Daughter of the Disgraced King Read online

  Ailsa laughed. “You just don’t like having to dance with girls who’re trying to flirt with you.”

  Beyond the roses, a line of flowering trees marked the edge of the small patio at the far end of the garden. A pair of stone benches faced each other across a small fountain. The splashing of the water masked the sounds of the gala behind them. The patio seemed roofed with a million glittering stars. Sav guided them to the nearest bench and sat down beside Ailsa.

  The last of the tension drained from Ailsa’s body. She leaned back to look up at the starry sky. “I haven’t been down here since . . . Oh, since we used to play hide-and-seek here, I suppose. I’d forgotten how lovely it is.”

  “It can’t compare to you.”

  Ailsa lightly tapped his hand where it lay on his leg, close by her own. “I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.”

  “I know. Ailsa . . . I . . . I want to ask you something.”

  Ailsa looked down from the sparkling sky and met Sav’s eyes. He was doing it again. Stammering. “You’ve always been able to talk to me about anything, Sav.”

  “This is different. I . . .” Savyon rubbed the back of his neck. “Seventeen desert hells! I wanted to do this elegantly, to be worthy of you, but I’m just no good at that. I’m going to have to just say it.” He gritted his teeth before rushing on. “Ailsa, I love you. Will you marry me?”

  Ailsa gasped. The stars seemed to spin above her. She’d swear her heart stood still for a beat and then began to pound. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears. She couldn’t have heard him right, could she? As many times as she’d dreamed of Sav noticing her as more than just a friend, more than just someone to dance with to hold off the girls who wanted him for his position and future power, she’d never once thought of this. She felt utterly unprepared for it.

  “Say something!” Sav begged. His hands gripped his knees so hard that the knuckles were turning white and his eyes were unnaturally bright.

  Ailsa had to swallow twice before she could find her voice. “I . . . don’t know what to say. This . . . You never gave me any reason to expect this.” Her hand found one of his and pried it loose from his knee. “Sav, you’re my best friend.”

  He grasped her hand almost as tightly as he had clutched his leg a moment earlier. “Can’t I be both?”

  Could he? What a comfortable and comforting marriage that would be, with her best friend—if her best friend had been anyone but the crown prince. “I . . . don’t know.” Her eyes focused on Sav’s lips. What would it be like to kiss Sav? She’d wondered before, but now Ailsa had to find out. She freed her hand and pulled his face down to hers. Sav held his breath. Ailsa sucked in a deep breath for courage and put her lips to his.

  His mouth was warm and soft beneath hers. A frisson went down from her lips all the way to her toes, spreading heat along with it. As natural as a rosebud opening in the sun, her lips parted. His did, too, moving slowly against hers. His arms came up to hold her close to him. He tasted of salt and faintly of some sweet wine he must have drunk while she was dancing and of a titillating essence that was all Sav. She wanted it to go on forever and at the same time felt she couldn’t catch her breath. She needed air. She needed time. This was all moving much too fast. She sat back, breaking off the kiss. “Oh.”

  Sav searched her face. His shoulders sagged. “No good?”

  Her hand rose to her throat. Had she done something wrong? True, she didn’t have much experience at kissing. “What made you think that? Didn’t you like it?”

  “I’ve never felt anything like it, but . . . you have the strangest expression right now. I can’t tell . . .”

  Ailsa’s smile was a little shaky. “I feel like I could float up to the top of that tree if you weren’t holding me down to earth. My lips are still tingling. And my toes, for some reason. I . . . Oh, Sav, why did you wait until three days before I leave for Terranion?”

  One side of his mouth twitched up. “If you hadn’t been about to leave, I wouldn’t have had the courage to risk . . . to risk . . .”

  Sav’s arm was still around her, but she grasped his free hand. “Driving me away?”

  “Yes.” Sav’s voice was little more than a sigh.

  She could see how hard it had been for quiet, reserved Sav to take that chance. It wasn’t as if he had a lot of friends either—not real friends who cared about him, not his position. “That won’t happen, Sav.” She nestled a little closer and laid her head on his shoulder. She chuckled softly. “If you only knew how long I’ve wanted you to . . . think of me as more than a friend.”

