“Can I ask you something?”
My stomach drops, expecting her question to have to do with the mating link.
“Whose idea was the ring?”
“Your brother’s. He thought it would help his courtiers understand that I’m here to stay.” I twirl the end of my low ponytail around my fingers. “When you erupted into his rooms earlier, I was still trying to talk him out of doing it so precipitously.”
A soft, watery smile touches her lips. “Incredible. So incredible.”
As people swoop into chairs as translucent as the tables, I say, “I hope Ksenia will come around to accepting me.”
Her pale neck bobs with a swallow that shivers her fur collar. “Don’t worry about her.”
“You do realize that when someone tells you not to worry, it just heightens their worry?”
The corners of her mouth press deep. “Now that her beloved brother has a mate, she just might come around to accepting shifters.”
Except, isn’t her twin sister more beloved? “What about your mother?”
“She’s totally fine with shifters. I hear she even slept with a Serpent last night. It’s not something I cared to know, mind you.” Her nose rumples.
“Sofiya looked heartbroken.”
“Sofiya never stood a chance with Kostya. No one did. He convinced himself that marriage wasn’t for him and shunned all talk of it. From what I know—and I know far too much, given that my mate cannot guard his mind for his life—Kostya has embraced celibacy since the start of his reign.”
Since Ilya forewarned me, I’m more intrigued than anything else. “Was he afraid to love?”
“No.” She snorts. “He was afraid of being desired only for his crown. You must know a thing or two about that.”
“Not really.”
“What? How’s that possible? Not only are you the Princess of Luce, but you’re also supremely powerful. Not to mention unfairly gorgeous.”
“Believe it or not, I intimidate most men. And that’s without factoring in who I’m related to.”
“You truly are just perfect for Konstantin. Totally meant to be. Written in the Cauldron.”
The ponytail I’ve been wringing slips from my fingers.
“Ilya and I were secretly hoping for this to happen.”
“This?”
“For the Cauldron to matchmake him. You can’t doubt the person’s intentions when that person is your fated mate.”
My teeth press into my lower lip. Before Izolda can sense my distress, I ask, “Why does your Throne Room resemble a theater?”
“Because all audiences given here are public.”
I tilt my head, taking in the three stories of open balconies that rise on either side of the room before the cold gleam of the platinum throne on the dais recalls my attention. “Anyone can come? Even humans?”
“Of course. Unlike what Ksenia says, they have the same rights as Faeries, and now, shifters. I don’t know if you have public audiences in Luce, but here they’re endless and horribly tedious. My father used to force me and my siblings to sit through them. Ksenia and I took to smuggling in books, which we would read cover to cover, though more often than not, she would set hers down and observe the hearings. Her heart’s in a good place, but her mind is… She cannot seem to allow the existence of goodness in our world. All she sees is the bad. She wasn’t always like this.” Talk of her sister blunts her brightness. “I hope she’ll find her way back to us.”
I don’t reassure her that Ksenia probably will, because I loathe vapid promises and don’t know her twin well enough to understand how lost she’s gotten.
“This dress.” Izolda suddenly thumbs my neckline trim, clearly done speaking about her sister. “You should’ve seen the stares you garnered when you appeared. My brother looked about ready to murder some of his guests.”
Who knew Konstantin Korol would turn out to be such a brilliant thespian? “The dress is a work of art.”
