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It’s not the scar running down the side of her face—warping the corner of her mouth and eye—that hooks my attention, but the weariness she wears like a flowing dress. There’s something aged about the diminished twinkle that should be on her pretty face.
Her youth is tainted somehow.
I suspect she’s been here in this dark world, where time moves differently, much longer than I can guess. Then I remember that Terry told me Vale met Caspan when the dark fae invaded our lands. That was a hundred years ago. So she must be over a century old, though she looks around my age, somewhere about twenty six years.
“And when can we expect your wedding?” Vale’s voice cuts into my thoughts.
Head bowed, I look up from beneath my lashes, tracing Vale’s scarred stare to the prince. As always, he sits leisurely in his throne-like chair, his grip loose on the wine chalice, legs kicked out under the table, and faint purple stains on his full lips.
Prince Daein’s pale-blue eyes—like the sea paintings in the pond room—seem heavy with pain and suffering as he looks at Vale for a long moment. There is a trace of disdain in how he regards her, but it’s faint.
The prince’s gaze cuts to me for a moment.
My heart jumps a beat and I quickly throw my stare down to the floor. My mouth suddenly seems so dry that the back of my throat burns. I swallow, hard.
Don’t risk looking up again.
Prince Daein must have returned his attention to the table; “The negotiations with the litavles are still taking place,” he answers. “It could be Elden who marries the litalf princess, since he will ascend to the throne long before I do.”
Caspan responds, “Is that not what the Royal Court wishes to avoid; a litalf—or any impurity of blood—on the throne?”
I hear a thud that sounds like a kick.
Cutting my gaze upwards, I see Vale shoot a sour-faced look at Caspan.
She must be a fool or quite the courageous kuri to kick a dark fae General under the table and in the presence of a dark prince no less.
From my angle, I can barely make out the side of Caspan’s face, but I do catch that he throws her a withering look before he says, “Those not of pure dokkalf bloodlines,” and I realise he’s correcting himself.
Vale doesn’t look pleased, but she says nothing more. Maybe the presence of the prince does impact her to some extent.
Daein leans his head back against the chair’s spine. “More politics, more breakages of light, more arranged marriages—those are Elden’s weights to carry.”
“Is the princess not to your liking?” Caspan asks lightly, stirring around some yellowish pudding that the kitchen has whisked up for the service.
“She is pretty enough,” is all the prince says—and it’s enough to ignite a fire of ugly sensations deep within my chest.
I can’t place why, but the jealousy suddenly coursing through me is intense enough to curl my hands into fists at the small of my back.
Of course he should marry someone—and a pretty someone, at that. He should. That is his duty as a prince. Not to kiss the cheek and taste the neck of someone like me.
And also, I’m forgetting the very real threat of the dagger to my throat.
I’m human. He is a dokkalf—and a prince of the dark realm. What am I thinking having feelings like these?
Those worrying thoughts hang over me for the rest of dessert. Then I’m finally offered a reprieve when the prince suggests moving onto the parlour room, and they leave.
I stay behind with Terry to clean up. Archer, Gary and the butler follow the fae to serve them up drinks.
Terry and I are barely alone for a few minutes before she slams down an empty bottle of wine across from me.
Startled, I look up from my pile of golden-painted bowls.
Blinking at her, I ask, “What?”
Her lashes lower. “Something is going on between you two.”
“Who two?” It’s a sincere question asked the second before it hits me like a strike to the cheek and my face is suddenly pink with flustered thoughts.