  Sav’s arm squeezed her a little tighter. “Then don’t go. Stay here. Marry me.”

  Another shiver passed down Ailsa’s back. This one had nothing to do with warmth. It was as cold as the wind that swept across the desert in winter. Give up her hard-earned year of study at the Institute of Magical Arts? It was all she’d worked for these last five years, while others her age started to pair off. The things she could learn were the only means she had to bring back the magic Far Terra so desperately needed—if she proved to have enough talent.

  The cold settled in the pit of her stomach. As Sav’s wife, the wife of the future king, she’d have to give all that up. The barons would never accept a mage queen. They’d made that abundantly clear a generation ago, when her father had been forced to abdicate the throne after marrying her mother. Could she make that choice and give up her magic forever? Don’t make a decision now. Sleep on it. That’s what Mama would say. “Sav, I’ve been looking forward to this year my whole life. Now I’m finally about to go and you . . . spring this on me. I . . . I can’t decide this tonight. It’s not fair to ask that of me. I . . . need to at least sleep on it.”

  Sav smiled. “That’s what your mother would say.”

  Ailsa nodded. “This time, I think she’d be right. After all, you’re asking me to make a decision for the rest of my life.”

  Sav exhaled slowly, tipping his head back to look at the stars, while his arm loosened around her. After a moment he nodded briefly. “All right. I guess we should be getting back.” He grabbed her hand in both of his. “Promise to dance with me—and only with me—for the rest of the evening?”

  Ailsa prepared to say that that wouldn’t be wise, that the king wouldn’t like it, but the desperate look in his eyes stopped her. “All right.”

  “And come riding with me tomorrow? Just us. So we can talk.”

  No. She needed more time to think, but the look in his eyes . . . “All right.”

  ~

  As the guests began to leave, Savyon turned away from the grand hall and strolled up the corridor toward the stairs and his rooms. Now that Ailsa had gone home, there didn’t seem to be much point in going back to the ball. Cergio and Perion were still out there, in their element, but Savyon had never really liked these huge social gatherings. Only dancing with Ailsa had ever made them bearable.

  He much preferred to socialize with just a few close friends, more casual and simple. Being surrounded by so many people at a time was exhausting. How was he ever going to cope if Ailsa’s answer was no?

  He turned at the sound of quick footsteps approaching. Savyon barely suppressed a sigh when he saw Cergio bearing down on him.

  “Well?” Cergio asked without preamble. “I saw you got her into the garden? What did she say? Or did you flub it again?”

  Savyon drew himself up. “I did not flub it.” His shoulders sagged a little. “I didn’t do it very well, either. I . . . sort of blurted it out after all.”

  Cergio snorted as if he hadn’t expected anything else. “And? What did she say?”

  “She said she needed some time to think.”

  Cergio cocked his head to one side. “Well, that’s not so bad. Ailsa’s not the kind to play games with you. If she meant no, she’d have said it right out.”

  Savyon smiled a little. “That’s true. Ailsa always has wanted to look at things from all angles. Father’s suspicions of her family have made her o
vercautious.” He couldn’t help thinking about that kiss. Ailsa certainly wouldn’t have done that if she hadn’t at least been thinking about saying yes. And the kiss itself . . .

  Cergio squinted at his older brother. “What else? By that goofy look on your face, something else happened.”

  “She kissed me.”

  Cergio let out a low-voiced whoop and clapped his brother on the shoulder. “About time one of you made a move. See? She wouldn’t have done that if she wasn’t at least intrigued by the idea. So, what’s next?”

  “We’re going riding tomorrow—alone—so we can talk.”

  Cergio smirked. “Talk. Right. Well, now that she’s opened the door for you, just make sure that talking isn’t all you do. Where are you going to take her?”

  Savyon shrugged. “Ailsa knows all the riding paths so well. Maybe I should let her choose.”

