Page 28 of The Crown’s Temptation

She had performed three songs and declined the fourth because she always declined the fourth.

Korvis had been in the front row. He had never been to the Aurelin theater before meeting her. He came now every time she performed, always front row, always slightly too enthusiastic, and had at some point during the second song tonight begun harmonizing under his breath in a way that was technically wrong and somehow not ruining it. She had decided not to address it from the stage. She was a professional.

They ended up at Ferath's after, the wine hall two streets east that Korvis had discovered and immediately treated as his personal property. He was golden-haired, golden-eyed, and freckled and fully at ease in every room he walked into. He was the type of person who pulled people into embraces before they had decided if they wanted one and somehow made them glad he had. He had his mother Princess Jularin's smile but absolutely none of her restraint.

He poured the wine before they had properly sat down.

"To you," he said, raising his cup. "Who made everyone in that theater feel something they will spend the next week pretending was not as profound as it was."

"You were harmonizing."

"I was moved."

"You were flat."

"Both can be true." He drank. "I stand by it."

She drank too. The wine was good. It always was here.

They talked about the performance. About the singer Nyara had seen at Ferath's last week who had done something with the lower register that she was still thinking about. About Korvis having been found in a compromising situation with someone whose name he declined to share out of what he called discretion and what she privately called uncharacteristic self-preservation.

Then he said, without much lead-up, "Word from Veynar. Fiorakis has been named heir. Officially."

Nyara looked at him.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Ships. People on ships." He turned his cup. "Good for the succession, I suppose." A pause. "Also dangerous. Name an heir and you name a target."

She nodded.

He looked into his cup. The easy restlessness of him seemed to go quiet.

"Speaking of which," he said. "I have not heard from my mother in some time."

"How long?"

He lifted a shoulder. "Long enough to notice." The smile came back, warm and not quite all the way there. "She travels."

She did not press it.

After a while he refilled both cups and launched into a story about something that had happened at the harbor last week that was either entirely true or entirely invented and she stopped trying to determine which around the third detail.

At some point she said, "I need to get a letter to my brother."

Korvis looked at her.

"Junis?" he said.

"He is likely on his way back to Veynar, if the rumors about the Vaelor ship are true. I need him to know something before he reaches Veynar.” She paused. "Is there a way to get communication in and out of Alarna without going through the usual channels?"

He leaned forward slightly and said, low enough that no one nearby would catch it, "I have my ways of getting communication in and out." A pause. "So yes. I can." He looked at her. "And for you, I will."

She looked at him. Then she leaned across and kissed him because it was simpler than whatever else she might have said.

He kissed her back without making it into something it was not.

When she pulled back she said, "This is casual. I need you to remember that."