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“Here’s what I wonder,” he said in a low voice, watching her closely. If he wasn’t mistaken, her eyes were slicked with an emotion he knew she would have denied. “What would happen if you worried less about what you thoughtmighthappen, and more attention to what actually has?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Nothing has actually happened.”
“I told you,” he said. “I trust you.”
She winced as if he’d hit her. “Then you’re a fool.”
And the way she said that, as if it was torn from her, haunted him as they pulled up into the line of cars delivering Idyllian nobles and commoners alike into the rest of their evening. Tonight’s ball was held in a sprawling villa on the far end of the island. Held for centuries by one of Idylla’s noble families, it had at different points in history been considered something of a secondary, southern palace.
This was usually Orion’s favorite ball. The villa was a work of art, marrying Idyllian architectural prowess with Italianate and Hellenic accents, as suited their position in the Aegean Sea. On a night that was cool by island standards, all the villa’s many atriums were filled with glowing heaters, strong lights. The imported evergreens were trimmed and bursting with ornaments. Night-blooming jasmine wafted in the air.
He and Calista were announced to the crowd and then led on a bit of a promenade through all the villa’s public rooms, as was tradition, but all Orion could concentrate on was the woman by his side. That odd gleam in her gaze. And the desperation that he knew, deep down perhaps he’d always known, had nothing to do with him.
He pulled her out onto the dance floor in the largest of the ballrooms to lead off the first song.
Was it his imagination, or did she seem more brittle than usual? More fragile?
Even...scared?
She is none of those things, something in him whispered.You should know better.
But this wasn’t aboutknowing. This was aboutfeeling. And he suspected that if he said as much, she would bite his head off, there and then.
Still, that didn’t change the fact she looked haunted.
“You could always tell me what’s wrong,” he said quietly, holding her so she had no choice but to tip her head back and meet his gaze. “I am the king. If I cannot help you, who can?”
Calista had her usual public smile on her face, but the look in her beautiful sea-colored eyes was pure misery. “There are some things even a king can’t help.”
“Is it so terrible, then?”
“Orion. There’s no point in this.”
“There is.” He held her tighter, and recognized—yet again—that when it came to her he was not as in control as he should have been. Not even close. “Because I have to think that the woman I met in my private salon all those weeks ago would not have been torn. Whatever else she had going for her, chief among them was her sense of purpose. Maybe you should ask yourself, my lovely queen-to-be, what has happened to yours.”
He didn’t expect her eyes to darken the way they did. With a flash of temper and vulnerability that made him want nothing more than to gather her in his arms and carry her from this place, where so many eyes were upon them, and the glare of so much public interest made it hard for him to see her at all.
“I ask myself that question every day,” Calista said, her voice thick and rough.
And then the dance was done, and it was back again to the endless rounds of glad-handing and stilted conversations it was his job to make smooth.
Ever since Orion had found her out there in a distant corner of the Botanical Gardens with her father, she’d stayed close. Tonight was no exception. She stayed right there at his elbow, graceful and obliging, everything his queen should be.
He was getting used to having her there, Orion could admit. And he would never have imagined that as a possibility, so used was he to doing everything by himself. But over these past weeks, Calista had bloomed into her role—whether she liked it or not. And the more she did, like the sweet jasmine in the air all around them, the more Orion began to comprehend what it would be like if he and his queen were really, truly some kind of team.
She was nothing like his mother, who had always looked wan and pale, as if the slightest impertinence might send her into a swoon.
Calista was not delicate. She was vibrant. Just amusing enough, without being flippant. Capable of gentle flattery and asking surprisingly incisive questions with that same sweet smile.
“If you’re going to betray me,” Orion said as he escorted her from one set of careful, diplomatic conversations to the next, “I wish you would hurry up and do it. Then we could put it behind us and move on.”
“I had no idea you were such an optimist, Your Majesty,” she said, her voice a mild reproof. Though there was something bitter beneath it. “From a distance, you always appear so stern.”
“There could be no point in dedicating myself to changing this kingdom for the better if I lacked optimism,” he said. “How could there be? The country is bloated with enough cynicism as it is.”
Again, the look she gave him was dark. It made something in him tighten, as if in foreboding.
“Optimism is a privilege,” she said quietly. “A gift.”