  Cergio gave him a pitying stare. “Not if you really want to get her alone, you shouldn’t. Girls just naturally gather into packs. Though,” he added slowly, “that’s not usually true of Ailsa. Still, it’s your job to split her out from the herd, just like you did tonight.” He paced a few steps down the hall and then back. “There’s that trail up to the lookout. That’s pretty reliably empty this time of year.”

  “Ailsa loves that spot,” Savyon said. “But I don’t think she’s been there in a while.”

  “There you go, then.”

  ~

  Ailsa couldn’t sleep. She lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to sort out how everything had suddenly changed so much in just a few hours. The whole world had seemed to spin and settle in a new configuration during that single kiss.

  This was not something she’d ever prepared herself for. Ailsa had never put much thought into marriage. None of the barons or their heirs would ever consider asking for her hand. Not with her father’s tenuous political position handicapping her. She’d been resigned to that before she ever went to her first ball and determined to pour herself into useful work instead. If anyone ever did offer to marry her, it could only be some very minor noble or even a commoner, maybe some wealthy merchant looking to improve his social status. And Mama would never permit that. No one of higher rank would take the risk of a connection to the disgraced ex-king. No one but the new king’s own son, apparently.

  She just hadn’t had any time to get accustomed to thinking of Sav that way. Ailsa had watched the courtships of the other girls her age a little wistfully. She had observed a sort of natural progression in them. Both the girls and the young men who courted them had months, sometimes longer, to ease into their relationships so they were comfortable with it. Knowing Sav, he’d probably taken some time to come to this realization, too. More than three days, certainly. Shouldn’t she have as much time as Sav had taken?

  Sav. She’d allowed herself to daydream about him, a little. A girl had to dream about something and Sav was what most girls would dream about—tall, handsome, smart, kind, an actual prince, even. Why shouldn’t she dream about him? But she’d never allowed the dreams to go further than a secret kiss. She’d never actually expected him to say he loved her, let alone want to marry her. Partly because it simply hadn’t seemed possible. Only now, apparently, it was possible after all. If she was willing to give up her other dreams, anyway. Daydreams aside, did she love Sav? Really? As more than a friend? Maybe. She felt closer to him than just about anyone else, even her parents. And when she’d kissed him . . . .

  That kiss. True, she didn’t have a lot to compare it to. Perion and Cergio had both found opportunities to get her alone for a kiss on her seventeenth birthday, as was customary for a girl reaching marriageable age. Not Sav, though. If only he had, maybe she wouldn’t be so confused right now. Perion’s kiss had been sort of a near-miss peck, which she nevertheless found to be damp and a little strange. Cergio had more practice—well, of course he had. His kiss wasn’t damp or strange. In fact, Cergio’s kiss had been rather nice, but it was nothing at all like Sav’s, either. There’d been no tingles, no fire with Cergio. She hadn’t been breathless or confused. She hadn’t wanted to cling to him and kiss him again, over and over. No, there was definitely something very special about kissing Sav. And she very much wanted to keep doing it.

  She was too restless to stay in bed. She got up and paced back and forth across the room, instead. It wasn’t reasonable to expect her to make a decision like this—a decision that overturned everything she’d ever expected of her life—in only three days. It wasn’t fair. Her mother had taught her two things, above all. One was to never make a big decision on an empty stomach or without sleeping on it. The sleeping on it part was proving harder than Ailsa expected. The other was to always look carefully at both sides before making a choice.

  She’d already been musing over the plus side. What about the other side? Well, there was the king. Having King Ewart as a father-in-law was a pretty big negative. Just the thought made her shudder. She couldn’t imagine the king would be too pleased to have her as a daughter-in-law, either. Though he tried, Sav was already constrained by his father’s edicts in what he could do to make things better in Far Terra. Would marrying her make that even harder for him? Definitely something she should talk over with Sav before making a decision.

