The Captive Heir

Chapter Nineteen

"I called him a coward."

Orenda choked on her tea—practically a laugh. "Took that well, did young Volkt?" she asked, her eyes dancing merrily over the rim of her cup.

Tentatively, like a flower waking for spring, Elisabet smiled back. It felt odd, her muscles stretching after such a long period of disuse. Perhaps someday it would feel natural to smile again, but for now, the gesture was strange and short-lived.

It had to be a form of madness that had given her the impulse to ride back out to the witch's cottage, loaf of fresh bread in hand as apology for the intrusion. The need for an hour's honest conversation with someone—anyone—had brought her here, and once she was sitting in front of the quiet fire, tea in hand, she had found herself telling Orenda everything that had happened with Prince Quentin.

"He was muttering threats the whole way out of the castle," Elisabet said. It was a slight exaggeration, but not by much.

Orenda popped a crust of bread in her mouth, nodding to herself. "Sounds like them."

"And the moment the door closed on him, my father was already asking who I was going to marry, since I've lost two potential husbands in such short order." She could not keep the bitterness from her voice. Several days had passed with no mention of the subject, but her father's tactlessness still rankled.

"With the future of the kingdom in question, I'm sure he is anxious to make the succession is as secure as possible," Orenda said, far too reasonably.

Elisabet scowled as she took a piece of bread herself. "He can wait the extra six years for Alexander to marry Melisma and start producing their brood of heirs."

Orenda smiled minutely. "No brood for you?"

To never have her own children, her own family—it was a shame, but better than the alternative. "You're the one who knows the future."

"You are the one who chooses the future."

How had Orenda described seeing things to come—as a crossroads? There was no conceivable intersection of choices that would lead to her choosing to marry another man. "What future could I possibly choose that would result in children?" Elisabet asked, pain worming its way through her heart.

Orenda pursed her lips, blowing at her tea. "Depends on who you marry."

"I won't," Elisabet said. "After Fitz, I can't—" She paused. Regrouped. "I used to dream of finding my husband, having what my parents have. Once I lost him, I could not bear to share my life with anyone less—" There were multiple ways she could finish her sentence, all of them true: less worthy, less noble, less her equal. Less Fitz.

"You chose well with that one," the witch said, almost kindly. "And he with you. That does not always mean it ends happily."

Elisabet met her gaze, the witch's serious eyes peering at her through her matted hair. It had been the worst kind of arrogance for her to assume she was owed a happy ending, just because her parents had been granted one. She understood that by now. But to have been taught that lesson so harshly, with such an unbearable consequence...It was not fair for Fitz to have paid the price for her immature ignorance. None of it was fair.

"He deserved more," Elisabet said, the words raw. Unable to hold Orenda's gaze, which saw too much, she stared down at her tea. "He deserved to be happy. Safe." He deserved to be with someone who would have protected him.

"Perhaps." Orenda's quiet agreement was almost excruciating to hear. "But he wanted you."

Painful as it was, it was the closest thing Elisabet had felt to comfort since Fitz had died, and Orenda's words remained with her like a familiar melody for the next few days. They kept her sane waiting through endless meetings with advisors, and when she was trying to think of what she would say to the Alkeen family, and even lingered as she and Skylar set off for Fitz's town. He had wanted her, he had chosen her, and she would do her best to honor that. He had purchased her life with his own. The least she could do was cherish his memory and see that his family understood that.