Page 51 of Prince of the Sun

“If I have to.”

“What if I said I didn’t care what Father thinks?”

“Then I would call you just as foolish as you pretend to be.”

“Did you really fly across the ocean just to insult me? A phone call would’ve sufficed.”

A harsh laugh. “The world does not revolve around you, Daerios, though you seem to believe it does. I am here on official business. Getting you in line is just a side mission.”

“Right,” Daerios mocks. “Because my brothers and I are little more than chess pieces to be putin linefor your and Father’s grand plan.”

“We are all working in service of a larger mission, Daerios.”

Snort. “Don’t I know it.”

The sound of a chair scraping back and a body settling onto its cushion. The softpopof a cork being wrested from the neck of a bottle. “In the hundred years we have spent in this realm, you have never demonstrated such interest in a human female. Tell me, brother,” theclinkand swirl of pouring liquid, “what makes this girl different?”

For a long, tense moment, I hear nothing but the steady filling of two cups. Then, quietly, Daerios says, “What if I toldyou she’s the one, Sae?”

It is as if time stops. The cars no longer move. The people no longer breathe. The stars no longer turn in the night sky. My chest constricts, tightening to a fist-sized boulder, and I clutch at the shingles of the roof as if I might suddenly roll straight off.

What if I told you she’s the one?

He can’t possibly mean—?

“Well, is she?” Saechon asks. “You’ve had ample time to figure it out.”

This question halts my train of thought.Has he?Are elves truly sodriven by logic that they see love as something that can be hastilyfigured out?

I don’t want to care what he answers. I don’t want to hope that it will be ayes. I can’t. I barelyknowDaerios. While I can no longer deny my attraction to him—not after what happened on Tuesday—it doesn’t mean that I’m anywhere near inlovewith him, right? He’s an elf, for God’s sake. A violent, angry, drunken, self-absorbed elf. I could never fall for someone like that, right?

Right?

Why, then, is my heart twisting itself into anxious little knots?

Daerios doesn’t answer right away. His silence stretches on, pulling and tightening the knots in my chest until they’re so painful I fear they may burst right out into the damp night.

And then, just when I can take it no longer: “No.”

No.

The word is like a push over a cliff I didn’t know was there. I am falling. I am in freefall. My stomach is sinking and spinning, and I’m trying desperately to stop it, but the disappointment is a rush of air, twisting limbs, a rocky ground hurtling toward me with deadly speed.

“At first, I thought she might be,” comes Daerios’s voice. “That’s why I paid such close attention to her.”

Saechon asks, “But she is not?”

“She is not.”

“I see.” A pause. “That is too bad.”

Too bad?Now I’m just confused. Does SaechonwantDaerios to fall in love with me?

“If she is not the one, then nothing good can come from you spending time with her,” Saechon continues. “You risk the fate of Elaërion, and for what? A schoolboy crush?”

“It isn’t like that.”

“Well, then, pray tell—whatisit?”