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His hand fell to his side. Something akin to shock flashed across his face as he squinted at her. “You’re different from what I expected,” Rian mumbled after a moment.

“Different, how?”

Rian coughed and dropped his gaze. “You must know that you have a reputation.”

“A reputation?” Kallie swallowed the paranoia beginning to build. She held the book in front of her lap, her knuckles blanching. “And what, pray tell, is my reputation?”

Had he learned of her excursions to the village? Had someone seen her with the stranger at the tavern?

The smell of old paper and leather grew thick in the air. Once a comfort, now quickly becoming suffocating without a window to crack open. Her heart pounded in her chest, sweat beaded at the back of her neck.

“That you . . .” Rian struggled to clear his throat. “That you are a prim and proper woman . . .”

Kallie didn’t move. There was more. There had to be. He would not bring it up otherwise. He would not hesitate if that were it.

The queen’s suspicions. Kallie saw how Tessa looked at her, accusatory and wary, the other day in the hall.

Had her gift betrayed her?

She forced her face to remain neutral, keeping it all hidden beneath the facade she had mastered ages ago. She raised a brow. “Am I not a proper lady, Rian?”

“No, no.” He shook his head.

Her gift hummed beneath her skin. If somehow word had spread about her . . . less than lady-like endeavors, the crown would slip through her fingers. This was just the fuel Tessa needed to burn Kallie’s quest for the throne to ash.

“No?” Kallie prompted.

Rian’s cheeks reddened even more. “I mean, you are by far proper. And, eh-hem, prim.”

Kallie’s lip twitched, the strain in her muscles lessening. “Then how am I different from what you expected?”

“Others also say that you are . . .” Rian shifted on his feet, and he looked everywhere but at her. “May I remind you, my lady, that these are not my views but rather the words of others?”

“I know what gossip is, Rian. Now, out with it.” Without calling upon it, her gift seeped out, wrapping its poison around her words.

Rian stopped fidgeting with one of the books on the table, the effect of Kallie’s command taking over. “They say that you are dull and daft. A parrot of your father.”

Her grasp tightened around the book in her hands. “A parrot of my father?”

“Yes, a parrot.” Rian rattled on, her command still guiding the truth to come out. “Although, what they say about your appearance is true. You are quite beautiful. Breathtaking, really. Your beauty truly does rival the gods. However, they were wrong about you being dull. Or daft, for that matter. I mean, you read Everling. Nor are you dull. Every conversation with you is . . . intriguing. It is as if you were crafted from the gods themselves. Now, whether you are a parrot of your father . . .” Rian’s onslaught of words slowed, for even with the command wrapped around his will, he had a hard time finding the truth. “I’m still trying to figure that part out.”

Kallie pursed her lips. Tessa had not completely warped her son’s opinion of Kallie then, which meant there was still room for Kallie to morph it.

“You think I’m beautiful?”

“Undoubtedly so,” Rian said plainly, the effect of her gift still compelling him.

Despite herself, Kallie blushed.

In the silence that followed, the strains of her gift disappeared from Rian’s gaze. When the traces of her gift had vanished entirely from his deep eyes, Rian looked up at her, blinking. “Care to sit, Kallie? I believe there’s still some time before Laurince comes and forces me to attend some meeting.”

Kallie chuckled. She buried the anger from the parrot comment beneath her gift to deal with at another time. One day, the people of Vaneria would no longer see her as Domitius’ daughter, hisparrot.

“I don’t want to impose.”

Rian waved her off. “Please. You are not an imposition by far. Sit, I insist.”

“Well, if thekingcommands it, then who am to deny him?”