Page 31 of Prince of the Sun

We stand like that for a long moment, my eyes firmly onthe flatbread. Its spongey surface indents as my grip tightens. A finger grazes my chin, and Daerios lifts my face until my gaze meets his.

My breath catches.

He’s touching me.

Daerios is touching me. Skin to skin. It’s the first time he’s ever done so, and it’s doing something very confusing to the inside of my stomach.

Just as the prince opens his mouth to say something, an unfamiliar voice interrupts. “You going to eat that vaaska,human, or just treat it like a wet sponge?”

We both startle, turning to find a short elf with braided blonde hair, gold torches pinned to his orange cloak. A Fire Elf. He must be here as someone’s date.

Daerios’s eyes lose the brief lightness that had touched them, shuttering to thin slits. “Agathron. Can we help you?”

“Just wanted to meet the human girl everyone is talking about.” Agathron is clearly drunk. But even inebriated, his stumbles are graceful, his slurs spoken with eloquence.

“Well,” says Daerios. “You’ve met her. Now you can move along.”

“Why so rude, Princeling? I thought you and I were buddies.” Agathron sways gently forward and back. Slowly, his eyes shift to me. “What does human hair feel like, Daerios?” He raises a hand, fingers fondling the end of my curls. “I’ve heard it’s less silken, more akin to the hay we feed our hor—”

But Agathron doesn’t get to finish his insult, because his hand is suddenly gone, swept away by a blur of black fabric. The fire elf’s arms twist up and around his head. I blink, and Daerios has Agathron by the wrists—one arm behind his back, the other across the back of his neck.

“Daerios,” I whisper-yell.

“Touch my date again,” Daerios hisses into Agathron’s ear,“and you will find thatyou’rethe one with hay stuffed between your jaws.”

The lump at Agathron’s throat bobs.

“Apologize to the lady,” Daerios growls.

“I didn’t—”

“Apologize.”

“I’m… sorry.”

Daerios releases him, and Agathron shakes out his limbs, glaring at the prince.

“What is the meaning of this?” comes Magrion’s voice. He elbows his way out of the small crowd that gathered to watch the altercation. “Are you fighting with one of the other initiates,Your Highness?”

Neither elf speaks. The muscle at the bottom of Daerios’s jaw twitches.

“Need I remind you that you are both Punches, not yet official members of the club? That we can easily drop you at any point? We don’t make exceptions—not even for royalty.”

Agathron drops his head, but Daerios stares straight into Magrion’s eyes. They seem to be carrying out an unspoken conversation.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Daerios says finally, in a voice devoid of any repentance at all.

We don’t speak to each other after that. Or, to be more specific, I run away before Daerios can stop me.

What the hell was he doing, defending me like that? I’m not supposed to matter to the prince. I’m supposed to be his littlehuman toy, his plaything to dangle in front of his superiors in order to piss them off. And I am.

At least I think I am.

After a time, I find myself in one of the sitting rooms upstairs in the Estate. It’s empty, thank the heavens. A worn couch, plush and welcoming, sits at one end of the room, but I stroll over to the massive stone hearth on the far wall. No fire is lit inside, but I stare into it as if it were. I need to think. To clear my head. All that niru, and after hardly touching a scrap of food all day long…

Remember why you’re here, Quinn. Remember your mission.

But it’s hard to remember anything right now. Anything but the blind fury in Daerios’s eyes when he pinned Agathron’s arms behind his back.