He smiles as he looks at me. Blood rushes hot in my veins. That is the smile of a killer if I ever saw one, but it’s also…strangely alluring. A smile that beckons, a smile that dares. A smile that tempts one to dance on the edge of the knife.
His gaze rakes over me, lingering rather longer than it should on the swell of my bosom. These blasted corset lacings suddenly feel much too tight, and I’m sure he can see my pulse throbbing as I struggle to draw a full breath.
The next moment, he retreats, moving to take his place beside Prince Bryon on the floor below the dais. Shoulders back, eyes forward, he wears an inscrutable expression on his handsome face. But I still feel the places on my skin where his gaze had trolled, my flesh prickling with heat as though he’d fondled me with his hands.
My first two champions. I drop my gaze to the gold rose clutched in my lap. Gods above, how am I to bear four more?
The next champion is not a prince. Philippa informed me that the prince of Albhia is as old as sin, not to mention already married, and therefore not a worthy contender for this championship. Instead, he’s sent his young cousin, Lord Elis Balxidon. A sprightly young man, maybe a year or two my senior, with wide shoulders and a rangy build, he moves with the energy of a young stallion. He kneels before me as the others did, but when he lifts his face to mine, he winks…and my cheeks erupt in blushes. There’s something familiar about that wink, like he’s saying:We both know this is all quite ridiculous, don’t we? But we’re in for a good time!
After Lord Elis, Warrick Trislamin, the Ranger Prince of Anfalen, appears. He is the oldest of the champions, a man who has seen great suffering and known great loss. He carries both that suffering and that loss on his shoulders even now as he makes his way across the hall. His beard is black, his complexion dark, and his expression so solemn, it’s unsettling. Though he moves with power, my trained eye can’t help noticing a certain lameness in his left leg. How can he be expected to participate infair competition if he is wounded? Though I suppose these championship trials can’t possibly be worse than whatever gave him that limp in the first place.
Having presented himself to me, Warrick takes his place beside the energetic Elis. While the young lord, bouncing on his toes, eyes darting every which way across the hall, feels like a summer wind caught in human form, Warrick stands like an ancient tree, ready to face whatever storms may come. They could hardly be a greater contrast to each other.
“Learned Majestic Rune of the Senland Theocracy,” King Alderin declares. “Come forward, Second Champion, and greet your princess.”
The Theocracy of Senland, so I have learned, has neither kings nor princes, but is ruled by a noble class of priestlike scholars known as the Learned Majestics. I expected their champion to be built along the lines of an academic rather than a warrior; nothing could be further from the truth.
Learned Majestic Rune glides into the hall, clad in wafting robes of crimson silk which make his tawny skin seem almost to glow. His blue-black hair is unbound, flowing down his back in textured waves. He moves with predatory grace, like a winter wolf without a spare ounce of flesh on his body. His cheekbones are like knives, his pale eyes two gems alight with cunning fire. There’s something altogether mesmerizing, though undeniably intimidating, about him.
He kneels before me, takes my hand, and presses it to his forehead. “Dragon Princess,” he murmurs, his voice full of secrets and smoke, “you look upon your humble champion. May the gods grant me favor in your eyes.”
Only when Rune has taken his place with the other four champions do I manage to release the tension in my lungs. Fivechampions down—one left to go. And I already know who that one must be.
“The First Champion,” King Alderin declares, “Prince Taigan Aumanus of Gorduin, my nephew, my heir. Come forth and meet your princess.”
I steel my spine and sit up a little straighter, lifting my chin. The doors open, and Taigan appears like a burst of sunlight down here in the depths of the mountain dark. The veryscintilsoverhead seem to change hue, radiating a golden aura across his curls. He is clad all in white, save for the red insignia of the rising phoenix emblazoned across his breast. Poised in the open doorway, he stands for a moment, allowing all eyes in that chamber to feast upon his beauty. To see and recognize in him the First Champion, the favorite, the gods-ordained victor of this whole mad debacle they call a tournament.
