Page 12 of A Sea So Cruel
Asta didn’t know why she didn’t pull away. She couldn’t understand why the silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable. Why wasn’t she repulsed by his touch?
She watched their fingers work together, pressing down the ivory and black keys. He had shockingly rough palms—rougher than she expected a rich, spoiled brat’s hands to feel. But they gently wrapped themselves around hers, despite the uneven skin.
Asta couldn’t break the trance she was in, even though she knew she should. This was her sister’s soon-to-be husband. But all she could focus on was his forearms resting on hers, the heat of his breath so close to her face as he leaned to reach her hands, his cedar scent wrapping around her, his—
The music stopped as Kaid quickly pulled his hands away, resting them on his thighs. Asta didn’t understand why until she looked up and saw her sister standing in the doorway.
“Princess,” Kaid stood, making his way to Maren, “come in.”
Maren gently placed her hand in Kaid’s and entered the music room, her eyes sweeping over the various instruments and decorations. Now that Asta had broken from whatever spell she had been under, she took in the room at the top of the tower. It was round, half the walls completely glass to observe the seabelow. The waves were particularly angry today, coming in ten-foot walls and crashing brutally onto the beach below.
The deeply colored tapestries were dusty, but intact. They depicted various sea creatures, but one caught Asta’s eye. It was of a horse with a fin for a tail, much like the statues at their front gates. She would have to come back later to observe it more closely.
What was she doing in here, anyway? What strange moment had she just shared with Kaid?
Linnea was standing in the doorway next to a particularly irritated Svanhild, and Asta took that as her cue to leave.
As she walked out the door, she looked back to see Kaid guiding Maren to the bench and sitting next to her. He positioned her hands on the keys, but he didn’t hold them as he had Asta’s.
She tapped the doorway and left, Svanhild regarding her with a foul eye roll as she passed.
Stupid. You are so stupid.
Asta scolded herself as she walked back to her suite. But what was she scolding herself for? All she had done was play the piano. Simple as that. At least, that’s what she tried her best to convince herself.
For all Asta could tell, it was Kaid playing a trick on her, using his womanizing ways to string her along and then crush her. But something within her had felt empty ever since that music had ended.
At the bottom of the grand stairs, Asta saw Niklas.
“Nik!” She waved to him, pausing for Linnea to catch up. The scholarly man smiled at the princess in greeting. “I’ve hardly seen you since the lord’s arrival. How is it going?”
Asta rested a hand on Niklas’s shoulder, and he started shaking his head. “Oh, no you don’t. I’m not gossiping with you.”
The princess’s nose crinkled. “You say it like I’veforcedyou in the past. You indulge in the whispers nearly as much as I, and you know it.”
Niklas nervously removed his glasses and cleaned them with the hem of his tunic, his eyes shifting around to make sure no one could hear. “There is… something. It’s an odd tidbit I noticed. Hardly anything, really.”
Asta smiled maliciously. Niklas was so quiet that people simply forgot he existed half the time. He was a fly on the wall, noticing all the little details that members of the castle and nobility never wanted discovered. But Niklas needed someone to tell his secrets to. And luckily for Asta, that person was often her.
“Put away that cruel smile or I won’t tell you.”
Asta folded her lips inward, but amusement still danced in her green eyes.
Niklas sighed. “It’s about Lord Kaidian.”
Asta’s heart skipped a beat. After the moment she and Kaid had shared, she needed news about him that would remind her just how much she despised him.
“Go on,” Asta said sweetly.
Niklas twisted his fingers anxiously. “He seems to be frightened by the ocean. Like, won’t-touch-the-water kind of frightened.”
Hmm. Niklas may be right with this one.Kaid had been here for over a week, and she had never once seen him down on the beach. She had seen Halsten doing his morning exercises in the sand, but never Kaid. But how could Asta use that to her advantage?
Asta thanked Niklas for the information and beckoned Linnea to keep following her as they made their way to her suite in silence. Linnea didn’t say a word, but Asta knew she would receive a full, but soft-spoken, lecture regarding the music room incident once they entered those doors.
Tap, tap.
The princess took a step back when she saw a member of the royal guard in her common room. But all panic extinguished quickly when she realized who the tall man was, his long braids swinging freely.
