Kit seemed to be enjoying herself. Whether or not that made him happy, Eli wasn’t sure, but he supposed it was better than watching her spend the entire night standing in a corner, shaking like a leaf, or cowering from her mother. The queen, on the other hand, had a heavy eye, and too often it bore down on him, despite the fact that he hadn’t so much as approached the princess the entire duration of the dinner or the ball.
He had to admit, it was difficult for him to pull his eyes away from her, though. Part of it was because it was his duty to keep her safe, but mostly it was because she was so exquisite. Kit had always been lovely, delicate like a flower or the wings of a butterfly. Her porcelain skin was smooth as satin, and her dark hair and lashes shined in even the dimmest light. Her sparkling blue eyes had a way of making a person feel completely at ease, be it a friend or a stranger, and when they fell on him, he felt like the most important person in the world.
Hours into the ball, he could tell she was beginning to tire, and for the first time, she declined a dance, choosing instead to join her ladies-in-waiting, her cousins, on the side of the dance floor. She held a goblet in her hand, which she seemed to drain quite quickly. A servant girl, one Eli recognized, brought her another, and then the girl moved in his direction. Kit’s eyes followed. When the princess saw him standing in the shadows, her countenance changed, a genuine smile spreading across her face.
“Can I bring you anything, Commander?” the young woman asked, batting her eyes at him.
“No, thank you, Blankka,” he stammered, hardly glancing down at her. He did manage to pull his eyes away from Kit long enough to see if Queen Rona was watching and wasn’t surprised at all to see that she was. Blankka made a small sound, sort of like a sheep bleating, and then walked away, but he paid her no mind.
Kit was gesturing in his direction, and soon Isla and Avinia were also gawking at him, and he realized it would be rude of him not to go over and greet the guest of honor. With a deep breath, he began to make his way around the outer edge of the dance floor, checking that his guardsmen were still in their appropriate positions as he went. They seemed to have everything under control, and when he came to a stop near the princess, all other thoughts faded away.
“There you are,” Kit gushed. “I was wondering if you were in attendance. Wherever have you been hiding?” Her hand came to rest easily on his upper arm, and he questioned exactly what might be in her goblet.
“I’ve been hiding in the wall, with the rats and the cockroaches,” he replied, a smirk on his face, “waiting for everyone to leave or pass out.”
“So that you can feast on the leftovers?” Avinia chimed in from behind Kit’s shoulder.
“Precisely.” He glanced in her direction and then returned his attention to Kit who still looked stunning despite the long night.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve been wanting to dance with you, and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
Out of habit, Eli turned and looked over his shoulder at the queen. Though her head was facing the other direction, he still felt her eyes. “I’m afraid I’ve been busy. Working. Keeping you safe.”
“Oh, yes. There have been so many threats this evening. That boy over there,” Kit gestured across the room at a large redhead, “assaulted me with the heel of his boot.” She looked down at her foot, pulling her gown up out of the way so that her blue satin slipper was visible. “I thought I may never walk again.”
“I’m terribly sorry to hear that. Should I dispatch him for you?” Eli wondered why she would ever choose to dance with such an unattractive man in the first place, but then he supposed she’d accepted just about every invitation offered to her. It wasn’t like Kit to be impolite.
“No, that won’t be necessary,” she said, shaking her head so that a few loose curls danced around her face. “I will know better next time.” She took another swig of her drink and handed the goblet to Isla. “You can make it up to me, though.”
He couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, intrigued. “And how is that?”
“Dance with me, Eliason. Better yet, ask me to dance with you.”
“Princess, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he teased, wanting to reach up and pull lightly on one of those curls.
“And why is that?” Her bottom lip protruded slightly, as if she might begin to pout at any moment.
“Because, you just refused that other gent over there, the tall one with the large teeth, and that means you must not dance with anyone else until this song is over.”
Kit folded her arms and studied him. “Well, this song shall end momentarily, and then, I will be available once again.”
“Katrinetta, you know I’m working.” As much as he wanted to spin her around the dance floor, Rona watched them still.
“And you know that I will not give up until you ask me to dance.” She glanced over his shoulder, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Unless, of course, you’d rather dance with that servant girl. What’s her name? The blonde?”
He turned to see Blankka still had her eyes on him. “I’m not sure,” he lied. “Why do you think I’d want to dance with her?”
“I don’t know,” Kit shrugged. “She’s beautiful, don’t you think?”
“I never noticed,” he lied again. The musicians played the last few notes of the slow melody they’d been strumming, and knowing she would not go quietly into the night, he offered his hand. “Princess, would you care to dance?”
