Finally she understood what had her classmates taking chances and sneaking off for intimate moments and occasionally indulging in public dramas. Dancing with Sebastien had been dreamy. Never had she felt so quiveringly alive, so truly beautiful, reflected in those admiring green eyes. And he, perhaps even attracted to what repelled others, hadn’t been intimidated by her in the least.
She wished she could have just a little more of that dazzling attention, experiment a bit more with the encouraging phenomenon of finding someone whose touch she not only didn’t loathe, but actually enjoyed. She picked at her dessert that first night after his arrival, sunk deep in thought. They’d been served a multilayered cake with buttercream frosting, clearly made specially for the prince, as they were never treated to anything sorich on regular nights, especially after a big event like the ball. She didn’t particularly care about the treat, as she had an uneasy relationship with food. She mostly had to remind herself to eat, in order to stay healthy. Cake wasn’t part of that, but she was making an effort to look normal. Particularly as she found herself in the nearly unprecedented position of regretting her choices. Perhaps if she’d made more of an effort to be friendly and sociable, she would be sitting beside Sebastien, reminding him of all those lovely things he’d said to her.
But, done was done, and Rose wasn’t in the habit of trying to recast the past. As her father often reminded her, the word “decision” came from the root that meant cutting away. Once you made a choice, you cut through all the other options, essentially destroying them as possible paths. She often pictured her decisions that way: as if she wielded a shining sword, slicing through the other choices and leaving them for dead in her wake.
Rose finished her cake and left the gregarious group behind, aware of how many tables full of younger students, and those more junior in ability, lingered over empty plates, faces turned yearningly toward the high table. She took a certain satisfaction in leaving on her own, her back straight, expression deliberately aloof, as if she couldn’t be bothered with frivolities like charming princes, which was absolutely true, she reminded herself. Let the others be dazzled. Rose had far more important concerns, like when Master Zoltan would agree to teach her to physically walk the Dream.
Besides which, she couldn’t lose sight of this essential truth: she couldn’t afford intimate relationships of any kind. Her destiny didn’t allow for it.
“At last, we meet again, my queen.”
Rose whirled in shock, quickly covering her surprise that she’d been snuck up on as she perused the stacks in the libraryfor a particular volume. Even more startling, it was His Highness Prince Sebastien who stood there, smiling at her.
“Please say you aren’t avoiding me,” he added, with a disarming combination of hopefulness and self-deprecation.
“I… no,” she nearly stammered, though of course she had been avoiding the alluring prince. She didn’t care for the distraction he presented.
“I apologize for startling you,” he said.
“You didn’t.”
He swept her a glidingly effortless bow. As a pupil of the royal court, he displayed the honed grace of an accomplished dancer. “My queen, I am Prince Sebastien, late of Castle Vega.” Straightening, he raised golden brows, whimsical humor dancing in his pretty green eyes. “And generally late at everything, including blooming, even with small and not particularly useful sorcerous gifts. May I have your name, my queen?” he asked after a moment, when she hadn’t yet replied, not at all sure what to say.
“I suspect you know what it is,” she observed drily.
“Ah, but knowing a name and receiving a name as a gift are two entirely different things, aren’t they? There’s a magic to the exchange of names, even if it’s not the sort to be listed on an academy’s course load.”
“Sorceress Rose, Your Highness,” she replied after a moment’s contemplation of refusing to engage in whatever game he played with her, and belatedly remembering her manners. “Daughter of the Lord and Lady of Northbrooke, which means it’s incorrect for you to bow to me,” she added.
“But you are a queen,” he replied with a crinkling smile. “I saw you crowned.”
“Queen of the Winter Solstice Ball doesn’t count, Your Highness.” But she had to suppress a riffle of amusement at his irreverence.
“You looked very good wearing that tiara, though,” he said, so warmly that she wanted to believe the obvious flattery.
She understood now why this kind of flirtation could be so effective. Even when you saw the calculation beneath, it felt rather lovely. The question was, why was he putting that effort into her? What did he want? “Thank you, Your Highness,” she replied neutrally.
“Please—call me Sebastien.”
“I couldn’t possibly.Your Highness,” she added pointedly.
“It’s truly incorrect to call me that now that I’ve been sent down in shame to become a mediocre sorcerer.”
In complete surprise at the astonishing concept, she blurted, “Surely you’re not ashamed of having magic.”
Shrugging a little, his smile turning sheepish, he ran a hand through his glorious golden mane that shimmered like autumn sunlight on yellow leaves. “Thank you for at least dropping the honorific. It barely ever applied to begin with. Being so far down the chain past the heir and the spare—and a spare, and a spare, and a spare, and a spare,” he added, counting on his fingers, “I was never the object of very high expectations. Now I am officially not-really-a-prince. My being outed as a latent sorcerer definitely came as a disappointment to His Majesty, thus the shame,” he confided. “It’s really not thethingthat’s done in our circles.” He said the last in a drippingly haughty accent.
“I didn’t realize the king held sorcerers in such contempt.” King Soren certainly employed plenty of them.
Prince Sebastien laughed, a low chuckle, eyes flashing in appreciation that pleased her more than it should. Crossing his arms, he leaned a shoulder against the bookcase. The bulge of his arms and chest drew her eye despite her, and the sexuality she’d been sublimating for so long, that had been simmering since their dance, abruptly came to a boil in her belly, the steaming pressure billowing along her limbs, making her nerves and skin tingle.
“I certainly wouldn’t say that in so many words,” Sebastien said, with a conspiratorial wink, “certainly not out loud. But let’sjust consider that employing a useful tool and appreciating what it can do for you is a far cry from having a member of your own family, yourown bloodas one of them?” He pulled an aghast face, accurately evoking the pinched expression of a courtier filled with outrage. “How lowering. How so very…plebeian,” he said in such a horrified whisper that she nearly laughed.
His own blood… Not all magic-workers came from parents who were sorcerers, but usually there were others somewhere in the bloodline with the power, such as aunts, uncles, grandparents. Some families deliberately planned marriage alliances to breed for gifted children. Her own parents had been chosen for each other for exactly that reason. With the many magic academies vying for the best students, a powerfully magical child, especially one with one of the rarer talents, would bring in a tidy income. No one escaped consigning their children to the blood geas and contracting them to an academy, so they might as well enjoy an influx of wealth to compensate for the loss of an heir.
“Do you not have sorcerous ability running in the family?” she asked, likely an impudent question from the likes of her to a verified prince, buthehad soughtherout after all. Never mind that part of her had been hoping against logic that he would.
He slid his merrily sparkling green eyes from side to side, as if checking for eavesdroppers. “Now there’s the rub, isn’t it?” he said in a stage whisper. “Am I a cuckoo left in the royal nest? Perhaps my sainted mother had a bit of a walk on the magically wild side or—horrors!—was she somehow magical herself and the king plowed her unknowingly? Believe me, the questions have been asked. But not answered as she who possessed those answers has crossed over to the realm of the dead. Thus, an additional reason for His Majesty’s, ah, concern about my new status. At least I wasn’t executed for illegally harboring a sorcerous gift, so that was a definite upside. That part is secret, though,” he confided.
