Page 25 of Golden Queen (Idrigard #1)

I heard a gasp from the end of the row of chairs—one of the courtiers next to Bryce Mandelian.

My uncle surged to his feet, stepping forward to touch the head of the godsgrass stalk to prove that it was whole.

Britaxia only smiled. "So you see, Lord Regent, there is no reason to fear the dragons, for dragon fire cannot burn the godsgrass."

The rest of the assembly was a blur of astonished voices exclaiming over the revelation and asking impertinent questions about why the secret had been kept for so long.

The Darkwatch mages took the questions with a grace that the Windemerians seemed unable or unwilling to emulate. The outlandish behavior of my courtiers came near to embarrassing me.

When the meeting came to a close, the noblewomen swarmed Aben Verforge, who it turned out was a nephew to the King of Nightfall.

They pressed the big mage for more information until he promised to give them a demonstration in the godsgrass later with his dragon, Melor.

I thought it was Aben’s open, friendly face that made him the target of their interest more than anything, but the ladies of the court made no secret of their appreciation of his size.

“I don’t think I have ever seen someone quite so tall!” A woman with a mass of dark hair shot through with silver crooned to him. She reached out to lay a hand on his arm. “Are the women in your kingdom also…so large?”

Aben looked at her with that dazzling smile in place. “Not as a rule. But what they lack in height, they more than make up for in climbing skills,” he teased.

Instead of being shocked, the women grouped around Aben Verforge giggled, preening like birds.

My lady in waiting, Franca, was out in front, batting her eyes and shooting me knowing glances as she clutched the strand of pearls looped around her neck.

Taiger left my chambers later that evening after teaching me more about dragons than I ever imagined could exist. I found myself with so many questions that I began to feel guilty about how incessant I had been with him.

He patiently answered every single one I had, adding information when he saw me struggling to understand.

By the end, he had a haggard look about him that caused me a great deal of regret.

So, I dismissed him, telling him to come back if he needed anything and directing him to the wing of the castle where I knew the Darkwatch mages had been accommodated.

He offered to take my dragon with him, and despite the fact that it felt absolutely wrong somehow, I let him. I still felt a fair bit of anxiety that I would not know exactly what to do with her.

The dragon surprised me by seeming excited to be passed off to the boy. I watched them go with that same feeling of loss from the receiving room.

The whole Nightfall party, including Juriae's emissaries from Radune, would stay in the castle for a few nights as custom dictated. It was considered rude not to offer guests chambers. It was doubly rude not to accept them.

But just the idea of Io in the castle was unnerving.

My chambers were in a separate wing, so far removed from his that he may as well have been out in the city. I knew the path that would take me there by heart, though, and I had to fight with myself not to go.

Going would be wholly inappropriate—reckless and stupid—bordering on dangerous for both of us.

But as I dressed for the feast that would officially welcome Nightfall, I couldn't help but think of him somewhere past those stone walls or stop my mind from wondering what he was doing.

I was making plans to sneak through the servant's stairs to his chambers even as my brain told me how irresponsible and unreasonable it would be.

It wasn't until I realized a visit from me would most likely not be welcomed by him, that I truly gave up the pursuit of it in my head.

He had not actually expressed any interest in me after he learned I was not a courtesan. Aside from a few dark glances that could've been imagined by my drunken brain, he had given me no indication of his interest. And he had not touched me in anything more than a casual way.

And now that he knew who I was—what I was—I knew that his own honor would make damn sure he did not find himself entangled with me in any way.

To bed a princess was to marry a princess...or end up in a dungeon...or without your head...or worse yet, to start a war.

I somehow doubted the former would be any more preferable to him than the latter three.

And even if that was not true, he could never be considered for the seat on the Godsgrass Throne that being my husband would grant him.

The eldermen would never stand for that. The people would never stand for that.

So that left only the possibility of an affair, and if I was caught in that, I would lose my throne.

The people might stomach their queen having a simple affair—flesh called to flesh after all, and everyone knew that.

But married or unmarried, laying with the heir to Nightfall and the Lord of Darkwatch, someone with the ability to infiltrate the realm, to set fae bastards in line for the throne. ..that would never be tolerated.

He was not for me.

The word impossible flitted through my mind, clanging around my brain, kicking up dust that seemed to settle down my spine with a heaviness that slowed my steps and sagged my shoulders.

When I saw Amon Aldur in the great hall, my heart skittered in my chest as that word clanging around my mind transformed. Possible, it whispered. Make it so.

Even over the lively music, I heard the whispers and murmurs as the Lord of Darkwatch was announced. He instantly had all eyes on him—all eyes on them, the fae in the midst of so much human mundanity.

He was flanked by Aben and Britaxia, both dressed in finery. Britaxia's blood-red gown hugged her body all the way past her hips before it flared out around her long legs.

The Lord of Darkwatch wore a fine midnight-blue coat with the barest hint of silver embroidery running down the lapels, and well-tailored—extremely well-tailored—black breeches that showed off his muscular legs.

His eyes found me on the dais quickly. I told myself not to read more into that than I should. My white and gold gown and the simpler, but still extravagant, godsgrass crown on my head were not precisely subtle, and I was seated alone in the center, in the place of honor.

Arkadian's seat was empty since he was still away from the capital, and Markus never deigned to seat himself on my right as he should have. He most often sulked in some corner with his household guards.

The nearest people were the eldermen, whose chairs were always placed well down the long table.

After the herald's voice died away, the prince turned to Aben and Britaxia and spoke a few words. They peeled away through the crowd as his eyes again found mine.

