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“As a boy,” he said. “My mother taught it to me. We’ll never know, she used to say, when we might find ourselves dancing with humans again. And so, she had me practice many a night.”
Evident in the way his body framed mine, his arms perfectly angled, his feet gracefully swift. It was magical, the way our bodies moved together with such ease, a Raven and a human dancing beneath stars that no war could ever extinguish. Our surroundings blurred away as we revolved around each other on a carpet of late autumn grass, bringing focus to the noble straightness of his spine, the fine features of his aristocratic face, the regal certainty with which he carried himself.
And then I saw it.
The prince beneath the shadows.
A boy who had been taught the dances of the great halls, the languages of the lands, and the movements of deadly swords. Nothing but a glimpse, a precious shimmer in the black abyss of his wicked soul.
He was beautiful.
I shifted my fingers on his chest, not knowing if the ridges I sensed were the silver embroidery on his tailored vest or the rise of the scars that lay beneath. “I fully expected this to be yet another laugh at the cost of my pride. Expected you to be your cruel, cold-hearted self with me tonight.”
“You are my betrothed, my wife before long, the future queen of Dranada and Vhaerya. Before the eyes of the kingdom, I will forever show you the honor and respect that is due.” His fingers slid up along my spine, only to cup the back of my head, gently pressing until the side of my face sunk against his chest. Lips brushed over my temple, nuzzling me before they whispered, “But make no mistake, little white dove… I have every intention of being my cruel, cold-hearted self with you in the privacy of our chambers.”
His certainty over our wedding should have pleased me, but I couldn’t deny that pressure beneath my ribs, as if the act of kindness hiding in this dance, as unexpected as it had come, suddenly wasn’t enough. “Do you think you will ever grow weary of it…? Of hating me?”
He thumbed the back of my head, letting his fingers toy with my tresses. “My hate for you was placed into my cradle along with my name. As weary as we might grow of our names, they will follow us into the grave, will they not?”
So he intended to hate me until his death. Understood.
“A Khysal and a Brisden,” I murmured. “A union forever thwarted by a malign star.”
Gentle fingertips once more combed over my scalp, each caressing stroke urging my head deeper into his chest. There it rested, in the crook between his pectorals, one ear close to the elevated beat of his heart, the other exposed to his whisper.
“Fated only to end in emotional tragedy.” His fingers stalled in my hair, and I only now noticed the slight tremble they carried. “As it should. As itoughtto. Anything other than that, Galantia, would be too great a betrayal to my family, no matter my personal… affliction.”
His personal affliction.
What did that mean?
I let the silence linger between us, my heart pounding as I considered the meaning of his words. Was it possible he didn’t despise me as much as he claimed? That, beneath the layer of hatred and animosity borne of our house’s blood feud, there lay something else? Had I possibly misjudged his honor for hate? His loyalty for loathing?
My head shifted and my gaze rose to meet his, even as the weight of memories burdened my thoughts. The way he must have observed how I preferred my hair loose. That moment when he’d watched me dance with a smile on his face. How he’d closed his eyes during our almost-kiss. This very dance, and how he’d pulled my face to rest against his chest.
I held his pensive stare. “And if I were not a Brisden?”
He stilled, his breath hitching in his throat as his feet wavered to a halt. His eyes, usually so cold and guarded, seemed to glisten, betraying an unspoken vulnerability. Instead of answering, he looked away, and the muscles in his jaws tensed.
“Yeh ash valtem flig ak’ya,” he said quickly, releasing his hold of me just as fast as he mumbled, “I will forever fly with you.”
His reaction left me reeling, the implications of what he’d said—and refused to say—tugging at the edges of my heart. Was there truly something beneath his shadows, something warmer, brighter, hiding inside that shimmer I’d seen earlier?
My chest tightened, a tidal wave of emotions crashing down on everything I’d believed to be true. My thoughts were drowning beneath a surge of memories, one rippling tide for each time I’d felt his hands on me tonight. Hands that had caressed, stroked, and petted.
But also hands that had hurt me.
Hands thatwouldhurt me again.
Anger gnawed at my scars, a vicious reminder of the countless times Malyr’s actions had left me bruised and broken. The gulf between what I yearned to believe and what I had come to expect from him seemed impossibly vast, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was teetering on the edge of a cliff, one misstep away from a fall that would shatter me beyond repair. And wasn’t that what he wanted?
“Excuse me,” I muttered, barely audible even to my own ears. “I need a moment to myself.”
I turned away from Malyr and stomped off, the confusion propelling me away from the festivities and into the chilled embrace of the night. Away. I needed to get away from this. Fromhim.
ChapterTwenty-Nine
Galantia
