Betrothed by Jill Myles Page B

laughing about this? Happy? She was completely and utterly miserable. “I don’t understand you,” she said, hurt and betrayal in her voice. “What I need to do is leave, get away from here and never come back. The prince will marry his lovely Lady Aynee and they’ll forget all about me in a few months—nay, a few annums—and then I can come back.” She rambled, wringing her hands and pacing, ignoring how Rilen grinned at her like some sort of crazy fool. “We’ll have to sell the farm to buy a wagon,” she said, distracted. “Rilen, do you think—”
    But he grasped her by the shoulders and tilted her chin back up to view him, her brown eyes meeting his. “Seri,” he said, his voice patient and calm. “You have to go back.”
    “Why? Why do I have to?” Tears filled her eyes again. More than anything, she wanted to crawl into her own bed, her hard straw pallet, lumpy and musty, but hers . She wanted to hear Josdi’s soft breathing next to her, and Father’s snoring across the tiny cottage. She wanted to wake up and work from sunup to sundown just to put food on the table because that was real and tangible, not this nightmare world they wouldn’t let her escape, not even Rilen. “Why would you want me to go back, Rilen?” Perhaps he didn’t understand. “They call me his betrothed because they wish for me to marry him in three days’ time. It’s like our handfast. If I marry this man, I am tied to him forever, Rilen. Forever.”
    He leaned in and kissed her nose. “But you will not marry him for long.” He looked down at her, a fanatical light in his eyes.
    Fear washed through her. Rilen got that look in his eyes when he planned with the other men of the village, the discontented young men who sneered at everything the Athonites brought, who did their best to make the troops miserable with their midnight attacks and their suicidal runs. Oh no. Seri looked up at her once-to-be-mate with frightened eyes. “What do you mean?” Her voice was quiet, terrified.
    “Let them dress you up,” Rilen said, lifting her hand to kiss it fervently, as if he could convince her with a few frantic gestures. “Let them pretend that you are their chosen princesse. Let him try to woo you with pretty words and pretty clothing and their good food. Let them do their ceremony to bind you to their prince.”
    “But, Rilen—”
    “And when they have finished their ceremony, you will smile in that pretty, soft way of yours and let him lead you to bed, and you shall offer him a cup of wine. And you shall poison him.” Rilen’s smile was fearsome. “And he shall die in his own vomit before he touches you.”
     

 
     
     
    Chapter Five
     
    “Murder him?” Seri’s voice was a harsh whisper, fright modulating her voice and stealing the force out of it. “You want me to murder their prince before the eyes of all?” Oh, One Above, how could she possibly do it? How could she kill a man? Her own life would surely be forfeit.
    But Rilen only grinned and lifted a finger in the air, indicating she should wait. He dashed to the back of the barn and began to lift great tufts of hay out of the bottom of a nearby stall. Curious and full of dread, she followed him.
    Once the hay was pushed aside, a hidden door was revealed and in there, a tiny room full of swords, knives, and armor. Things that were outlawed to Vidari, outlawed long ago when they’d lost the war and the Athonites took over their lands. “Rilen!” She gasped in fear as he pulled forth a gleaming dagger. “They will kill you if they ever find out what you have,” she said, fear trembling in her voice, and anger. She was to marry this reckless fool, to bring Josdi and her father under his roof and have him care for them. He would put them all in danger. “Rilen, no.”
    But he only pulled out a small dagger and an even smaller leather pouch and handed both to her. “This is for you.” The bag he pressed into her hand was feather-light. “There are