This man was basically a king, even if his title was prince. He surely had more important things to do than give a fake diplomat like me a tour. Why wasn’t a servant doing this for him?
Nisien led me through a stone corridor lit with flickering torches that illuminated more tapestries until we stopped at a great open archway. He paused and extended one arm, gesturing for me to go ahead of him. His guards silently moved to flank either side of the archway.
The sight beyond hit me harder than any treasure, any throne room, any gilded promise the Assembly could’ve offered. For a meek woman like me, it might as well have been an armory—the type wholly lacking in steel and sharp edges.
My feet carried me three steps into the library. Books filled the space, stacked in tall, neat rows from floor to ceiling between every narrow window. The faint scent of old ink filled the air, and a fire crackled in the grated fireplace on one side of the room.
Two heavy wooden tables sat in the center. Four chairs, their leather worn smooth with age, flanked the larger table. Two smaller, exquisitely embroidered chairs sat at the other.
Nisien soon approached me from behind, stopping a respectful distance away. “My mother and sister used the more decorative table. Consider it yours.”
“Your sister?” I asked. I hadn’t known the twins had any siblings. The Assembly’s explanation of my assignment here had been, to put it mildly, lacking in specifics.
“Yes, Bronwyn married a Wynthian king just last year. It was her wedding that convinced Emrys to come back home, in fact.” While he spoke, his smile was bright, but a weight of conflicting feelings was buried beneath the surface as he discussed his sister.
“Oh,” was all I could manage. I had a million questions about that, but now didn’t seem like the time to get so personal. “So, I may use the library, read the books, when not attending to my duties?”
For a moment, Nisien studied me with a strange expression and a bit of confusion. Then he answered simply, “Yes, of course.”
I must’ve made a social blunder, though I wasn’t sure of the exact nature of my mistake.
“Thank you,” I said, curtseying again. My smile felt too wide, too eager for the show I was supposed to be putting on of being a high lady.
Since age sixteen, I’d viewed reading as a purely utilitarian thing. My mother had taught us all from an early age, but my access to new reading material ended when my parents could no longer afford my magical tutor.
I wanted to run my fingers along the spines, crack them open and devour every page. I wanted to gain the knowledge I’d once dreamed of but never dared hope for.
My fingertips brushed over a particularly stunning example that had paint along the edges. Books were expensive. Poor girls didn’t touch priceless things. If I damaged it, I could never pay its price back…
Still, the risk might be worth it. These walls might hold the answers I needed to actually play the game the Assembly had embroiled me in. Every book could be a weapon, if I could only learn how to wield it. Since this was the family’s private library, I hoped I’d find something about their history within. I needed to learn as much as I could about this broken kingdom so I could return home.
If Emrys’s initial greeting was any indication, I would be in Tir Darreth long enough to devour half these shelves. And maybe, just maybe, the books would teach me all the things I needed to know to survive inside a disorderly court—and the chaos of its princes.
“Lady Isca.” Nisien cleared his throat. “I hate to do this, but I am afraid that your behavior has made it necessary.”
My magic whipped out, frantically reading the prince’s emotions. He didn’t react to it. I’d already guessed that I’d made a social blunder, but had I actually made a much larger mistake? Would my family be punished for it? My pulse quickened once more.
Except the only emotional feedback my magic received from Nisien was…playfulness?
The broad, genuine smile on his face betrayed that he’d beenteasingme… Or testing? With Emrys, every word had a glint of steel. With Nisien, they felt like silk.
But even silk could bind so tightly that escape was impossible. Between them, they pulled me as taut as a bowstring: steel and silk, fury and charm.
Nisien’s serious tone didn’t match what I could sense from him when he spoke next. “Lady Isca, you are forbidden from curtsying to me. The only exception is when we’re attending formal events with neighboring nobles, where it would be considered odd not to… Can’t have that.” Then he winked.
Men like him didn’t flirt with women like me. This had to be a part of his personality, nothing more.
But I couldn’t turn cold on Nisien in the first hour of meeting him because I was afraid. I forcefully reminded myself that both princes wereinnocent in the Assembly’s clandestine machinations. He didn’t know that I’d been sent to seduce him. He likely didn’t even know that I was someone the Assembly had plucked out of the gutter.
I could go home when the kingship was decided…or when I was unmistakably pregnant. The first task was duty. The second? I’d told myself I could perform thenecessarieswhile remaining detached. It would be a simple transaction. But meeting both princes had made that lie harder to swallow.
It was absurd. In the past week, I’d thought more about romance, heirs, and the weight of a man’s hands on my hips, of a man’s eyes piercing me with something I couldn’t name, than I had in my entire twenty-four years.
It made me wonder… Was it so terrible? What if, against all odds, this golden prince and the shadowed one weren’t the worst fates the Assembly could’ve chosen for me?
Guilt twisted in my stomach as I looked at row after row of books. Really, shouldn’tIbe the one feeling guilty for even thinking about going through with the Assembly’s second task? My cheeks burned, this time from private shame, as I agreed not to curtsy to Nisien again.
The guards outside shifted, and a young woman in a black servant’s dress with wild auburn hair practically sprinted into the room. She skidded to a stop a few paces in, breathing hard.
