Page 12 of How to Marry a Winged King

“You’re very used to people doing what you expect,” I observed, taking it. “What if I didn’t drink wine? You didn’t ask.”

He grimaced. “Ah. No, I didn’t, did I? Do you drink wine?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

He frowned. “The Bloodthorns do not serve wine at their table?”

“I never ate at their table,” I said baldly, while inside I quavered. But I wasn’t going to pretend and have my uncomfortable truths thrown in my face later. “I eat with the servants. We have beer, sometimes. Rupert and I did once smuggle a wine bottle out of the cellars to see what the fuss was about, but I was only fourteen at the time. We were mostly interested in intoxication and not very discerning, and it wasn’t nixie wine.”

A slight crease formed between his brows. “Who is Rupert?”

I tilted my chin. “The stablehand. A kelpie.”

He gently tapped his glass against mine. “To trying new things, then.”

I blinked at him, off-balance at the lack of reaction to my association with servants and belua fae both.

He gave me a slight smile and drank. Unsure what else to do, so did I. The nixie wine was all crisp, light bubbles, almost insubstantial in texture but evocative in taste.

“Does it meet with your approval, or shall I attempt to rustle up a substitute? I can, you know. I am the king here,” he told me solemnly.

I laughed. “Leave the servants alone. I like it.”

“I’m glad,” he said formally, pulling further delicacies out of the wooden picnic basket. Now empty, he flipped it over and did something that made it collapse down into the shape of a low table.

Something about the pleasure he took in the transformation prompted me to ask, “Did you make this?” I waved at the basket.

He paused, surprise in his eyes. “Yes.”

“Your hypothetical carpentry career is off to a promising start, then. It’s lovely.”

He smiled, oddly shy about the compliment, and bent his head to set dishes out on the picnic-basket-made-table.

I studied his profile, unsure what to make of this man or where to even begin. Part of me wanted to tell him again that this wasn’t necessary, that it was all fine, to make myself small and agreeable and not risk showing any hint of personality that might put him off. I badly wanted the bargain he offered, and I didn’t want to risk him changing his mind.

Though I supposed I ought to take the opportunity to make sure he wasn’t hiding a crueller streak than Lord Bloodthorn. A fat lot of good it would do me to trade one set of chains for an even meaner version.

“You said your parents were an arranged marriage. What were they like, together?” I asked. Was that too bold? It felt very personal, but every other question felt like an even more personal place to start, and his views on his parent’s marriage might help me know what he meant by fondness.

He settled onto his own pile of cushions. We weren’t touching, but I could still feel the heat of him like an echo in the night. His feathers made rustling noises against the cushion fabric.

“My mother was a princess of a faraway court before she came here,” he began after a moment’s thought. “She brought the ballroom’s kōwhai to the Golden Hall from her own part of Faerie, though more have sprung up since, of their own accord. They remind me of her.”

His smile was soft and a little bit sad. “She had a laugh that could light up a room and a way of listening that made you feel heard, a kind of intensity that felt like standing in warm sunlight. Not just with me, but with everyone. People would open up to her, tell her secrets that they hadn’t intended to share. A useful trait for a royal, but it wasn’t something she did for that reason. It was simply how she was. My father was more reserved, but he had his own quiet strength, a well of deep self-certainty. They complemented each other.”

“How did they meet?” The way Tāwhiri spoke of his parents made them sound larger than life, as if he were repeating a story someone else had told him. It made me sad for the boy he’d been when they’d died, that he’d never had the chance to know them on more equal footing.

“An agreement negotiated between the Golden Wood and my mother’s land. Political reasons. She set off not even knowing what he would look like, ‘based on the way he turned a sentence’, she liked to say.” His hand went to touch one of his antlers. “These are from him. He was in velvet when Marama saw him for the first time, and she used to call him Fuzzy-head. It was an in-joke between them.”

“Do you shed them like a deer too?” I asked before I could help it. It was deeply impolite to comment on a fae’s belua aspects. As if pretending some fae didn’t have them would make everyone pure sidhe.

He paused and studied me with an inscrutable expression. “Yes. Not for a while yet though, this season.”

“Oh. That’s … good to know,” I said. I had a suddenly inappropriate desire to touch them and knitted my fingers together to stop it.

“Is it?”

“It’s fine,” I amended. “Antlers are not important.”