Alizeh startled so badly she spilled the drink down the front of her clean white dress, gasping as the liquid soaked through the thin fabric, cold tea dripping steadily down her chest.
She shot to her feet in a fury.
Cyrus, on the other hand, was sitting calmly in the chair across from her, his iconic black hat nowhere in sight. His eyes shone a bright, mesmerizing blue against the golden warmth of his skin, the waves of his coppery hair glinting in errant streaks of sun, the resultant sheen making the locks seem almost metallic. He was infuriatingly beautiful, and she nearly threw her teacup at him.
“You absolute heathen,” she cried. “Why did you notknock—”
“I did,” he said, and spoke his next words slowly, as if she were a child. “But you couldn’t have heard, because you were sitting all the way out here.”
Alizeh’s grip tightened around the empty glass in her hand. “And it didn’t occur to you that perhaps I wished to be alone?”
“No.” He tilted his head, a strange little smile touching his lips. “My mother told me you were waiting for me. She said you wished to speak with me on a matter of great importance.”
Alizeh had to close her eyes then, pressing her lips firmly shut lest she say something brutal about Cyrus’s family and ruin this new, kinder approach she was meant to take. Sarra was proving to be a real trial, and Alizeh thought she might hate them both.
“Forgive me,” said Cyrus quietly, “but do you intend to make it a habit of wearing transparent garments in my presence? Do tell me now, I beg you, so that I might blind myself in anticipation.”
Alizeh opened her eyes, a quiet rage building in her chest even as her battered dignity demanded she blush. “How dare you,” she whispered.
“It’s only that I can see straight through the front of your dress,” he said, gesturing vaguely at her body. “And I’m beginning to see that this is a pattern with you.”
It demanded everything of her self-control not to clobber him over the head with her teacup. Alizeh welcomed the feeling, stowing it away as ammunition for the unsavory task of murdering him at a more opportune time. She summoned all that Sarra had said to her, reminding herself that this madman had killed his own father, murdered a team of Diviners, slaughtered the king of Ardunia, and heavens knew what else; he’d likely committed any number of truly heinous acts.
Alizeh presented all this as evidence to her unshrinking mind, assuring herself quite firmly that she ought to be afraid of Cyrus. She ought to treat him with the utmost caution, not shout at him as if he were some mutton-headed boy, for he was in fact a powerful, forbidding king that might lop off her head with little inducement.
And yet.
Even as she scolded herself, she failed then tofeelthe terror the situation demanded.
The problem was, she did not feel unequal to him.
It was perhaps a dangerous conviction, but Alizeh felt quite certain she could manage him. Too, Cyrus did not strike her then as truly monstrous, which should’ve been alarming in and of itself, but it was hard to maintain such aposition when she failed to feel fear in his presence. None of this made sense, of course—for when she listed his evils in her head, he cut a truly despicable character.
It was possible, she allowed, that the excruciating events of the last twenty-four hours had irreparably addled her mind.
In any case, her task was to kill Cyrus, quite literally, with kindness—a stratagem that, however distasteful, might save herandspare innocent lives by avoiding a bloody war. This tactic would not work if she allowed herself to be so easily riled by him; and if she did not cease these childish, angry reactions to every minor provocation, she would no doubt live to regret it.
So she smiled.
She sat back down in her wet dress, dropped an elbow onto the table, her cheek into her hand, and smiled. She put a great deal into the effort, too, recalling her happiest memories until the smile was no longer forced, but genuine.
“No,” she said politely, all trace of anger gone from her voice. “I do not intend to make it a habit. And I’m glad you’ve come. There’s a great deal we must discuss.”
Cyrus did not hide his surprise.
She thought he might look away from her unbridled smile; instead he studied her with visible fascination, turning fully in his seat to face her. He said nothing even as his eyes fairly glimmered with mirth, watching her for so long she nearly gave up the effort, all the while ignoring the way her heart reacted to the full force of his attentions. It was impossible to deny: there was something physically potentabout Cyrus, a powerful presence he carried with him into every moment. He looked at her then with a focus so complete she felt she might buckle under its weight, and tried not to think about why her breaths seemed to come a bit faster, her heart pounding a bit harder when his lashes lowered, his gaze falling to her lips for a moment too long.
She felt trapped.
“Alizeh,” he said softly. “Have you been a wicked girl?”
Abruptly she drew away from the table and hugged herself, her wet gown chilling her anew in the breeze.
“No,” she said too quickly, realizing that, in fact, she might’ve underestimated the southern king.
Never averting his eyes, Cyrus mirrored her earlier movements. He dropped an elbow onto the table, his cheek into his hand, and blinded her with a smile so sincere it unsettled her, inciting an unexpected, detestable flutter of feeling in her chest.
“No?” he said, still smiling.
