Previously: Thorley
"I shouldn't have left him." Gabriel's tone was dead as he pulled open the drapes at the inn, letting the morning light through. His movements were stiff and jerky. "I was the last to see him alive before he hurled himself from the balcony."
"There's nothing you could've done," Cyprian told him, half-groaning as he painfully took a seat by the fire. "You can't save everyone, cousin; I keep telling you that."
"You don't understand, cousin," Gabriel turned to him, coming towards the prince and taking off his cloak. He tossed it over another chair. "Thorley was the viscountess's ninth betrothal. Her people think she's cursed." He paused, as though realizing. "She's probably devastated right now."
"Perhaps," Cyprian nodded stiffly, his voice tight. "But her misfortune may be our gain. You say this viscountess is the same girl who survived the dragon at Aurea?"
"Yes," Gabriel. "Elodie, and her sister Floria."
"Yet Elodie was the only one officially proclaimed royal blood," Cyprian pointed out. "She was the only sister to marry Prince Henry. That makes her the last real Princess of Aurea."
Gabriel cringed. "She hates that, Highness."
"But it's the truth," his cousin pressed. "Which means if you wed her, you could unite our kingdoms, and end the war."