“Obviously I wasn’t,” she said, the words strange, thick on her tongue. Because they’d never felt right. None of it had ever seemed right. “Everyone else...my mother, father, my brother, they were all killed. My mother’s personal maid had family living in the forest, people who practiced the old way of life. And she brought me to them. They have kept me, protected me, for years.”
“Until now, clearly.”
She picked up a piece of bread and tore a chunk from it. “Obviously not through any fault of their own. They were ambushed and I was kidnapped.”
“And can you be returned to them?” he asked.
She weighed that question and all of the possible implications. If she told him yes, would he help her? Or was he intent on...marrying her.
The idea of marriage was ludicrous to her. Foreign. She was not in any way ready, or suited, to be a man’s wife. She had no interest in such things.
The very idea was her worst nightmare. Wearing a crown again. Placed on a throne.
A target would be on her back, and she would be up on a pedestal where she was an easy target.
She had lived through that nightmare once. She had no intention of entering into it again.
She should tell him to take her home.
And have the only people on this earth who tried to protect you destroyed?
That bitter, familiar cold lashed at her again. She couldn’t go back. It was too dangerous. It was selfish. They would protect her with their lives, and it was very likely their lives would, in fact, be the cost.
She had lost too much already. Too many people who had believed deeply in their convictions cut down. To hear Raz speak of her parents, her father had been a man of conviction. Who had fought to change antiquated ideas in Tirimia, who had made a pact with Raz’s tribe to preserve their sovereignty within the nation.
For that, he had been killed. Out of loyalty and respect to her father, Raz had risked the tribe to protect her, to raise her.
She wouldn’t put them at risk again.
This was something she would have to figure out on her own. She would have to rescue herself.
“No,” she said. “I cannot be returned to them. It would be far too dangerous.”
“Wonderful,” he said, his tone at odds with the word.
“I will not be marrying you, of course,” she said, taking a grape from the platter and holding it between her thumb and forefinger.
“Is that so?” he asked.
She nodded, keeping her expression grave. “I have no desire to marry.”
“Why is that?” he asked, reaching out and plucking the grape from her fingers. “Concerned over having your grapes sampled?” He put the fruit in his mouth and she found herself transfixed, trying to untangle the wealth of meaning in his words while watching his lips, his jaw, work slightly as he chewed.
Why was the way he chewed interesting? It shouldn’t be. She’d never found chewing fascinating in her life.
“I don’t know you,” she said, looking away and picking up another grape, biting into it with no small amount of fierceness. “And that’s just for a start.”
“We have nothing but time to work this out. You could list your reasons. Extensively.”
“I won’t have a complete list until I know you better.”
“I think what you just described is marriage. Two people who truly don’t know each other and are somewhat blind to each other’s faults until time and proximity force them to really get a good look at the poor choice they made.”
“You make it sound so appealing,” she said, shifting her position, tucking her feet beneath herself and leaning forward, taking a piece of fig from the platter.
“I’m not a great believer in the institution.”
“Then why should we marry?” she asked.
“Because,” he said, his tone weary, “my brother has said it shall be, and so it shall be. There are a great many perks to being the spare in the royal family, Zara. Not the least of which is that I have been able to cast the mantle of responsibility off for the past thirty-two years with very few consequences. While Kairos has always been bound by duty, honor and all manner of other words that make me feel like I’m about to break out in hives. The downside,” he added, leaning in, studying the platter, but not taking any more food, “is that I am also beneath his rule.” Andres looked up then, his dark eyes meeting hers. He was close now. So very close.