A few minutes earlier, she would have let him feed her. They had gone through something together that had broken down most of the usual boundaries she felt with strangers, although Rinka wasn’t prone to strong boundaries anyway, if she was being honest.
But now…this man before her wasn’t the same man she’d followed into the woods. He couldn’t be.
“If you’re the prince, what were you doing in a third-class carriage?”
Idris put the spoon back into the cup. “Drystan Droswyn makes it easier for me to travel. I didn’t want to travel with the rest of the family—in fact, they don’t even know I’m coming—so it’s easier if I just pretend to be someone else.”
“No one recognizes you?”
“No, not usually. It’s amazing how little people notice someone down on their luck. Most people, at least.” He raised his eyes to meet hers, a smile tugging at his lips.
Rinka considered it. Few people had so much as looked at Idris during their voyage together.
The pieces fit together. The ticket-taker who let him stay on the train—perhaps an arrangement he’d worked out if he truly did regularly travel in disguise. The pirates who might have been there for him, and why he wouldn’t let them capture him—he would have made a valuable hostage, that was for sure. He’d told her he was well known once, but not anymore. And it was true; Rinka hadn’t heard anything about the prince in years. “Your family—they’re coming here, too? The royal family?”
“Yes,” said Idris. “My father, my sister, and the rest of the court. It’s all part of some plot of his to develop Wilderise. Afool’s errand, I’d say. The people here are tough as nails. He’d have an easier time negotiating with a brick wall. But yes, they’re coming, and I wasn’t invited per se. I’ve been out of courtly life for a long while, and I’ve been cooped up in my office at the University for even longer. But I decided I wanted to see it. Wilderise, my father’s pitiful attempts at diplomacy, and most of all, my sister. We’re not exactly on the best of terms, but I’ve missed her nonetheless.”
“And you’re all dragons,” said Rinka. It explained the ears, at least, and the other non-human traits. The magic. “Wait—can you fly? Could you have flown to shore?”
She wasn’t angry at Idris for the deception in general: after all, he’d admitted to being someone else early on, and he’d even given her an opportunity to know the truth outright. But if he could have flown them to shore and didn’t, and they nearly died…
“We are all dragons, yes. My mother as well, although what I told you about her—about her leaving at the first opportunity—was true. She’s from a land in the Far East, and she’s a different type of dragon. My sister and I inherited our father’s form. I can still take that form at will, but no. I can’t fly. Not anymore.”
Rinka could hear a wound in his voice, and then he held up his arm to show her another one.
“The Curse of the Air,” he said. “An enemy of my father’s gifted me with it on my twelfth birthday. It doesn’t look like much in this form, and it doesn’t stop me from doing much either. Except the one thing I loved: flying.”
On his elbow, there was a series of small scars. “My father hired every healer and doctor and cleric in this land and many others. But no one could set it right. Over time, he grew to resent me. The heir of his house and his throne, and the first ruler in generations who would not be able to take to the skies. Then the situation happened with the girl I was engaged to, and he beganto show an interest in my sister, Ceri; started talking about her taking the throne. I went to university—it was there that I got to know Keir, although we’d known each other for years from court events—and I decided to stay on as a professor. It was easier to stay out of the way. My father and I had it out at the Winter Feast two years ago. He explained that he expects me to abdicate the throne, and while I have no interest in being king, I do have an interest in remaining a thorn in his side as long as he lives, so I refused. I haven’t seen anyone in my family since.”
Rinka understood strained family relations. Her mother’s voice haunted her every thought, after all. And she could understand his desire for a different life than the one he’d been born into; she felt that way often as well.
Maybe there was something of the man she’d gotten to know in him after all.
“So you’re here for the summer, then?” she asked as casually as she could manage.
“Yes, and I have an idea about that,” he said. Rinka suppressed a yawn, but it didn’t escape his attention. “But it can wait until the morning. Come, try a bite of this cranachan. It will give you sweet dreams.”
He held out the spoon again, and this time, Rinka let him feed her a bite.
It was lovely—toasted oats soaked in honey and cream layered with the sweet raspberries. At the end of the bite, she felt the slight burn of the same whisky she’d drunk earlier.
“You were right,” she said. “I do love it. My father loves to sneak booze into as many recipes as possible too.”
“Rinka is quite a chef herself,” said Alison, coming over to join them. “Did you get enough to eat?” she asked Rinka. “Mab has gotten us some rooms ready for the night, and there’s a hot bath and clean clothes waiting for you if you’re done.”
“That sounds wonderful,” said Rinka.
“Come,” said Alison, “and you can tell me how you came to be here, and how you managed to meet a prince. Good night, your highness. Keir will bring you to your room, if you can manage to tear him away from the other guests, that is.”
“Good night, Idris,” Rinka said, catching herself before she misspoke. There would be no sharing of a bed after all, but that was for the best. How could she dream of sharing a bed with a prince?
“Good night, Rinka,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”
Rinka put her the foolish desires of her heart aside and followed her friend. The promise of a hot bath and a warm bed was enough, she told herself.
She could live without the look he gave her as she walked away, the regret and hope and longing that kept his eyes on her until she’d finally slipped behind a tree and out of view.
Chapter Fourteen
