Chapter 29 #3
The sun beat down on us, and I was wildly tempted to remove my tunic, but Cassius had assured me that that was unacceptable.
Multiple times. Honestly, it was like he thought I was a total heathen incapable of so much as communicating with the so-called upper Fae without shaming myself.
I mean, he wasn’t totally wrong. It was more that what he saw as shameful, I tended to see as living my best life, and I wasn’t inclined to change all that much about myself to appease his delicate sensibilities.
But I could keep my lower Fae inclinations to myself for now in aid of claiming this prize.
The emperor took a seat beneath the shade of a palm tree which sat in a huge blue pot and Magdor dropped into a chair beside him, her cold eyes fixing on me and causing me to offer her a flirtatious smile.
That went down about as well as me taking a shit at her feet might have, but she held her tongue, so I wasn’t going to sweat it.
Two servant girls stepped forward to fan them as they made themselves comfortable, and I let myself get lost in daydreams of my own servants fanning me as I sat in the sun once I was emperor.
We were ushered into a line along the wall of the building by a couple of the guards and I gazed out at the view beyond the balcony which looked over sweeping ornamental gardens.
Flowers grew in every colour, sectioned off with paths of white gravel which created a pattern only visible from above like this, the layout below appearing as a series of geometric shapes which created the image of a rosebush dotted with butterflies.
It was pretty impressive if a little pointless and I let my gaze run over it while I waited for the main event.
“Her royal highness, Princess Austyn of Osaria,” a guard announced as a door was thrown open to our left and my head snapped up as I turned to look at the woman I planned on marrying for the very first time.
The princess walked out, flanked by two plain-looking servant girls who kept their eyes lowered and their hands clasped before them.
A veil of white fabric hung from a silver crown on the princess’s head, covering her face and half of her body too so that it was impossible for me to get any idea of what she looked like.
Cassius had better not have been lying to me about what was hidden beneath that swathe of silk, because I was not going to risk my neck for her hand if she looked like a goose.
The princess moved to stand opposite us, and the guards left the balcony, closing the door behind them with a sharp snap.
She wouldn’t be wearing the veil again after today, but apparently this first sighting of her was for the suitors alone and I couldn’t deny that I was damn curious to see her fabled face.
I folded my arms as the silence stretched, glancing at the other suitors who all stood with their hands behind their backs and their chests puffed out, their excitement evident.
I considered mimicking their posture but that really wasn’t me and I could only bear to be so fake in the name of passing myself off as a nobleman.
No doubt Cassius was self-combusting somewhere at this very moment in outrage, but if this girl was going to fall in love with me then she was going to need to see at least a little of the man I truly was, not just some show put on to impress people I gave no real fucks about.
“Gentlemen,” Magdor purred, leading this ceremony despite the fact that her husband sat right there, and it should have been him. “Allow me to present the prize which you will all fight so desperately to possess.”
She waved her hand towards the princess and the two serving girls stepped forward, one of them removing the crown and placing it on a low table behind them before grasping the edges of the princess’s veil on her left while the other girl took hold of the right.
They glanced at the princess and though her body stiffened with tension, she nodded once before they slowly began to peel it back.
They lifted the veil inch by inch, revealing the point where blue skirts met with a tight bodice around a slim waist then higher still, showing us the swell of her breasts as the corset pushed them up and my gaze caught on a lock of silver hair as it trailed over the dark bronze skin of her collarbone.
It shone like metal in the light of the sun, and I arched my brow at the unusual colour while admiring the shape of her body.
If we could just get a look at her face, then I’d soon know if this plan was going to work or not, because no matter how much I may have wanted the crown, I was no Balthazar, and I needed true lust to inspire me if I was going to be sharing this woman’s bed.
The princess finally ducked her head, and the serving girls lifted the veil right off of her. A breeze caught in the thin material of the veil as it was removed, lifting it up and snatching it from their grasp, sending it flying away from them as they released it, twisting across the blue sky.
A smile tugged at my lips as I looked upon the face no man had been allowed to see before and drank in the sight which Cassius had been sentenced to death for gazing upon.
She stared back at us, and her eyes glimmered with more than a little discomfort at being exposed before this line of men who had all come here to claim her.
I wondered what it would be like to be handed out as a prize to be won.
Was she looking forward to her wedding day?
To fulfilling the duty that had been laid out for her for her entire life?
Had she been primed and groomed for this role so thoroughly that all she wanted to do was embody it?
Or was she standing there gazing at all of us just as we were gazing at her?
Judging, assessing, trying to get any small hint of a clue as to how her life might turn out with any one of us by her side and warming her bed?
It had to be a lot for her. Twenty-one years of life hidden away beneath a veil and now suddenly she was free of it and her duty had come to claim her.
Was she excited, nervous, scared, angry?
Right now, I would have to go with terrified, but that didn’t mean to say she wasn’t feeling all kinds of other things too.
Perhaps I would enjoy uncovering her secrets and finding the woman who had been hidden behind that veil. Only time would be certain of that.
Her skin was a deep brown, several shades darker than her amber eyes which shone like two priceless jewels as she raked her gaze over all of us.
Her unusually silver hair tumbled down her spine and caressed the soft curves of her waist, glinting like metal in the blazing sunlight and capturing my attention as I watched it move in the soft breeze, proving it was as smooth as silk despite looking as sharp as steel.
Her eyes fell on me, and I gave her my best smile, throwing in a flash of both dimples for good measure like we were sharing a private joke.
And I guessed we were because with that one look, the two of us understood which suitor had captured her attention the fastest. She blinked at me in surprise and her lips pulled into a hesitant smile in response as a little colour flared in her cheeks, and I found myself oddly pleased to have alleviated a little of that fear in her eyes.
Yeah, Cassius had been right. She was pretty damn beautiful. She shone like a star fallen straight from the sky to land here before me in woman form. So now I just had to make her mine.