Staring into them made her feel a bit light-headed, and for an instant, her thoughts started down a treacherous path. She wondered what it might be like to look into those eyes every day. What it might feel like if his arm wrapped around her and pulled her closer. Steadied her. If his fingers brushed her cheek. If his magic warmed her. And shedidshiver a little more at the thought, if only for that instant…
But then she steadied her own self—she didn’t needhimfor that—and she said, “I simply meant…I’ve thought about this day for some time.”
He blinked. Looked away again. Had he almost fallen into the same treacherous trance as her?
“It’s a bit overwhelming to finally be experiencing it, I suppose,” she added.
That wasn’t entirely a lie.
He nodded. His expression was difficult to read, partly because he still wasn’t truly looking at her.
“It all seems so much more…serious, now.”
“Serious?” he repeated.
“Does it not please you that I am taking it as such, my prince?”
He casually rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, one after the other, revealing a jagged scar on his left forearm. Sephia wondered if Ketzal was responsible for it. “It doesn’tpleaseme for you to call memy prince,” he said.
She stiffened. “We aren’t yet wed. I can’t call you ‘husband’.”
“You could call me by my name.”
“Is your false name so different from me calling you ‘my prince’? At least the latter is true enough.”
His lips parted and closed. Parted and closed. Speechless for the moment, because he clearly had no intention of revealing his true name to her. Not yet, anyway. Not that she’d expected him to—but it had been worth a try, hadn’t it? True names held power. The sort of power that might come in handy in the weeks to come.
“Never mind my name,” he finally said, a slight snarl slipping into the words. “And just so we’re clear, I’m glad to see you’re taking this seriously. You have a role to play in this palace, in this…arrangement, and I only came up here to make certain you were aware of what is expected of you. I can’t have you causing trouble.”
How romantic.
The words left a lingering sting, but why should they? She hadn’t come here for romance. She had come here to slay a monster.
“Do I need to spell it out further for you, or do we have an understanding?”
What she wouldn’t have given to be able to slay himnow, and to simply end this charade.
But Sephia did not break character. She lowered her eyes—the perfect picture ofdemure—and she said, “We have an understanding.”
“Good.”
She lifted her gaze to find him smiling at her.
It wasn’t a proper smile; she had yet to see him trulysmile, she realized. Rather, it seemed he had a dozen different ways of lifting the corners of his mouth, of showing his sharp teeth, of trailing his tongue over his lips in ways that seemed inviting at first, but dangerous upon closer inspection.
Watching him now made Sephia think of the cautionary tales she’d heard about the Sun fae and the magic they used to lure unsuspecting humans into their world. They created circles of sunlight—bright and warm and inviting circles—but once a person stepped into that ring of light, they became blind. Defenseless.
Look twice before you step into the light,the Middlemage elders always used to say.
“You will dine with myself and my inner court tonight,” Tarron informed her. “But before you can sit at our table, there are a few examinations that you need to undergo.”
“Examinations?” The huff of protest escaped her before she could stop it. Hadn’t she been poked and prodded enough today? And the wordexaminationfelt so cold. Disgusting. Barbaric.
What parts of her, precisely, did they feel the need toexamine?
The prince clasped his hands behind his back, studying her again, looking entirely unsympathetic. And was it her imagination, or did he also seem a touch smug? As if he’d caught her in the middle of something heinous?
Sephia’s bloodchilled at this last thought.
