The Rebel Prince (The Season Series #3)

Chapter 48

The man staring back at me in the mirror was a stranger. Shaved and clean cut now, but a stranger nonetheless. Back in my old rooms, the differences between me and who I'd once been stood out more starkly than they had before. It smelled like home, but it didn't feel like home. Not anymore. Not when these rooms felt massive and empty and cold. Not when I wished for a tiny bed in a tiny room with shingles that slipped off the roof.

Giles had provided me with new clothes—or, old ones I'd left behind, really—and the moment he stepped out, I hastily dug through the deepest part of my armoire drawers for a stack of letters. Letters I'd hidden and held onto, ones that had broken my heart over and over again. I didn't hesitate when I flung them into the fire, watching her perfect handwriting shrivel into ash.

"Goodness, what's all that?"

I whirled around to find Anne hovering in my doorway, dressed and coiffed like a proper young lady and not looking as miserable about it as she usually used to, before I'd left.

"Kindling," I replied, folding my arms and blocking her from the grate.

Anne fixed me with a look. "I'm not a fool, Tom. They're letters, aren't they?"

"They might've been. But now they're kindling."

She sighed and rolled her eyes, taking a seat in my armchair. "Will you please put a shirt on? I came to talk to my brother, not some shirtless pirate."

"Perhaps I'm trying to start a new trend," I said, turning to admire myself in the full-length mirror. But all I could see now was my mangled ear, stark against my freshly cut, still-damp hair. The sight of it—the memories of it—twisted sharply in my chest.

"Adelaide won't care about your new physique, you know. She—"

I whirled around so quickly that I forgot to stop from baring my teeth.

"What?" Anne bleated, jerking back in her seat, shocked. Her brows creased. "I thought—"

"Never speak her name to me again," I said, unable to stop my voice from coming out like a growl.

Anne's mouth clamped shut, but her eyes slid to the letter smouldering in the fire. Her voice was tiny when she asked, "Tom...what's happened?"

I scraped a hand through my hair, then realized I was pacing and stopped. Calm. I had to be calm. If I couldn't handle the sound of her name on my sister's lips, how was I supposed to handle her in the flesh? Grinding my teeth, I seized the shirt Giles had laid out and thrust my arms into it. It was too snug when I did the buttons, and when I reached for the waistcoat, the seam along the back of my shoulder popped with an audible rip.

Anne let out a huff that might've been a giggle, but her brows were still pinched with worry. "Well that won't do," she said.

I yanked off the torn shirt, squeezing the collar between my fingers to resist the urge to fling it across the room. This was all so pointless. This ball, these clothes, these courtly games. My stomach clenched, tight with nerves and dread and impatience. I needed to be concocting a plan. I needed to be sailing back for Ardalone. I needed to be doing something.

"Perhaps James will have something that will fit," Anne said delicately, before she slipped back out of the room.

The crackling fire filled the silence. I finally tossed the shirt away and flung open the windows, forgetting that the night breeze here in Pretania would be frigid and not pleasant. But the cool air's bite was a welcome relief against my spiralling thoughts.

Calm. I needed to be calm. I scrubbed my face with my hands as if I could somehow scrub the dread-inducing thoughts from my head.

I couldn't. No amount of pacing or cold air or face-scrubbing could stop me from obsessing over Dulciana's bargain and the minutes ticking away on the grandfather clock in the corner. I had to deliver her an army if I wanted to save Beatriz. An army she would use to decimate Frederico. If I complied, Beatriz would never forgive me. But I couldn't let her die. I wouldn't.