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I take a deep breath and push the thoughts aside.
I find my brothers’ widows first, offering useless condolences that all three tearfully accept. While they’re all pregnant, only Sammir’s wife shows it. The three women stick together and don’t talk with me long before curtsying to me and slipping away.
Understandable enough. I’m little more to them than a reminder that their husbands aren’t coming home too.
The rest of the first hour or so passes in a flurry of nobles and sycophants, all eager to greet me, wish me well, get familiar with me. Future king and all. A handful of my soldiers pass by, their company far more welcome and comforting, but even they drift off to find women to socialize with after a while. A few try to get me to join them and whatever ladies they’ve singled out, but I wave them off and stay where I am. General Zeccar stops by with his wife and daughter before heading with them to join my father. Dozens of glances that feign at being furtive dart my way. More women than I can count approach to try to strike up a conversation.
I try. But it seems I only did part of what my father ordered — I bathed and changed clothes.
I did not change my mood.
Sometime during the second hour, I catch sight of two young women just beyond the dance floor, though not quite in the shadows behind the columns.
One in orange, one in yellow. My gaze sweeps over the taller one and back to the woman in orange. A good third of those in attendance wear some variation of autumn colors, so it’s not strange, but something about this girl snares my attention. Perhaps it’s because her hair has a rosy hue to it, oddly contrasting the rust-colored gown. Though, if she’s vying for my hand, of course she’d opt for being bold, do something to make herself a bit different from the rest. She surely enchanted her hair as well in an effort to stand out.
Draw the eye of the crown prince, secure a crown for herself.
It’s all repulsive. Making sport of something this monumental, like it doesn’t matter who shares my life. Marriages can and do dictate the fate of entire kingdoms; they should never be left to the whims of seductive, self-interested women. At least if the marriage had been arranged, I could imagine my wife would be in it for the good of her kingdom, same as I am. We could forge an alliance based on the mutual advantages afforded our people, instead of opening the door for all manner of sedition and trickery.
Then again, there would have been no assurance an arranged marriage would bring a kind wife.
I push the thought away. Kindness is probably a luxury at this point.
With the hundreds of women striving to steal my attention, how many would have even an inkling of interest in me if power was no part of it? How many would be honest about their intentions if I asked?
Not that I would believeanyoneto be honest with me anymore. Fey can’t lie, but we can still deceive by omission or clever words. And I definitely don’t trust my judgment on whether a woman is genuine or not.
Add the fact that it’s a masquerade on top of that…
I stifle a disgusted groan. My father seeks to either mock me or torment me. I’m not sure which is more like him.
I scrape my teeth against my tongue and focus on the girl in the orange dress again.
She has a pretty face, from what I can see of it around the glittering mask. Soft-looking pink lips. Smooth, fair skin framed by rose-colored curls. And the dress fits her…well.
An almost foreign heat spreads up the back of my neck, and I tear my gaze away from her like it’s a crime for noticing. She’s the one wearing a gown that clings to her figure. Surely, she seeks to be seen, admired.Desired. And by me. Because it’s all part of the game every woman plays here tonight.
I shouldn’t fall for it. Shouldn’t want to rake my gaze over her the way I do.
I set my jaw and try to purge the image of the orange-clad girl from my mind. Yet she remains, burned behind my eyes. It’s been years since I let myself appreciate a woman’s appearance, and years before that when I felt any twinge of embarrassment or confusion over it.
The tangle of warmth and shame within me mirrors the first time I looked at my best friend and felt somethingmore. More than just fondness, more than whatever our friendship felt like before we set it on fire. For years, she’d been no different from any of my guards, my brothers and cousins, my male friends. Softer and gentler, maybe. More delicate. Someone I felt more protective over, brutally protective at times, but just a person like them.
And then one day, she’d flashed a playful smile at me, and the sunlight hit those eyes differently, and she’d had to smack my shoulder to get me to stop staring. For months after that, it was a struggle to keep from moving closer, keep from touching her. To look at her and not stare.
The way I want to stare at this woman in orange.
It feels wrong. Like a betrayal.
As if I can betray a woman who abandoned me without a word seven years ago.
Still, I keep my gaze on the dark marble floor until the desire ebbs and it seems safe to peer back up. She hasn’t moved other than maybe a pace back, closer to the wall. Her friend’s shadow falls over her. As a nobleman approaches and tips his head to them, the woman in orange inches farther behind her friend.
Just shy? Or is that reluctance seeping through her pinched smile and clasped hands?
Is it possible she doesn’t want —
“Good evening, Your Highness.”
