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“You don’t want to see him? Even at a distance?”
“No.”
A ripple of memory tugs at the fringes of my mind. The way his gold eyes cast me aside the last time I saw him. Seven years of silence can’t dispel the punch I still feel from that repulsed glance. I pity any battlefield enemy who found himself at Kirran’s mercy. For he has none. Not even for someone he claimed to love.
No matter how much distance I’ve put between us in my heart, even I know I haven’t fully healed.
Reena stays quiet for a moment longer, then sighs. “It’s a masquerade. You could go without looking like yourself.”
“And just why would I do that?”
She offers an exaggeratedly bewildered shrug. “To be there? Experience it? Pretend to be something other than this?” She flings her hand out toward the room, sending droplets of water across my cheek.
I study her. Words of protest linger on my tongue, because surely she remembers how I grudgingly accepted the dresses my stepmother sent whenever she needed to pretend she loved me. Then I get it. “Captain Harran will be there, won’t he? And you wish to dance with him.”
Her mouth drops open. Pink shades her cheeks. “The insolence. How dare you. I’ve never met a woman so — so —”
“Insightful?”
She wrinkles her nose at me, but nothing disguises the increasing blush. “—insolent.”
“Mm, yes, you said that. You also said before he left that he invited you to ‘the next ball he’d be able to attend.’” I snicker and flip my hair off my face. The distraction is far more welcome than the intrusive thoughts of Kirran. Though, speaking of his older cousin toes the line between the two. “So, you want me to come with you so you have someone to gossip with until you can make your move and get the good captain alone.”
Her mock-cold stare pierces me, and she purses her lips. “Even if that were the case, which it most certainly is not, I won’t indulge your fantasy of being right by agreeing to such preposterous —”
“Reena.”
“— and presumptuous —”
“Reena.”
She stops and huffs at me, flinging her arms out to her sides. “I’m in the middle of a rant, can’t you see?”
Giggles bubble out of me before I can stop them all. I cool my expression. “I can. But if we want to have time to get ready, we’ll need to finish up here sooner rather than later.”
She stills, her amber eyes searching mine before a gleam overtakes them. “Really?”
“Yes.” I shake my head and groan. “I’ll probably regret it —”
“Not a chance.”
“— and you’re a horrible influence —”
“I don’t deny that.”
I elbow her gently. “But yes, I’ll go — if only so you can have your moment with the good captain.”
“You’re the best, you know that?” She grins at me and tips her head back with a delighted sigh. “I can’t wait to see him. A year has been far too long.” Panic streaks across her face as she looks back at me and knots one finger around a loose strand of hair. “Do you think he’ll remember me?”
I offer a reassuring nod. “He couldn’t forget you.”
Reena has fancied Captain Harran since before he was an officer and well before he ever left to join the battle efforts in the north, but they’ve truly spoken only a handful of times. Stolen moments, all of them.
Not that I know anything besides stolen moments, sneaking about, trying to keep a secret.
Captain Harran is a good decade older than us and rather grizzled-looking — not to mention he’s Kirran’s first cousin, which makes everything a bit more complicated — but I’ve seen the sparkle in his eyes whenever Reena is around. Even from afar. He will be just as happy to see her as she is to see him. And even if their pairing isn’t common, his rank should be more than enough to compensate for her lack of standing. Or likely raise it, since he’s a duke in the same way my father was.
Which means that, if she does marry him, I may be left alone again.
