Andre watched as Mara’s eyes went blank for a moment. Then her lips tightened. “No, I do not like half measures,” she whispered, almost as if to herself. She raised her face to Andre’s, a new light in her eyes. “You are right, of course,” she told him. “I cannot run away like this. I must go back.” She drew a deep, trembling breath. “I must finish out the school year. My students are depending on me.” She glanced at her notebook. “I will not let him make me a coward again,” she vowed, and she didn’t have to say his name for Andre to know to whom she was referring. “If nothing else, I will at least finish what I started.”
Andre smiled his faint smile. “That is the sister I know and love,” he said, letting his pride in her reflect in his tone. “The sister who could throw her heart over any fence and land safely.” He tilted her chin up so she was forced to look at him. “You are not a coward, dernya. You never were.”
She shook her head in denial. “I was,” she insisted. “You know I was. I could never stand up to our father. You always had to fight my battles for me with him—I could never fight my own. Not even for something I have always loved.” She swallowed hard.
“Love makes cowards of us all,” Andre said, paraphrasing Shakespeare. “The longing to be loved for ourselves makes us afraid. And that fear makes us weak. Ahhh,” he said when she gave him a wondering look. “Did you think I was immune?”
Mara hesitated. “Juliana?” she asked after a pregnant pause.
Andre closed his eyes for a second and breathed deeply. He let a self-derogatory smile play over his lips, then nodded. “Juliana,” he acknowledged. The word was soft as a sigh.
“Still? After all these years?”
“I am a Marianescu,” he said simply. “As are you.”
“Yes,” she agreed after a moment. “We are Marianescus, first and last. That is our fate.” Andre watched her face, watched her expression morph into determination, as if she were drawing strength from the knowledge he understood there could never be another man for her, the same way there could never be another woman for him. But that didn’t mean her life was over. She could build a life of purpose for herself just as he had done. Alone. “We never get everything we want in life,” she said softly. “But we cannot give up, can we?”
“Never.” They shared a smile of commiseration, then Andre said, “Would you do something for me, dernya?”
“Anything.”
“There is an envoy waiting in the Hall of Mirrors. I have spoken with him but he also insists on seeing you about an important matter.”
Mara touched fingertips to her cheeks, emphasizing the shadows under her eyes, and said, “I...I do not think... I am not quite ready to see anyone other than you.”
“As a favor to me, yes?”
“What does he want? Why does he need to see me?”
“He will tell you that, dernya. But I promise you will not regret seeing him.”
* * *
A door opened behind Trace, reluctant footsteps tapped across the marble tiles, and a voice as familiar to him as his own heartbeat said in Zakharan, “My brother, the king, says you insist on seeing me. I do not understand, but I—”
Trace turned around. “Hello, Princess.”
“Trace!”
She caught her breath and her eyes widened until they were huge in her pale face, and for just an instant the intense light of joy shone there. But then she flinched, agony wiping away the joy, and her hand came up to cover her eyes. Her breath came in little pants and her mouth moved soundlessly. Then she crumpled.
Trace caught her as she fell, lifting her into his arms and carrying her swiftly to one of the antique sofas that lined the room. He laid her on the sofa and knelt beside it, his hand checking her pulse. It was far too rapid, and her breath fluttered in her throat.
He’d known she’d cut off her hair, but it was still a shock seeing her without it. After the first shock, though, it barely registered. Feathery wisps of golden brown hair framed her face, giving it a gamin look even more appealing than the sophisticated chignon she’d usually worn before. But the knowledge that he’d caused her such devastating pain she’d felt she had no choice but to do what she’d done made him bleed inside as he’d bled the night he’d seen her discarded tresses strewn across his bed.
“Princess,” he said, caressing her cheek with a hand that trembled. “Open those green eyes for me. Come on, Princess. Curse me, slap me, yell at me. Do anything you want to me, but please open your eyes.”