The Madran law stated a princess would choose her own husband as long as he was of Madran descent. That was the reason for the ball—but her father was known to always weight his dice.

Wouldn’t it be a great feat to tie the royal family to the highest of the merchants? The throne would have a power that hadn’t been seen in a long time.

She made it back to the royal residence and ripped the mask from her face.

She wouldn’t do it. The Tenyson’s were vile, conniving, wretches. She’d seen the lecherous looks both sons sent her way.

Her father could make deals all he wanted, but there was one thing she knew for certain.

She would never marry a Tenyson.

Chapter Four

An icy blast of water struck Dell’s face, and he sputtered awake, almost falling from his loft in the barn. His eyes snapped open to find the haggard face of his stepmother hovering over him. She threw the now empty wooden bucket behind her and planted both hands on her expensive gown covered hips.

He would have laughed at her presence among the un-mucked stalls and animal smells, but her shrill voice permeated the air instead.

“You ungrateful boy. Where have you been? No one has seen you in days.”

He may have thought she’d worried over his absence if he didn’t know her.

He would not tell her the truth, so he decided to go with nothing at all.

She narrowed her eyes. “You will make up the work. The Madran trader, our largest ship, is leaving a day late to pick up the next shipment coming across the border into Bela. It leaves on the noon tide. Get to the ship.”

The Madran Trader has been his father’s prized ship. He shook his head. His father was dead. None of the ships were his anymore. They belonged to the Tenyson trading company. An operation he should have been more involved in than cleaning decks.

His stepmother turned and stomped across the straw-covered floor before flinging open the wooden door.

Dell groaned as he sat up and flipped wet hair out of his eyes. A few of the stable lads were waking in their beds. When Dell had first arrived at Tenyson manor and the storm took his father, he couldn’t understand why the rest of his supposed family would force him to live with the help. Over the years, he’d been glad of it. It was better than suffocating inside that house.

He climbed from the bunk and slid his shirt off, finding a dry one to replace it. Corban’s healing was incredible and efficient, but it used the body’s own energy to heal and he felt it for days in the strain of his muscles.