Page 33 of Prince of the Sun

“We’ve come to bring you to greener pastures.” Cara shakes her hips. “The dance floor is packed.”

I’ve never seen her like this before. What happened to my quiet, reserved roommate?

The answer comes shortly after her. Berendir bounds over to Daerios, throwing an arm over his shoulders. “And bypacked, our dear Cara means that we’re the only two out there,” says Daerios. “But we’re about to add two more.”

“Absolutely not,” Daerios and I say in unison.

Berendir and Cara look at each other, grins widening.

“Whyever not?” Cara asks, and when I open my mouth, she adds, “And don’t say you don’t dance, because I live with you, and I’ve witnessed more than my fair share of underwear-clad solos to Taylor Swift.”

My cheeks heat. “Cara! Those are a secret!”

“Not when you leave your bedroom door open, they aren’t.”

Daerios turns to face me, eyes glinting in a way I don’t like one bit. “This,” he says, “I need to see.”

I cross my arms, but Cara sweeps over and links one elbow through Daerios’s, tugging him out of the room and toward the dance floor. Berendir follows.

“Coming, roommate?” she calls. “If you don’t, I might end up stealing your date.”

“Fine with me,” I call back. But after a few seconds standing alone in the sitting room, I sigh and start to follow. “I’m going to regret this.”

“Don’t worry!” Berendir yells over his shoulder. “We can request Taylor Swift.”

The dance floor is, as Cara said, completely empty. Elves mill about the edges, conversing, not even swaying to the music.

I lean into Daerios and whisper, “Do elves dance?”

“Sometimes. But only at formal celebrations, and it looks nothing like the bumping and grinding that humans do.”

“I do notbump and grind,” I scoff.

“That’s not what the Fire Elves at the Rui tell me.”

My neck reddens. I know exactly which night he’s referring to: last year, after the Freshman Formal dance, the Rui opened their doors to the whole campus, humans included. I may have taken a few pulls from the flask of a human boy in my history class. And I may have ended up dancing on a medieval-sized wooden table in the club’s dining room. With said boy.

I just didn’t know Daerios had heard about it.

Out in the middle of the floor, the prince and I turn to face each other. Music turns and lilts in the background, a guitar and wooden flute. We’re alone other than Cara and Berendir, who are flailing about, performing what could be a dance but looks more like a pair of drowning kangaroos.

Daerios extends a hand. “Well?”

“I don’t know any Elvish dances.”

“Whatdoyou know?”

I smirk. “How to bump and grind.”

“I think that might be a little jarring for this crowd. What about…” He steps closer, this time lifting both hands. “A waltz?”

“Youwaltz?”

“I do indeed.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“A waltz is far easier to teach than an Elvish partner dance.”