The prince paused, staring at her for a long moment, trying to read her expression. “I told you in the North, I wanted to shower you with the trappings the world had so woefully denied my giving you before.”
“I thought it may be something like that.” Vhalla laughed softly, turning back to the gems.
“Do you see something you like?” Aldrik asked over her shoulder.
“Not really.” There were women who would die to be in her position. Vhalla knew she could point at any of the shining jewels, and Aldrik would give it to her without a thought.
“How about this?”
She gave him her attention, her eyes quickly falling to the golden circlet he held in his hands. Vhalla remembered taking a similar, larger crown off the prince’s brow during the first night he’d held her, during their dance. Aldrik searched her expression, waiting, his message clear.
“Don’t do this,” Vhalla cautioned. “Don’t do this to us.” He was going to shatter the fragile peace. He was going to throw them into chaos again. The madness they always devolved into. She didn’t know if she was ready to take that leap just yet.
“I want to save us.” The prince stood in limbo. “I want to find a way to honor our promises in more than shadow. You said the princess conspired for my father’s life? I’m trying to find proof, to have her—at the least—removed from being my bride.”
“She must be!” Vhalla’s voice cracked and fractured. “She must be, Aldrik.” Her hands gripped his and the crown he was holding. “She must wear this or you condemn countless more lives to death. Even though she conspires and everyone knows it, it changes nothing . . .”
“If I could find a way,” he whispered.
“You can’t.”
“Believe in me!” Aldrik’s voice rose by a fraction before softening. “I have crawled out of deeper holes this past year. Believe I can do this, because if you will be by my side, I will let nothing stop me.” He took a deep breath and continued his earlier thought. “If I could find a way to keep the peace and allow us to be together, would you still take me? Would you forgive me? Would you want me?”
Vhalla bit her lip, containing her cry of, “Yes!” She pressed her eyes closed. He spoke of escaping pits, but they were about to be thrown back into one if they did this. He was risking everything.
“Vhalla, you are the dawn at the end of a seemingly endless night, and I never showed you enough appreciation for the essential part of my life that you are.” He leaned forward and caught her eyes.
“That’s not true.” She shook her head.
“It is,” Aldrik insisted, his tone suggesting how he would feel about further objections. “I kept you too far, and I let you slip from between my fingers. At the end of it all, I do not blame the Northern girl or my father, I blame myself for not being enough of a man at the moment I gave you the papers decreeing your nobility; instead of severing our relationship I should have taken you into my arms and comforted you, promised you that I would find a solution if you only stayed by my side. I should have never been the person I was that drove you to, alone, walk out of those camp doors.”
“I wish I could hate you, you frustrating man,” she breathed hopelessly.
“And I wish I could stop loving you, my frustrating woman,” he laughed. It was an equally hopeless sound. “I wish I could see the sun rise without thinking of how beautiful you are in the dawn, your hair an impossible mess and your body contorted in that weird way you call sleeping.”
He shook his head and stared up at the heavens, as if beseeching the Mother for help. “I wish I could go to my rose garden without thinking of sitting there with you, of reading, of just . . . just hearing you breathe.”
Vhalla’s back pressed against the cases.
“I wish I could see you smile without thinking of how it feels when your lips make that shape against mine.” Aldrik braced himself with a hand by her shoulder. “I wish I was not utterly, hopelessly in love with you, Vhalla Yarl.”
“But you are,” she finished for him, searching the prince’s expression.