It hadn’t worked.

I stood gaping at the open door through which the king had just exited, my legs and fists wobbling.

I hardly noticed when Blaise and Imogen came to retrieve me.

Convincing the king to revoke Evander’s bargain had been our one shot at getting out of this marriage, and we’d failed.

I’d failed.

The life I’d planned for myself unraveled with every turn of a marble staircase, every curve in the stone corridors of this wretched castle.

I could hardly keep it together as Imogen and Blaise led me back to my quarters.

Relief swept over me when we finally arrived at my door, but it was short-lived.

Someone had carved my name, Lady Elynore Payne, Crown Betrothed, into the door.

They might as well have carved the knife into my gut.

Blaise unlocked the door and propped it open for me. I swept inside, grateful that I was only moments away from having time to myself, a moment to weep without having to deal with Imogen’s uncomfortable stares.

After both maids helped me out of my gown, Imogen curtsied and left me be, wishing me goodnight in a mumble I almost couldn’t detect.

Blaise stayed, lingering by the door, fiddling with her keyring.

“It didn’t work, did it?” she asked, her tone absent of that carefree aura she so expertly adorned.

I swallowed, turning toward the bed so she wouldn’t have to watch my tears ruin the paint she’d taken so much care to perfect. Imogen had tried to wash it off, but it had taken all my willpower not to burst into tears as she and Blaise undressed me, so I’d told them I’d rinse it away myself.

I wasn’t sure how she’d known what Evander and I were planning, but since they appeared to have a relationship that exceeded that of a servant and prince, I figured Evander had kept her informed.

“No,” I said, clutching the edges of my nightgown. “It didn’t work.”

Blaise went silent for a long while, and for a moment I wondered if she had slipped into the corridor, but then she spoke, her voice soft. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t what you wanted for yourself.”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s not as if it’s your fault.”

Footsteps padded against the rug, and soon the warmth of a hand landed gently on my shoulder. I turned to Blaise, and she chewed her lip, concern etched across her brow. “I know you’ll probably hate me for saying this, but you could do worse than Evander.” When I opened my mouth to protest, she shook her head. “I imagine you could do better, too. He’s definitely got his flaws. But he’s not like his father. He’ll see to it you’re taken care of.”

Silver lined Blaise’s lower eyelids, and I wondered then if she was speaking from experience. Blaise hadn’t struck me as the most sentimental person, but there was no mistaking the gratefulness that welled in her eyes.

Or the sadness. Or perhaps it was pity. I couldn’t tell if it was for me or Evander, or the both of us, but there was something raw about it.

“You know what it means to have the future you expected stripped away from you.” I’d meant for it to be a question, but it didn’t come out that way.

She offered me a tight-lipped smile and nodded. The momentary sadness disappeared, and she donned that carefree mask once more.

Then she slapped me on the back like we were old fishing buddies, and grinned. “It seems to me that we’re both the type to make the most of it.”

CHAPTER 12

EVANDER

She’d failed.

I’d stood outside the dining hall, eavesdropping on the conversation between Ellie and my father.

Ellie had failed to convince my father to sever the bond, and now I was going to be stuck with a woman who thought little more of me than a common whore for the rest of my life.

Well, her life.

Which, in a faltering moment of my character, I was thanking the Fates was going to be a relatively short one.

Truth be told, I have no desire to flirt with someone with a list of bedmates behind him that could probably span the length of this table.

I couldn’t decide which was worse, the words or the crimson that had flushed my mother’s cheeks at the statement.

I’d told Ellie to sell it—her hatred for me. Not to humiliate my mother.

As if that weren’t enough, she’d failed to convince my father of much of anything except that she’d make a better ruler than me.

Well, that part was probably true. I wasn’t fit for the crown. I knew that. My father knew that. The entire kingdom knew that.

My feet found their way down the cold stone hallways without my help. Through the castle’s South Gate, where the night watch received a monthly bonus from my personal allowance, and had for at least a century. The gate I could pass through without question, without word making it back to my father.

By the time I reached the grungy pub on the south side of town, my anger had multiplied, swelling within my chest, threatening to explode.

I’d never been the type to take out my anger on inanimate objects. After all, they never did anything to cause my frustration. That was the point of being inanimate. As a child, I’d mostly noticed the practice in the more dull-witted of my father’s soldiers, and I’d had no desire to turn out like them.

I punched a city wall on my way to the pub.

It made my knuckles throb in a somewhat satisfying way, so I punched it again.

Perhaps the soldiers had been onto something.

When I finally reached my destination, a seedy pub run by an even seedier faerie, I pulled my hood over my face and slipped into the musty tavern.

The seat in the shadowed corner of the bar was empty. A tankard full of ale sloshed on the table before I even had the chance to sit down.

I may or may not have been a regular customer.

The bartender may or may not have figured out who I was a few decades back, and I may or may not have been paying his lease in exchange for his discretion.

Whatever. This place had been good to me.

Oh yes. It’s been real gracious, supplying you with cheap ale that has you in bed all day with women you can hardly get to leave it, was what Blaise would say if she could hear my thoughts.

Not half a drink in, and I was thinking of Cinderella. Six in, she could have been sitting right across from me, as far I as knew. Fates, she’d been pretty. I ran my fingers through my hair, as if she were there to see me do it. To be charmed by it.