“No,” Cethin interjected, and Kailia found him glaring at Razik. “I’ll take her. I just need to clear my schedule.” Meeting her gaze, he asked, “Can you wait a few days?”
“You really don’t have to accompany me,” she offered. “We can go and be back within a day or two.”
He ran a hand down his face in obvious exasperation that she didn’t understand. Wouldn’t it be easier and more convenient for him if Razik simply Traveled her there?
“Give me a few hours to talk to Zayan,” Cethin said. “Can you at least wait that long?”
She could feel Razik’s gaze on her, and she shifted, sparing him a glance. More expressions she couldn’t decipher, despite decades of studying behavior and trying to make sense of it all. But the male almost looked confused as his sapphire eyes flickered from her to Cethin and back.
“We can wait,” Kailia answered. “But rearranging your schedule still seems unnecessary.”
Cethin was already pushing to his feet, his plate of food untouched. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Greybane, don’t take her there without me.”
Then he was striding from the room with purpose, and she watched him go. Straight. Regal. The king she’d watched from the ashes for months.
“He’s trying to figure you out,” Razik said after they heard the main doors close.
She shifted to face him more. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve become this…infatuation of his,” Razik said. “Something he’s trying to work out. I’ve seen the way he watchesyou. It’s the same way you observe everything and everyone around you trying to understand.” Then he added, “You also frustrate him. It’s enjoyable to witness.”
“Youfrustrate him,” she countered. “Although I believe you antagonize him on purpose.”
“There’s that astuteness again.”
She sat back in her chair, glaring at the male. “Then again, you appear to purposely antagonize everyone.”
Silence fell again, and for the first time in a long time, her thoughts became too loud. So incessant and all-consuming that she found herself saying, “Can I ask you something?”
“I’m not going to stop a queen,” Razik replied, looking up from the book he’d summoned and laid on the table.
“I… This Union Celebration. It will involve…” She trailed off, shaking her hands out before smoothing them over her dress.
“Being on display. A feast. Visiting with those of the kingdom. Dancing,” Razik supplied when she didn’t continue.
“Dancing,” she repeated, internally flinching.
Or externally, because Razik clearly saw it based on the way he tilted his head in question. “Not a great dancer, Lia?”
She felt her cheeks grow hot, and that made him sit up straighter. But it wasn’t from embarrassment. Her whole body was going flush because dancing involved closeness and touching.
“I can’t help if you don’t tell me why that made you somehow go pale and flush all at once,” Razik said, and his tone wasn’t exactly kind, but it wasn’t his usual asshole facade either.
“So astute,” she muttered, trying to regulate her breathing.
“Lia.”
Her name was a flat tone of impatience.
She sighed. “As I’m sure you are aware, dancing involves touching, which I don’t do well with.”
“And yet you made some sort of deal with Cethin,” the male admonished. “Did you not think touch would be required of a queen? Of a wife?”
“Of course I knew that,” she snapped.
“Did you make agreements regarding such things with Cethin?”
“Not exactly.”
