Somehow, I swallow and manage a few breathy words. “Yes, Your Majesty?”
What could he possibly want to ask me so badly? And why does he continue to look so angry?
“Why…” His teeth grind against one another as he forms the words. “Whydo you smell like that?”
All the breath rushes out of my lungs. Surely, I heard him wrong. “Pardon?” I squeak.
He leans in, his nose hovering over the skin of my neck. A shiver rushes over me as he inhales and releases the breath with a long, low growl. “Why,” he repeats, “do you smell like that?”
“Like what, Your Majesty?”
“Like a cake,” he bursts out, pushing off the wall and away from me. Dumbfounded, I watch as he begins some sort of breathing exercise, inhaling and exhaling with the lifting and lowering of his arms to his chest.
“Is it a perfume?” He grinds out. “If it is, you must—I need you to stop wearing it.”
“The maids may have perfumed my hair,” I stammer.
He shakes his head. “It isn’t your hair. It’s your skin.”
My cheeks are instantly aflame. It’s as I feared in the carriage. Hedoessmell my sweat. I don’t see what else I can do but speak my suspicion aloud. “I—I’m sweating, Sire.”
“Then your sweat smells like cake,” he snaps.
I doubt that, but even if it did, why does he seem so angry about it? Did he not say he liked cake?
“I apologize for offending you,” I say, though in truth I’m beginning to feel a bit offended myself. What kind of man badgers a woman over sweating?
A draconic one, I suppose.
The king pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers. “You did not offend.” With a sigh, he drops his hand. “Nothing about you offends.”
I simply stare at him, unable to make sense of any of this. “Do dragons not sweat?”
“No,” he says, staring off as if facing some terrible foe. I take the opportunity to smooth out my gown. Tongues will certainly wag if I emerge from here with a red faceandrumpled clothing.
My hands pause.
Isn’t that what we want?
Biting my lip, I consider the ploy an instant longer before seizing handfuls of my gown and crumpling them in my fists.
“What are you doing?” the king asks in bewilderment.
“Reinforcing the idea we’re fated flames.” Though I feel my cheeks reddening further, I keep at it, even tugging alock of hair from the unassailable updo Hiln made atop my head.
Mother would be horrified. Likely, my sisters, too. But none of them are here, and there are barely four weeks until the wedding. I need to lock in my position, especially in light of the king’s volatile ways. If his subjects believe I belong here, perhaps that will carry some weight should their ruler want to send me home for sweating or whatever the day’s misdeed might be.
The ruse complete, I force myself to look at the king.
To my untold shock, his face is even redder than mine.
We stare at one another with wide eyes until suddenly, with a grunt, he marches to my side, seizes my hand, and starts hauling me down the walkway.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“To the kitchens.”
“For the evening meal?”