Kit’s blue eyes twinkled. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Despite the warning glare from the queen, who turned her head fully in their direction now, Eli began to lead the princess around the dance floor. The smile on Kit’s face made it all worth it, even if he would get quite the tongue lashing from the queen later—or perhaps an actual lashing. She had threatened as much before.“This is much more like it,” Kit said next to his ear as he held her close. “None of those other gentlemen have any idea how to dance.”“None of them?” he asked, breathing in the warm scent of honey and lavender, an aroma he’d come to associate with Kit long ago.“Not a single one.” She looked up into his eyes, and he caught a twinkle there. For a moment, she looked more at ease than she had been in as long as he could remember, certainly since before the announcement of her Proem. But then, as if thoughts of the ceremony also filled her mind, the spark that was there faded, and
Kit leaned back against the cold stone wall that protected her from a drop off of over a hundred feet. The barrier reached past her waist, so he was certain she was safe, but he moved toward her anyway, just to be sure, and also because he simply couldn’t stay away from her any longer.“Even after the Proem is over,” Kit began, her eyes downcast, as if she were simply thinking aloud, “I’ll begin my Exploration. And I’m not sure… that is to say, it might be difficult to proposition a man, to invite him to pleasure me. Especially one I do not know.”“I should think it would be easier with the ones you do not know.” He knew his own words did him a disservice, but at the same time, he couldn’t imagine being with her and not getting to keep her. He felt that he’d rather never know what it was like to lay with her than to do so and then quietly slip away as she fell into the embrace of dozens of other m
Kit sat on the low stool in front of the mirror in her chambers as her ladies worked on her hair. Already dressed in the simple white gown she would wear for her Proem Ceremony in less than an hour, she tried not to look at her own reflection or look down at what she was wearing as it served as a reminder of where she would be headed next, and she would just as soon be going anywhere else.Her ladies had both assured her there was nothing to fear and even thought the council’s idea of having one of her guards perform the ceremony rather than the feeble physician was a good one. “He will likely be more capable,” Isla had offered in her meek voice.“He will likely be more fulfilling,” Avinia had joked, and both of her cousins had giggled, though Kit had not. She had reminded them that this was a medical procedure, not a pleasuring, and they both assured her that they were aware; they were only teasing.But there was nothing humorous a
The queen stepped forward so that she was standing at the end of the aisle. Kit continued to make her way in that direction. Avinia and Isla were nudging her forward, the guards staying out in the hallway.Once she somehow managed to reach the front of the room and found herself standing next to her mother, the queen began to say a few words, reminding those in assembly of how important this ceremony was and what it meant to their realm that the heir to the throne would be embarking on a journey to find her mate, which would in turn allow her to create an heir. Kit heard very little of it, however, as she stood with her face frozen in a half-smile, half-grimace she could not control and thought about the table behind her.“For the goddesses and our realm, I call upon you now, Katrinetta Ronatta, Princess of All the Lands East of the Galacial Mountains and Princess of the Provinces South of the Compazional Sea, to fulfill your duty as the heiress to the throne. No
Sunlight infiltrated Kit’s chambers as one of her ladies flung the curtains open, and the princess groaned in protest. She’d stayed up far too late the night before, dancing, drinking wine, and carrying on like a silly girl with her friends at the festival that followed her Proem Ceremony, and now that morning was here, her head ached, and she’d rather bury her face back beneath the downy pillows of her bed than acknowledge the day’s arrival.“Katrinetta,” Avinia’s voice beckoned as her shoulder was shaken, gently at first, and then a bit more violently. “Open your eyes. You need to get up!”Kit couldn’t think of a single reason in the world why she would need to get out of bed. She hadn’t slept well these past several weeks in anticipation of the ceremony, and now that it was over, she longed to make up for all of that lost time. But Avinia was insistent, so Kit opened one eye and looked at her incredul
Aeros, Eli’s horse, who was standing a few feet away, whinnied impatiently. Eli glanced behind him and saw the other two soldiers shifting uncomfortably. Kit assumed they were told to be gone by a certain time or to arrive by a certain hour, and she was delaying them. She caught her breath and fought tears, glancing over her shoulder at Galter and the other man, a tall, agile looking fellow with red hair she couldn’t name.“Listen, Kit, I need to go. But perhaps it’s for the better. We both know….” He paused, looking into her eyes, and she knew what the end of that sentence would be. There was no need for him to say it. They both knew it was never meant to be. Her mother would fight it at every turn, and even if he were to stay for her Exploration, he’d never be part of her Choosing. Kit would even go so far as to say, if he stood a chance at being selected as his province’s Representative, her mother would find some way to man
Two weeks was an eternity of seconds but when assembled together as minutes, hours, and even days, the passage of time seemed to shuffle on at an acceptable pace to the rest of the world. Kit spent too much of that time dreaming about someone she could not have and not enough of it focusing on the task before her.The large barn always called to her in her free moments when she was too restless to sit in the garden, so one afternoon, a week after her Clearing was over, she found herself meandering from stall to stall, petting the horses on the nose and slipping loose bits of hay to those who would chomp it from her hands. The men who ran the stable and their young helpers were used to seeing her and no longer bothered with the courtesies her station demanded. Rather, they bowed slightly or nodded their heads as they passed, bid her good day, and went about their usual tasks of mucking and feeding and other such chores Kit was glad not to be tasked with.A large roan st
Some of the hay was still in bales while other piles were spread throughout the loft, which didn’t run the entire length of the barn but was still large. She found a bale with a perfect view of the cloudless sky out the large window and spread her lavender skirts to one side so that there was room for Dullen to sit next to her.“The sky is a lovely shade of blue today, don’t you think?” she asked, noticing a warmth radiating from his leg which was just a few inches from hers. “I love it when it’s a deep blue, like a pool of water, as it is today.”“It is beautiful,” he agreed. “But your eyes are the loveliest shade of blue I’ve ever seen.”Her first reaction was to blush, perhaps to look away, but instead, Kit raised an eyebrow at him and let a slow smile spread across her face. The effect it had on him was what she’d hoped for. His breathing hitched, and perspiration began to form at