  Then there was her year of study in the south. That had always been her plan. Ailsa’s great secret fear was that she wouldn’t have significant magic, or that it would be something useless to Far Terra. Her great hope was that she had some talent that could actually help in taming the desert wilderness, like Aunt Izbel’s water magic. If she did, and she didn’t develop that talent, she’d regret that for the rest of her life. She stopped her pacing. Regret. That was the key. If she never found out what she was capable of, she’d always wonder, always regret the missed opportunity.

  If Sav really loved her . . . if she loved him . . . then a year wouldn’t matter. She was only seventeen and he wasn’t even nineteen yet. There was no reason not to wait. Give both of them time to be sure. Having made a decision—even if it was only to wait before making a decision—Ailsa’s restlessness drained away. She crawled back into bed and closed her eyes. And, as if she wasn’t already confused enough, she dreamed about kissing Sav.

  Chapter 3: Farewells

  Ailsa allowed Pearl to follow Sav’s lanky black onto the path that wound up into the hills and around to the top of the highest peak of Far Terra. The forest was so thick here that they had to ride single file much of the way, which effectively prevented conversation. Below, it was mostly mixed live oaks and a few sycamores. Up here, though, it was a pine forest and the trees were in better shape than the woods below—closer to the desert.

  Ailsa watched Sav’s straight back and the way his hips moved with the horse’s gait. Before, she’d never permitted herself to dwell on these things. It did no good to think too much about what she could never have. Now she was seeing him differently—his broad shoulders, how his neatly-trimmed hair was as glossy and black as the horse he rode. Those things made her smile.

  But there was also the stiffness that never seemed to quite leave his erect posture and how that kept him from really flowing with his horse’s movements. Sav took everything so seriously. That stiffness was usually reserved for everyone else, not her. It reminded her of how white his knuckles had been, gripping his own knees, when he’d sprung his proposal on her last night. For better or worse, their relationship had shifted last night. Ailsa swallowed down a lump in her throat. Her answer was going to be hard on Sav. He’d probably be hurt that she wasn’t ready to just say yes. She hated that. She simply couldn’t see any other way forward. Not one that she wouldn’t regret later, anyway. And if she did, he’d regret it too, eventually. No. Leaping in wouldn’t be good for either of them in the long run.

  They came out on the viewpoint, an outcrop of granite just below the peak. She drew in a deep breath, memorizing the scent of Far Terra. The air smelled of the pines that surrounded her, not the arid desert from which this fo
rest had been wrested. Ailsa moved to stand at the edge and took it all in. From here it was possible to see a large chunk of Far Terra spread out below them. The dark green of the forests on the slopes of the hills, the brighter green of the cropland surrounding the city, all encircled by the dead tan of the desert. Farther out, the blue-green circles of more land reclaimed from the desert by sweat and magic, some of them connected to the city by narrow ribbons of green. One wider belt of green stretched into the south, connecting Far Terra with the rest of the Empire. Day after tomorrow, she’d be on her way south along that corridor.

  This used to be one of Ailsa’s favorite spots because from here it had been possible to actually see the gradual greening of the desert. Until recently, at least. She hadn’t come up here in the last three years, since the effects of King Ewart’s rift with the mages had become apparent. She’d been right to be afraid of what she’d see. From where she stood, she could make out a yellowed rim around the green cropland and far too many brown spots of dead trees on the lower slopes. Even the green ribbons that had connected the outposts of progress against the desert showed gaps. Ailsa’s stomach twisted and she swallowed down bile. After five generations, Far Terra was failing because of mismanagement by an incompetent king.

  Ailsa balled her fists. She could forgive King Ewart for his insecurities. He’d never been raised or trained to be a king, as Papa often reminded her. She could even forgive his almost paranoid distrust of her father and the way his suspicions had impacted her family. She’d never forgive him for the harm he’d done to Far Terra. Could she really see that man as her father-in-law?

  Ailsa shook her head. Sweat wasn’t enough. Far Terra needed magic to succeed. In a short time, she’d know whether she had the potential to try to repair the damage. There was no way she could turn her back on that possibility without at least knowing what she could do to help. She let her breath out in a long sigh. “I used to love this place.”