings and more aware of yourself.