His shoulders were broad, just as I had always imagined, tapering to a waist I could span with my hands. Muscle moved beneath skin like honey poured over silk, and I found myself cataloguing details I had no right to notice, the small scar on his left shoulder blade from a childhood fall, the way his hair curled against his nape when damp, the elegant line of his spine disappearing into shadows I dared not follow with my eyes.
"Rhazir?" His voice was soft, questioning.
"Forgive me." I lifted theseretwith hands that shook only slightly. "I'm unfamiliar with the garment's construction."
It was a lie. I was simply lost in the terrible beauty of him, drowning in want I could never voice.
Theseretproved to be a marvel of design, a single length of silk that wrapped and draped with minimal fastening, conforming to the body's lines while maintaining an air of elegant simplicity. I helped him into it with professional efficiency, my fingers brushing his skin only when necessary, each contact sending fire through my veins.
When it was done, he studied himself in the bronze mirror, and a small smile touched his lips. "Perhaps they'll fear me less if I wear their garments. What do you think?"
My throat was dry as parchment, my mouth empty of all moisture. "You wish to accept their offer?" The words emerged as barely more than a whisper.
Moving to the palace complex seemed far more dangerous than remaining in the sturdy anonymity of the inn. There we would be surrounded by Eletheria's rulers, their guards and scholars and diplomats, all watching to see what manner of man the Prince of the Three Isles might prove to be.
"Of course," Serin said, turning from the mirror with renewed energy. "Let us be gracious guests. But tomorrow. Tonight I wish only to sleep."
I nodded, not trusting my voice. As he disappeared into the sleeping chamber, I stood alone with the scattered gifts and the lingering scent of jasmine oil, wondering how I would survive even one night in paradise, let alone however long this exile might last.
Theserethad transformed him into something that belonged in this place of beauty and wonder. And that, perhaps, was what I feared most of all, that Eletheria would claim him so completely that when the time came to return home, there would be nothing left of the prince I'd sworn to protect.
My gaze swept the room and identified the canvas bag I’d carried with me, sitting on a heap ofdiscarded clothes. My heart clenched with the misery of what I had to do.
I searched the desk in the corner of the room, set out a parchment, a quill, and ink before me, and wrote a short missive under the silver light of the moonstone lamp. Each word felt like twisting the dagger in Serin’s back, but each mattered more than the one before it.
I sanded the parchment before sealing it with the guard’s seal, then carried it down to the serving boy for a speedy dispatch, together with two shiny coins that ensured the missive would find its way to the fastest ship.
When I returned to our chambers, silence greeted me. Serin was fast asleep in his quarters, and I made my miserable way to the small room for the servant. It was finer than the barracks, though not as fine as my palace chambers on the Three Isles. No matter. Comfort had never been a concern of mine.
To think of it, I had only ever known one concern. And that one was peacefully asleep on the other side of the wall.
Chapter
Four
SERIN
Sunlight poured through the chamber's windows like honey from an overturned jar, warm and golden and impossibly sweet. I stirred beneath silken sheets that felt like woven moonbeams against my skin, consciousness returning in slow, languorous waves.
There had been a dream. Such a sweet, wonderful dream that even as I grasped after its fading edges, my heart fluttered with remembered joy. Rhazir had been there, I was certain of that much, but the details slipped away like water through cupped fingers. Something about gardens and starlight, about hands gentle as whispers, about words I'd never dared speak aloud...
The memory dissolved entirely as familiar footsteps sounded in the corridor beyond my door. Measured, purposeful strides that I could haveidentified in a crowd of thousands. Rhazir, awake and armed and ready to face whatever the day might bring. Clearly, sleeping until the sun reached its zenith was not among his plans for me.
I sighed and pushed myself upright, silk sliding away from skin still warm with sleep. Theseretlay draped across a chair where I'd left it the night before, a pool of blue fabric that caught the morning light like captured sky. Getting into it proved more challenging without Rhazir's steady hands to guide the draping, and I fumbled with the unfamiliar fastenings until something resembling proper arrangement was achieved.
"Rhazir?" I called as I stepped into the larger chamber.
He turned from where he'd been examining the window, and my breath caught despite myself. He wore his usual traveling garb, leather jerkin, sword belted at his hip, boots polished to a gleam that would have satisfied even my father's inspection. But here, surrounded by the ethereal beauty of Eletherian craftsmanship, he looked like some warrior god stepped down from legend. Dark hair fell across his brow in waves that begged for fingers to smooth them back, and his eyes...
"Your Highness." His gaze swept over me with professional assessment, checking the seret's drape and fit. "The garment suits you well."
Those dark eyes lingered just a moment longerthan necessary, and something warm and giddy bloomed in my chest like spring flowers after winter frost. When had I begun to crave his attention so? When had the simple act of him looking at me become something that made my pulse quicken?
"It feels strange," I admitted, smoothing the silk with suddenly nervous fingers. "So much lighter than our clothing at home."
A shadow of something crossed his features, memory, perhaps, or longing. "Eight years ago, when I first came to serve you, everything felt strange. The weight of your clothing, the taste of your food, the sound of your language on my tongue."
I could still remember the day he'd been presented to me, one of several candidates for the position of companion and guard, though he'd stood apart from the others like a blade among butter knives. Where the noble-born boys had preened and postured, he'd simply waited with patient stillness that spoke of depths I was only beginning to fathom.
