As they left the royal chambers behind, Theo breathed a little easier. It wasn’t as horribly warm in the corridors, but mostly, he was relieved to get away from his father. They had never been particularly close, but after his mom’s death, there was no way of reaching him. It was as if they were forever separated by a glass wall, invisible but always there.

  “So, marriage,” Ariana said quietly.

  Theo peeked at her. “Apparently.”

  “Not—not to be rude, Your Highness,” Ariana said. “But you don’t seem enthusiastic about it.”

  “Are you?” Theo shook his head. “Sorry. That was rude. But please, for the hundredth time, stop with the whole title thing. I’m just Theo.”

  “Yes, Theo,” Ariana said, though Theo knew she would go back to calling him Your Highness in a minute. For some reason, Ariana never thought he was serious.

  “I’m sure it will be all right,” Ariana said quietly.

  Theo snorted softly. “‘All right’. Exactly what I’m looking for in a marriage.”

  Ariana’s pale cheeks colored. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Theo.”

  She gazed at the floor.

  A guard held a door open for them, and the trio walked inside. It was one of the castle’s many sitting rooms, with a semi-comfortable couch and low table, all very pretty and organized and, most of all, clean. The queen did not like things even the slightest bit dirty, and though she was gone, it was still drilled into the staff to keep the castle tidy.

  Theo sank down on the couch and relaxed into the pillows. Why couldn’t they make couches more comfortable? Was it really that difficult?

  “Well, let’s get you through meeting dragons first, Your Highness,” Freya said. She remained standing, of course—she never sat down while on duty, and Theo had never actually seen her off duty. She worked all the time. Exhausting. “Then the two of you can worry about marriage.”

  Theo let out a groan, dropping his head back on the couch. “Dragons. How can he do this to me? I like baking—the dragons are going to kill me.”

  Freya’s expression suggested that she agreed with the assessment.

  “Perhaps you can talk to them,” Ariana said. “You’re good at talking.”

  “I’m really not.”

  “You are better than me,” she mumbled.

  Theo raised his head to look at her. Well, that was difficult to argue with, but that was just because Ariana hardly ever spoke, especially in the company of anyone she wasn’t familiar with.

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  “If I have to rely on talking, I might as well bring my baked goods too,” Theo said. “They, at least, are really good.”

  “You’d need to bring a lot of pastries to satiate a dragon,” Freya said.

  Theo snorted, though it was filled with less humor and more dread. “It’s more likely they’ll eat me than the pastries.”

  “I think they’ll eat both,” Freya said.

  “You are not helping.”

  “Not trying to.” She paused. “Your Highness.” She gave a saccharine smile.

  Theo shook his head. “Can I really be sure you’ll have my back out there with an attitude like that?”

  “You’ll just have to see,” Freya said with a shrug. “Perhaps I’ll return and say I did my best and get a pay raise and a better job than babysitting.”

  Theo sighed. “You deserve a better job.”

  She did. Freya was way too good at fighting, strategy, and being a knight in general, to follow him around and protect him from his own shadow.

  “Well, I’m finally going to get to do what I thought I’d be doing as a knight,” she said. “Protecting you from real dangers, not just your own clumsiness and burning your fingers on the oven in the kitchen.”

  “That was once.”

  “It was not.”

  When Theo glanced at Ariana, he found her staring at them with wide eyes. She was pretty behind her curtain of hair, all contrasts with her porcelain skin and dark eyes, but… wife? No, he couldn’t imagine it. He’d have to take her to bed, and that thought was… nope. She looked far too delicate, and might break under his clumsy touch.

  Theo couldn’t really imagine taking any woman to bed.

  It would be a problem once he was married.

  “So, are you going to make any sort of plan for this excursion?” Freya asked. “Or do you think it’s going to work well for you to just head out into the wilderness until you stumble upon a beast?”

  “You’re much better at plans than me,” Theo said. “Would you please make a plan for me?”

  Freya sighed. “I’ll talk to a few of the guys tomorrow, figure out where the dragons are usually active—”

  “And then we’ll avoid that spot like the plague,” Theo said with an innocent grin.

  She glared at him. “And then we’ll head there.”

  He was going to die. Why did his father want him dead? What part of his life so far made his father think that he had even the slightest chance of surviving this, other than with Freya’s protection and through sheer dumb luck? Did he look like someone who had a lot of dumb luck? He would need it in spades to survive.

  Abruptly, he came to his feet. “I’m going to the kitchen. I need to bake something.”

  “Now? Didn’t your father forbid you from being in the kitchen?” Freya asked.

  “He said I couldn’t be there tomorrow,” Theo said. “I’m taking my, eh, future wife to the kitchen and baking bread to bring along. And some cinnamon rolls. And some cookies.”

  Baking was exactly what he needed.

  “I don’t know how to bake,” Ariana said, her head down. “My mother has never let me into the kitchen. She doesn’t think such menial tasks are suitable for a noblewoman.”

  Theo scrunched his nose. “What is it with our parents and hating the kitchen? My father is exactly the same. ‘It’s not work for a prince’ and ‘it’s just food’, blah, blah, blah. It’s not menial, and it’s not just food—it’s a lot of fun, and an art in and of itself. I can show you.”

  “If my mother finds out…” There was a tremble in Ariana’s voice that made Theo halt.

  “Then what?” he asked. “What would she do?”

  Ariana didn’t meet his gaze. “Nothing, Your Highness.”

  “Theo.”

  She hesitated. “Theo.”

  Theo frowned. This was why he couldn’t consider her a close friend—there were always things she wasn’t saying. Her mother was a strict and controlling type, that much was obvious, and the deceased Duke Rosewick had spent most of his time away from home. It probably hadn’t been easy for Ariana.

  But he had no idea how to get her to open up.

  “Come on,” he said instead. “Let’s go bake.” He sent Freya a look. “And no eye rolling from you.”

  “Why would I? Another afternoon in the kitchen, just what I dreamed of when I trained to be a knight,” Freya deadpanned.

  Theo grinned. “Great, then you won’t mind.”

  As usual, Freya did exactly what he had told her not to—she rolled her eyes.