Lucia novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: Cheap

"That is mine," I said.

Corradin did not turn.

"It was yours," he said. "The wagon driver sold it to me an hour before dawn. I paid him forty crowns."

"It is worth three hundred."

"It is worth forty. I looked at the stones." His voice was bored. "Two are flawed. The gold is thin."

"You bought it to mock me."

He turned his head at last, and his face in the starlight was white and tired.

"I wanted to see what a bride looks like who sells jewels for beans."

"It is cheap, Princess. So is the whole performance."

"Give it back."

"No."

I crossed the wall and slapped him as hard as I could.

The sound cracked across the pass.

His head turned with the blow, and he stood there with a red mark rising on his cheek.

He did not lift a hand.

He did not even blink.

"Better," he said quietly. "You may do that again if it pleases you."

"Why would it please me?"

"It might make you hate me. That would be convenient."

I stared.

"Lucia." Tobin's voice came from the stair, rough with sleep.

He was standing in the doorway in his shirt and breeches, barefoot on the frozen stone, with a lantern in his fist.

His eyes went from my face to the prince's cheek and back.

"He took your necklace," I said.

"I heard from the stairs."

I waited for him to hit the man.

Any man I knew would have.

Tobin set the lantern down on the wall, walked up until he stood a hand's breadth from the prince, and said nothing.

He was taller by two inches and wider by a third.

He simply stood there, a mountain in his bare feet, and looked at Corradin without blinking.

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