The Wedding Night They Never Had

“No. I’m tired of my life. For a moment, I looked at all this food and I thought, why should I not have everything I want? But then you reminded me. You reminded me that I must be, in some way, still not me.”

“You can be you. With the friends that you have here in the palace. It’s just that with diplomats you are going to have to endeavor to behave in a certain fashion.”

“All right. I endured prison these many years. Why not more?”

“It is prison?” he asked. “To be married to me?”

“I do not know.” She looked at the table laid out before her. She would have had to choose a husband someday. And he was a good choice. The idea made her skin feel oversensitive. “No. I suppose it’s not.”

“And a gentle reminder, that you have taken me prisoner.”

“You have agreed,” she said.

“In the way that you agreed?”

She waved a hand at him. “Don’t do that. Don’t try to paint yourself as some sort of victim, when we both know you’re not. You would not stand for it. You have agreed to help me, and I cannot say that I know why, but I do know this—you have chosen to. I was prepared to fight to bring you over to my side, but I did know that I needed to bring you to my side. I knew that I was not going to be able to hold you as a prisoner.”

“Indeed, Annick.”

“Don’t you ever feel tired? Two lives. It’s too many lives. I did not even do it so successfully, and it was too many for me.”

“It is not,” he said. “Because I am living one of them for someone who cannot live at all. Perhaps if you thought of it that way, it would help.”

Her heart twisted, the sympathy that she felt surprising her. She had lost so much it was rare that anyone else’s loss touched her. Then again, she didn’t often sit and speak to another person. Not like this.

“Who did you lose?”

“It doesn’t matter. Who doesn’t matter—not anymore. But dedicating my life to removing men from the world who create destruction? That is a fitting tribute to their memory. Trust me on that.”

“It is strange, is it not? That sometimes to become avengers of atrocities we must commit some of the same. You know, me kidnapping you.”

“We do what we must. I cannot despise you too greatly because of that.”

“I find I cannot despise you, this marriage bargain notwithstanding. But then, it was never my goal.”

“What is your favorite?”

She looked at all the food. “I couldn’t choose.”

“You must have a favorite.”

“Choice. That’s my favorite.”

He smiled and nodded slowly. “That is a good answer.”