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Beautiful lie…He thought me beautiful, and a liar, a thorn on the stem of a rose.
The tunnel spun. I reached out, bracing myself. So very drunk. This was a terrible idea.
I moved on. Down and down, we went. Where was he taking me?
Distant light flickered ahead. Arin walked toward it, hands outstretched, stroking the walls. He’d been here so many times he hadn’t needed the light to guide his steps.
Salt dried the air, and as we emerged from the dark into moonlight, the rumbling made sense. Dallin’s great ocean shimmered beneath the moon and beyond a small, pebbly beach, the ocean’s waves thundered, smashing over enormous jagged rocks. By the time those waves reached the shore, they were tamed, gentle things.
It was… beautiful.
My steps slowed as I tried to absorb the sight.
Arin strode down the beach, toward where the waves lapped at gleaming shingle, as though he meant to walk right out to sea.
I jogged after him, uncertain, enthralled, maybe dreaming.
He waded into the water up to his knees and stopped, cloak swirling around him. The moon had bleached the whole world white and grey, so that he stood in monochrome and was all the more dramatic for his lack of color. His smile, when he tilted his head and allowed me to see it, belonged to a free man. A man I was just now meeting. The true Prince Arin, revealed here, under moonlight, like a spell had been lifted.
I was dreaming, asleep, drunk in my bed. It was the only explanation.
Or Arin had been replaced by another man altogether, one made of starlight and dreams. He was… spellbinding.
His grin bloomed, turning sly. He waded back out of the water, up the beach, and stopped in front of me. “Where’s your voice now, Lark?”
“I fear you’ve stolen it.” Perhaps along with my dark heart, but certainly my wits.
He laughed and the soft roll of it was new to me too. This man was a stranger again, and in that moment, together on his secret beach, I ached to know him.
“Whoareyou?” I asked.
His laughter lessened to a chuckle, as he shook his head. “I am the fool, and you are the prince.” I frowned, and he laughed at that too, so freely I envied him. “No questions, hm. Let’s not ruin this with unwanted truths.”
“All right.” Whatever game this was, my racing heart revealed how eager I was to play it. “Then if you are the fool, you should entertain me, no?”
He eyed me sideways, then relented with a chuckle. “Very well.”
I hadn’t expected him to play along.
He untied the cloak from around his neck and tossed it on the shingles. He pushed up his sleeves and rolled his hand in a bow. “What would you have me do, Your Highness?”
What trickery was this? Prince Arin had a sense of humor now? “Forgive my delay, I’m trying to fathom if I’ve lost my mind.”
“I can see you’re struggling. Allow me to aid you…” He studied the pebbles at his feet and selected three that were around the size of an egg, then, weighing them in his hands, he tossed one in the air and tried to follow it with a second, but instead, dropped them all.
I fought a laugh. “Are you trying to juggle? I fear you may have chosen an ill-suited profession.”
“Wait…” He pointed. “I have this.” After scooping up the stones, he rolled his shoulders and tried again. All three pebbles thumped into the shingle.
Folding my arms, I watched him try again, and again, until all the laughter snuffed out of his silvery eyes and frustration settled there instead. He wasn’t going to surrender.
After another failed attempt, I lunged and snatched the three pebbles from their tumbling, juggled them with ease, and then launched all three into the waves, one after another.
He stared. “I almost had it.”
“No, you really did not. But truly, your failure was spectacular. You should be very proud.”
Laughter glittered back in his eyes. “You make it appear easy.”