And I must say—he does cut quite a figure. Even when compared to these five other mighty specimens, he stands out. Neither so big as Prince Bryon nor so enigmatic as the Learned Majestic Rune, he projects such raw power and charisma as to make one forget there was ever a competition to begin with. One might almost believe the rumors that the blood of divinity flows in his veins.
His gaze fixes on me from all the way across the hall. So certain, so sure. As though the possibility of failure never once crossed his mind. His pace quick, he strides to the dais, mounts the steps, but does not kneel like the others before him. Instead, he merely bows and takes my hand. I want to resist, but what’s the use? It’s not as though I’m willing to make a scene here in front of all these people. He raises my fingers to his lips and kisses the back of my hand. Not a simple salute…no, this kiss is lingering. And a little wet. A kiss of claiming.
A shiver races up my arm. It takes all the composure I possess not to wrench my hand away and wipe it on my skirts. Taigan grins. Just the barest tilt of his lips, but there’s a promise of something more lurking in the depths of his eyes.
“Princess Roselle,” he says, “it is my honor to take up the mantle of champion, to prove my worth before you, this mighty company, and the gods themselves.” His gaze drops to the rose in my lap. “Allow me to claim this from you, sweet princess.”
A collective gasp sweeps across the gathering. It is a bold move indeed—to reach for the rose, right there, in full view of the other champions and all those watching courtiers—a move worthy of a true champion. One of the men, Joro, I think, curses colorfully without bothering to lower his voice. Taigan continues to look at me, confidence emanating from every pore. His fingers stretch out to claim his prize.
I draw back. Lifting the rose to my breast, I meet his gaze for a long, silent moment. Then I narrow my eyes. Something in Taigan’s expression shifts, a slight tightening in the cheek. But I see it. And he knows it. And for a moment, we’re transported back to that shadowed hallway at the top of the stairs, and he’s standing on his toes, his shirtfront gripped in the fist of a dark stranger. Dangling, helpless as a kitten.
My mouth curves in a slow smile. “A princess does not bestow her favors on he who asks first,” I say, my voice smooth as newly churned butter, “but on he who proves himself with deeds above words. It remains to be seen if your deeds will be the equal of your words, Prince Taigan.”
Taigan steps back. All traces of amusement evaporate from his face. For a long moment, he holds my gaze, and the sunlight seems to go out from him, replaced by thunderous, impotentrage. I don’t flinch. I meet that gaze, blink for blink, breath for breath, heartbeat for heartbeat.
Finally, with a whispered curse, he turns his back on me, descending the dais and taking his place at the forefront of the champions. They cast him looks of mingled displeasure and dislike. I swear I hear Prince Bryon growling from here.
But I won. Whatever that little contest was, I did not let him beat me.
Perhaps I will survive this trial after all.
“Behold your champions,” King Alderin says, stepping to the front of the dais once more and addressing his court. “One from every nation of Unified Belanor, the best of our sons. Worthy offerings in the eyes of the gods. Six champions, who, over the next six days, will face five trials to prove their worthiness for the role to which they aspire. Not all who stand before you will live to see the end of the trials ahead. But through their sacrifice, we trust the gods to reveal to us their holy will. And so, we commit the lives and deaths of these men in sacred offering on the altar of destiny.”
A pit seems to open in my chest as the king’s words fill the huge chamber. What does he mean, they won’t all live to see the end? How deadly are these trials? Surely, the kings and queens of Belanor wouldn’t send their princes to compete if there was any real risk to life or limb.
“Princess Roselle?”
I blink, realizing this is the second time Alderin has spoken my name. Eyes flaring, I look up to find the king standing before me, hand outstretched. “What?” I blurt. The word comes out in little more than a whisper, but it sounds echoingly loud in the silence of that hall.
Alderin smiles. “It is now time, Princess, for you to choose who will be your partner for the opening dance of the evening.”
