Josef let the servant finish his tour before ordering him to get out. When the man finally left, Josef sat down on the silk couch in the sitting room. The sky was dark outside the tiny slit window. Torches flickered down in the courtyard below, making it feel far later than it was. Sitting on the creaking couch, the same couch he’d sat on with his mother while she lectured him on being a prince, he felt strangely outside of time. He could still see his mother as she had been, tall and golden and unapproachable. A queen in every sense, not that bent, old woman sleeping in the room above him. Josef looked up, glaring at the wood-beam ceiling. Hot, childish anger welled up in his chest, surprising him with its vigor. The anger had been building since he’d set foot in Osera, since he’d first seen his increased bounty and realized what it meant. Being back here, in this palace, and now in these rooms, he felt like he was fifteen again—still trapped by duty he hadn’t asked for and expectations he could never meet, still desperate to get out, to get away.
Josef frowned and took a breath, a swordsman’s breath, as his old sword master had taught him, and let the anger drift away. The Heart’s weight pressed on his back, reminding him of how far he’d come. He reached up with a reverent motion, drawing the black blade from its wrapping and laying it across his knees. He was not trapped, he told himself as his fingers traced the Heart’s scarred surface. He was here by choice, a son doing a good turn for his mother, to whom he owed his life. When he was done, he would leave by choice. He would turn and walk away from the court and the crown and everything else that had no claim over him anymore.
Feeling slightly better, Josef leaned over and set the Heart against the stone fireplace. Realizing it could be a while before Adela arrived, Josef flicked a dagger out of his sleeve. He fetched his whetstone from his pocket and, sitting up on the pillows, began to sharpen his knives, killing the time with long, slow strokes as he waited for his wife.
He didn’t have long to wait. He’d scarcely finished his daggers when the door creaked and Adela stepped into the room. Her armor was gone, replaced by a close-tailored jacket that showed off her figure and long leather trousers tucked into short boots. Her sword, however, was still at her side, and that comforted Josef. Princesses baffled him, but an opponent he could understand, and Adela had always been up for a fight when they were kids.
She stopped when she saw him, and he got the feeling she didn’t expect him to just be sitting there, waiting. But, as always with Adela, she adapted, stepping into the room like this was how she ended every evening.
“Have you eaten?” she said, her voice bright and cheery.
Josef shook his head.
“I’ll ring the bell, then,” she said, stepping over the blades he’d laid out on the carpet.
Josef just nodded and began putting his knives back into their sheaths.
Dinner arrived a few moments later, a series of trays carried in by servants who gave Josef knowing smiles until he reached for his sword. After that, dinner was laid on the table with great efficiency and the servants vanished out the door as silently as they had come in.
Adela walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of dark wine, carefully pouring two glasses and setting them on the table.
“Sit,” she said, sitting down.
Josef walked to the table. “Is that an order, captain?”
“No,” she said. “You can starve if you like.”
Josef arched an eyebrow, but he pulled out the chair and sat down. She pushed a plate of roast meat across the table at him. “Eat.”
“Why the sudden concern for my well-being?” Josef said, taking the fork and helping himself.
“I want this over as much as you do,” Adela said, spooning a pile of roasted vegetables onto her own plate. “And it’s kind of hard to get a baby from a dead man.”
Josef stabbed his fork down so hard the tines bent. “I can’t believe you agreed to this,” he muttered. “Marriage to an absent husband is one thing, but a baby?”
“You think too much of yourself, Josef,” Adela said between neat bites of her food. “All you are at this point is an impediment to the progression of the bloodline, same as I’m little more than a useful vessel. The only thing anyone in this kingdom wants or expects from us is a child to carry on the line of Iron Lions. My life has always depended on being what was expected of me, and when you look at it that way, being a mother isn’t so different from being guard captain.”
Josef winced. “When you put it like that it kind of removes the nobility from the whole affair.”
“There wasn’t much to begin with,” Adela said, drinking her wine. “We’ll be done pretending one day. Until then, it doesn’t have to be all bad, does it? I mean, we used to be friends.”