He strode directly down the long central aisle in my direction, hands in his pocket, dark, cunning eyes fixed on me. My heart did a somersault in my chest when I realized he was coming to speak to me.

To my surprise, he gave me a nearly imperceptible wink and turned to the right, striding toward the alcove at the edge of the room.

I kept my eyes forward, refusing to allow anyone to see them following him across the room. He had not even stopped to say hello. Well, then I did not care where he went.

"You look lonely up here, Princess."

I heard a chair scrape against the floor. When I dared to look, he was seated at my right, leaning one arm on the table's surface with his body angled to face me.

I quickly looked away, schooling my features into polite impassivity. "I do not like that," I said, though it was an effort to keep my lips from curving upward.

"What?" he asked, in that wicked, teasing way of his. "What displeases you, Your Highness?"

"When you call me Princess...or Your Highness," I said, daring another glance at him. "I almost think you are making fun of me."

He laughed, and even as it made my insides turn to liquid warmth, I cringed at the faces that turned to me in reproach. The Minototians, gathered in a little knot at the edge of the hall, shot dark glances our way.

"How did you know?" I asked, turning fully to face him, abruptly forgetting to care what the court thought of it.

"The old man called you Aelia," he said as though it should be obvious.

"There are other Aelias in Windemere," I insisted. "There are quite a few of them, actually. It means angel, and the Presarion has very little imagination, you know."

He looked surprised. "Are you telling me the holy order names all the children in Windemere?"

"Not all. They don't name the common people," I said, and then with a bit of irritation, I added, "Apparently...the gods only deign to hand down names from the heavens for noble children."

"As if the gods would actually bother to speak with those pompous little turds," he replied.

My snort of laughter surprised even me. The fact that I didn't even glance at the other nobles in the crowd or the eldermen assembled along the dais to gauge their reaction, surprised me even more.

"You never answered my question," I pointed out, taking a drink of wine.

"Well," he said, with a sigh. "I knew you were not common-born. You knew far too much about the kingdom and the summit for me to believe you were anything but nobility. And then when Madia's father called you Aelia, it just all fell into place."

I felt slightly chagrined to realize how decidedly not clever I had been. Strangely though, even when he teased me about it, I didn’t feel like I was being mocked.

The prince stayed with me at the dais while food was served down the length of the table and throughout the hall.

He didn't seem to notice the faces of my uncle and the other nobles who were beside themselves with anger that this foreign prince dared to occupy the place where the king would have sat—the place where the regent should have been sitting.

He made me laugh as he talked about Markus fleeing the godsgrass, comparing him to a spoiled child playing at being a king. He sympathized with me for living under the thumb of such an idiot.

“It is little more than a waiting game with my uncle,” I told him. I thought I saw respect for that reflected in his dark eyes—as though he might not have been capable of such patience and recognized it for the virtue it was.

He told me about his sisters, the fearlessly wild princess Eyildr and Fyr, the sweet one, as he called her.

I told him about Arkadian; what my cousin meant to me and how I wished he had been here to meet them, especially Britaxia. "Arkadian will fall at the woman's feet," I assured him.

"They all fall at Britaxia's feet," he admitted with a grin as his eyes found the table where she and Aben sat with the Radune emissaries. They were surrounded by courtiers trying to edge in on both the fae and human visitors from Nightfall.

It was surprisingly easy to talk to the prince, even with so many eyes of disdain and disapproval from the crowd in the great hall, even while he sat in the regent's place of honor and did not seem to give a damn.

"He should have been in the seat himself if he cared so much about it," he told me after finally catching my uncle's glare.

I smiled at that, fully believing he would not have risked giving offense to my uncle if he did not genuinely want to sit with me.

And then, as the feast drew to a close and people began peeling away from the tables in the great hall, he surprised me by looking slightly uncomfortable.

"I'm going to ask you something," he began, looking out over the crowd as though unwilling to meet my gaze.

"Alright," I said carefully. My heart raced at what could possibly make him so uneasy.

"And you are going to think about it before you decide," he added.

My curiosity was definitely piqued by then. "Alright."

He lowered his voice even though we were too far away for anyone to hear us. "There is a place where it's likely that I can find some more information about what we discussed before."

He waited for me to understand that he meant the Withian children who had been disappearing from Nightfall, and then he continued. "It's a place where...a man alone might be noticed quite quickly."

My brows drew together, and he winced at my lack of understanding.

"It's a place where I would be expected to accept the company of another if I went alone," he tried again.

My mouth made a little 'o' as understanding dawned.

He continued. "Aben and Britaxia have already ruined any chance of going unnoticed with their bloody misadventure in the streets...and well, there is not another person in this city who knows why I have truly to Albiyn."

"Of course I'll go," I said eagerly.

"I told you to think about it," he said with a wry grin.

"I did. When do we leave?"

He shook his head, chuckling ruefully. "You'll need to accompany me, Aelia. In a place where it will be expected for us to at least appear to be...close, intimate even."

I thought he was waiting to see horror on my face, but I was stuck—stuck on the way he had said my name, Aelia, as though it was an endearment.

All he did was use my name. But it affected me just as much as if he had leaned over to me and trailed one of those long fingers across my collar bone.

"I can do that," I said, willing my pulse to calm and shrugging as though it was no big deal. "I am rather good at playing pretend."

I added the last in some vain attempt to quell the hunger that I felt licking up my spine at the idea of us close, intimate even. The truth was I was as bad an actor as I was a liar.

But he seemed to accept the answer with some relief. "Can you come tonight?"