“You visited Dermaine Palace once with your parents. I followed you around like I was your shadow, but tried to evade your notice when you caught sight of me. Whenever you did notice me, you turned your nose up like I was pure scum for existing in your presence.”
“I can confirm this is true,” Larylis said, leaning forward to speak down the table. “I was quite embarrassed for him.”
Something warm and tender flooded her chest. “I don’t remember that.” It had been so long ago, before the great tragedies that had befallen her—the deaths of her parents, her exile from Ridine. She hadn’t even remembered she’d been to Dermaine before.
“I clearly wasn’t very memorable,” Teryn said.
She realized something else he’d mentioned. That she’d visited with her parents. “So you met my mother and father?”
“I did.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. The fact that the man she loved had met her parents—and that they’d met him—meant more to her than she could have imagined. She couldn’t bring herself to speak for fear that she’d start sobbing then and there.
“That’s a very sweet story,” Princess Lily said in her quiet voice.
Cora shook the tender revelations from her mind and poured her attention on the couple next to Teryn. “What about the two of you? How did you come to marry?”
Lex reached beside him and gripped his wife’s hand. A proud smile spread across his lips. “Lily is my long-time sweetheart.”
Teryn nodded. “I remember you telling me about her during our travels.”
Cora opened her mouth, on the verge of asking why Lex had participated in Mareleau’s Heart’s Hunt if he’d already fancied another woman, but she stopped herself just in time. She couldn’t ask such an impertinent question, no matter how her curiosity burned.
Lex leveled a knowing look at her. “I know what you’re thinking, and, no, I never had any intention of winningherhand,” he said with a significant nod toward Mareleau, who in turn nearly choked on her dinner roll. “I only participated in the Heart’s Hunt because my father threatened to disinherit me if I didn’t at leasttry. I figured I’d give it my worst effort, come home defeated, and then get permission to marry the woman I actually cared for.”
“Well, he’s a blunt one, isn’t he?” Mareleau said under her breath.
Cora’s eyes darted to Lily to see if she showed any sign of discomfort at being at the same dinner table as the woman her husband had once been forced to court, but she merely grinned as if thoroughly amused.
Lex went on. “My heart has always been for Lily, and I wouldn’t have considered attending that ridiculous Beltane festival if I’d thought I’d had any chance at winning that poetry contest.”
“Your poem was terrible,” Teryn agreed. “Your hair is the color of light ale. Your skin a milky pallor.”
Larylis looked up from his hidden book, a distant look on his face. “You are graceful like a deer and smart like a fox.”
“Ah, yes,” Lex said with a grimace. “My prize-winning poetry.”
Larylis gave Mareleau a crooked grin. “I’d say your words captured my wife’s greatest assets rather accurately.”
Mareleau burned him with a glare but it was betrayed by the smile pulling her lips.
Lex cleared his throat and shrank down slightly. “His Majesty isn’t uncomfortable about…” He lowered his voice and leaned in, ensuring his words wouldn’t carry to the lower tables. “You know…that every man at this end of the table has, in some way, courted your wife?”
Mareleau made an indignant squeak and rounded on Lex. “Does it botheryouthat I’m the one who deemed your poem the winner of my contest?”
Lex pulled his head back. “I don’t know why, but I feel like I should be offended by that.”
Lily patted his shoulder. “There, there, my love.”
Cora’s chest rumbled with laughter, and Teryn’s mirth was so potent, his eyes were crinkled at the corners. She loved seeing her fiancé so amused, so carefree. This was the most lighthearted royal dinner she’d had since being crowned queen. For the first time since taking the throne, her friends were here. Her beloved was here. There were joys to celebrate, matters to laugh about.
Mother Goddess, she wished it could always be this way.
The darker part of her day—overseeing the prisoner’s interrogation—threatened to dampen her joy, reminding her of the threats that might await, but she wouldn’t give in. Not yet. Not now.
After Teryn sobered from his amusement, he said to Lex, “You never explained why your father was so against your marriage to Lily, other than the fact that she wasn’t a princess. How did you convince him to allow your marriage?”
“Well, you see,” Lex said, “my Lilylove is the niece of a Norunian rebel.”
