But the half-Fae female didn’t appear to notice as she grabbed the blond Fae’s hand and pulled him with her into the ring.
“May we get us started?” Frelina bowed—actually bowed to Loche and Iviry—as she asked the question. “Frecco has offered to show me how to use a sword.”
A defiant growl startedin Raine’s core and built through his gut, but just as it was about to reach his chest, when he would have sprinted forward and knocked the idiot smiling Frecco out of the way, Loche casually strolled up to his side and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“She knows what she’s doing,” Loche mumbled as Iviry responded to Frelina, following with a statement to the crowd that didn’t sink into Raine’s mind.
“The fuck she—” Raine started, but then Frelina’s eyes passed his, lingering for but a second.
But that second was enough. Raine gripped Loche’s shoulder to stop his quivering body from releasing like an arrow nocked to a bow when Frecco and Frelina lined up opposite each other, Frecco’s massive sword glittering in the early sunlight, like Frelina’s eyes.
She did know what she was doing. Frecco probably had nearly three feet on her, his body triple her size, forcing every pair of eyes around them to realize just how easily he could kill her. But his smile—a sunny and real one—told everyone he wouldn’t even come close.
“Rioner killed both of Frecco’s parents,” Loche breathed as they began circling each other, Frecco shooting Frelina instructions. “Frelina came to us this morning asking if we agreed with her idea. She?—”
“I get it,” Raine snarled.
He should probably try to rein in his temper, especially around the leaders for whom he was supposed to help garner support and respect, but how the fuck could he when the girl he…
Fuck, did he love her?
Solana’s laugh warmed his insides.
Of course you do, you dumb bastard.
Raine blinked when Frelina laughed again as Freccomanaged to disarm her with one strike of his sword, and he could only watch as the latter picked it up and made another joke that had her throw her head back to get air after the onslaught of giggles shaking her body.
It was as if that laughter swept through the crowd, soothing it, relieving the apprehension that had seeped through the salty air and the sky that wrapped all around them across the sea.
She really knew what she was doing. Frelina was showing the people around them what trust meant, as she purposely turned her back on the armed Frecco while saying something to Iviry. She was showing them that while he had every right to harm her as retribution for what her uncle had done to his parents, he wouldn’t.
She was giving the people hope—exactly like her sister had before.
The warmth that had spread in Raine’s chest surged into his limbs, through his bloodstream, into his mind, until he couldn’t help but send Frelina one thought.
Can I go next?
Her eyes flew his way, and the way she danced away from Frecco’s sword—the way her smile lit up the fucking world as the sun decided to shine on her face in just that moment—took every ounce of air from his lungs.
Please,he added.
His knees nearly buckled when she nodded and sent aJustgive me a few minutesback.
“You’re so fucked,” Loche chuckled, and Raine forced his eyes to the regent’s gray ones, struggling to focus as he listened to Frelina respond to Frecco’s jokes while the metal clang of their swords sliced through the remaining tensionaround them—every strike hitting something within the crowd until the harsh murmurs were replaced by low conversation, discussions of who would train with whom.
Thankfully Raine didn’t have to try to find any words—as his mind had apparently already gone—when Iviry came up to them, reaching out a slender hand to the regent, who stared at it for a moment, looking about as clever as a dead fish, before he caught himself and let her drag him to the center, beside Frelina and Frecco, who were finally taking a break.
Raine didn’t let himself hesitate as he followed the leaders.
You’re fucked as well,he thought when Loche lined up before Iviry, hesitating as he drew his sword.
But he made himself not say it out loud—the poor idiots needed whatever wins they could get right now—and as the crowd focused on them and Iviry grinned, a wild, wicked grin that made Loche’s lips lift into a mirroring one as they elegantly clashed together, a flicker of hope settled in Raine’s chest.
Not just for the people they were trying to unite. No, as he turned to Frelina and her cheeks flushed pink at whatever she saw in his face, the ember of hope took root, settling somewhere deep inside him.
Bowing before the golden-brown-haired beauty, he ignored Frecco when he asked what Raine was doing and reached out a hand toward Frelina as if he were asking her to dance, not duel.
“Will you do me the extraordinary honor of beating me in a fight?” Raine asked when Frelina stared at him, her chest still heaving from her earlier practice.
