“Do you think it’ll be hard for your men to adjust to being at peace with us?” I ask, truly curious.
The golden eyes of the Hollowborn grow thoughtful. “Yes. And no. I believe they look forward to having a place on theDravari continent to grow food and raise animals. That will smooth a lot of their anger toward your people, but it may still be awhile before one of them wants to sit down and have a meal with one of you.”
“Fair enough,” I say.
Elder Thorne stands up and points a finger at Sevrin. “Your people won’t want to share a meal withourpeople? This is an outrage! I am not just going to sit here and have a meal with this fucking Hollowborn and pretend that doing so is normal when his kind is responsible for killing just about every man I’ve ever known. My father. My brothers. My friends. Your people know nothing but death and killing, because all you are is bloodthirsty savages who–”
“Enough!” my father says, standing and shouting. His gaze locks onto the elder. “I am the king, and I make the decisions around here. I have decided that there has been enough death on both sides, and that keeping score will do no one any good. We will not sit at this meal of peace and stare into the past, when we should be staring into the future. If you can’t handle that, you can leave.”
The old man’s fists clench. “All this talk of looking into the future, when only a fool would fail to look at the past.”
“I think you’re no longer hungry, Elder,” my father tells him tightly.
The older man gives a sharp bow, then turns and marches from the room. The guards close the door silently behind him, and our father settles back into his chair.
“I’m sorry about that. Some people can’t stop cutting each other until they both bleed out. I’m a proud man, but I’m not a foolish man. I want this to work. I want the fighting to stop, and I don’t want to be the reason dragons die out.”
“I understand. You can’t control your people’s minds,” Sevrin says graciously.
We keep eating in silence for a few minutes before my father speaks up again. “Tomorrow night will be the wedding, and directly after we will sit together, and you will tell us how to fix the problem with our dragons.” He says it nicely, but it’s phrased like an order.
Harper jumps in, “Because, of course, we want to get started helping the dragons as soon as possible.”
Sevrin is stiff, but he moves a hand onto Harper’s knee, which all three of us are quick to notice.Does he always have to be looking at her or touching her?It seems like it.
Lucien swirls the liquor in his glass. “And, of course, if you’ve been lying to us about this whole solution for the male dragons thing, that will be the moment the peace treaty dissolves.”
“Prince Lucien,” Harper scolds.
My father speaks, his voice even. “My son is right, but we don’t have to worry about that, do we King Sevrin?”
“Absolutely not,” Sevrin says, and his words echo with an anger he’s not unleashing.
I’m guessing he doesn’t exactly appreciate the notion that we all think there’s a chance that he’s lying, even though I’m sure he won’t be happy until his people are actively working the lands we’ve set aside for them.
“But you should know,” he continues, “that if I provide you the information and you try to annul this marriage and go back on the peace agreement, it will unleash an all-out war between the Hollowborn and the Dravari the likes of which our people have never seen before.”
It’s a threat. And I don’t like it.
But my father smiles. “It’s a good thing we don’t intend to do such a thing, then.”
“A very good thing indeed,” Sevrin says, but his smile is yet another threat.
Harper wants us to like this man? We’ll see about that.
13
Harper
My hands gatherup the long skirts of the feather-light pale green dress I’m wearing as I move down the hall, heading back to my room at the academy. Dinner ended on a rather tense note, but I didn’t think it could’ve gotten tenser than that.
Unfortunately, I was wrong.
Sevrin walks at my side, his expression mostly hidden behind his face painting, and the three princes walk behind us. There’s silence, other than the sound of our steps on the stone beneath us. I can feel their eyes as they slide across me, all four of them, and the intensity of those gazes makes it hard to drag in a full breath. It’s jealousy, possessiveness, and lust all rolled into one, and I think I’d like it, if it wasn’t coming from four massive men who dominate my space, even in the quiet halls.
We finally come to my door, and I turn to face the princes. “It was a lovely dinner.”
“It was,” Lucien says, but there’s something about his stance, like he’s expecting a fight.
