Chapter 37 #7
“Good evening, Count Nazari, I assume you have heard the news?” she asked, and I frowned.
“News, your highness?” I questioned.
“Lord Darell has withdrawn from the pageant,” she announced, and Kahn sniggered, flexing his fingers which were lined with bruises.
The other men looked to him accusingly and I sensed the tension in the air.
Darell had clearly been too badly injured to continue, and though nothing in the rulebook said Kahn’s ruthless beating of him was prohibited, it certainly wasn’t how anyone in this competition would want to be forced out of the running.
Everyone awaited my comment on that, but I was distracted by the beauty of the princess.
I never simply had the opportunity to look at her eye to eye like this, my years of training demanding I bow my head to all royalty, but I wasn’t a guard tonight.
No, I was a man perfectly entitled to look, and the way she looked back made my flesh heat with desire.
“Are you going to stand there all night like a rabbit dazzled by the moon, or are we going to eat?” The princess dropped back into her seat and the rest of the men followed.
I rather enjoyed her sharp tone with me considering it was really Drake she believed she was speaking to.
“My apologies.” I moved across the room, taking the remaining seat beside Kahn as a servant pulled it out for me.
Drake's instructions rang in my head, but I couldn't very well sit beside Austyn when there were no chairs laid out beside her. Though I had to wonder if he would still have found a way to do so.
The musicians played out of sight behind a curtain, offering the group of us some semblance of privacy – not from the guards who stood in every corner though.
I wondered what they would think of me now if they knew who was really sitting at this table with the princess. I supposed they would cheer when I was hung for it, no matter how many hours we had spent in each other’s company previously.
Wine was poured for us in silver chalices, and I lifted mine under my nose as everyone did the same, swirling the cup as I breathed in the crisp scent of Cartlanna honey wine.
“Praise Cartlanna and its bountiful fields,” Austyn said, starting the formal feast with the first custom.
The rest of us responded in unison with the scripted words which I knew from watching a thousand of these feasts from the shadows where my fellow guards stood now. “May the grass grow tall, the sun fall upon their crops, the rain moisten the earth, and may their bounty always be plentiful.”
I sipped my wine in time with the others.
This was a dance. Our movements synchronised and though I'd never done them before, my hands knew them as well as if I had.
I'd committed it all to memory as I’d watched from the side lines, marvelling in the perfect rhythm of the feast of The Twelve Kingdoms.
The wine rolled over my tongue, and I took a larger gulp than necessary, figuring Drake probably would have done so anyway.
Wearing his skin gave me a freedom I was starting to enjoy a little too much, and with no one around to tell me otherwise, I allowed my formalities to slip.
I was hungering for a bite of life, and I was tempted to give in to my wants for once.
Just for a night. What harm was there in that?
Kahn led the conversation, acting out his brawl with Darrel in a play-by-play of every punch he had landed. “And that was when I heard something snap.” He slammed his fist down on the table, making the cutlery jump and I stared at him icily.
Prince Gurvine paled a little, but Hariot only straightened in his chair, eyeing Kahn’s immense size.
“There was no snap,” Hariot scoffed. “You may be big, Kahn, but your talk is bigger.”
“Ha,” Kahn scoffed, grabbing a glazed ear of corn from the latest platter to arrive and tearing into it with his teeth. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Austyn’s nose wrinkled as she watched the display.
She had hardly eaten any of the food placed in front of her and she didn’t look inclined to try any of the honeyed vegetables, seasoned rice and braised mushrooms laid out for us now.
This course hailed from Ageisha; a kingdom famed for its mining industry and the jewels it bore.
They were a fierce people born to a wild, mountainous land renowned for its ruthless beauty.
The mountain range known as the Serpent’s Spine was one of the most highly populated areas of wild beasts who liked to lurk in the dark of the many caves and passes there, but the Ageishan people had remained all the same, the riches of the mines too alluring even in the face of such dangers.
“My skill will see me through any brawl,” Hariot said, puffing out his chest and stealing a glance at the princess as if he thought she might be falling for his peacocking.
“I have sailed across the Iron Ocean and lived to tell the tale. My legs have withstood the roughest of seas, and I haven’t taken a single tumble since my father placed me upon my first ship on my third birthday. ”
He slapped his own thigh as if to prove the strength in it and a frown inched into my brow. This man was a joke.
“I could defeat you in under a minute,” I muttered, picking up my wine and taking a swig.
“What was that?” Hariot swung around, his surprisingly shapely eyebrows rising. “Don’t you mutter under your breath at me, you cad. Speak for all the men to hear.”
“And what of the woman you claim to be fighting for?” I demanded, my voice booming out louder than I’d intended.
Hariot glanced over at the princess, but I didn’t shift my gaze from him, locking him in my sights and picturing the bloody mess I would so easily make of him in a fight.
“Yes, of course, she must hear too,” Hariot simpered. “That goes without saying.”
“Does it?” Austyn clipped and I couldn’t help but look at her then, the power in her expression taking me off guard as she glared at Hariot. There was hatred there, but something deeper than that too. Injustice perhaps, that she had to sit here and entertain any of this.
How I wish you did not have to.
“Of course,” Hariot gushed. “I meant no offence, princess.”
Austyn looked away from him, flicking a hand in a gesture that was obviously dismissive.
Another course was served; a dainty dish of three asparagus sprigs dipped in the famed sauce of Berion.
The southern city it hailed from was set among endless flat planes which made for some of the best farmland in all of the Osarian Empire, their crops sold far and wide throughout the kingdom as well as across the sea to trade with the Forkens, bringing much prosperity to our empire.
“May the wind fall at the backs of the mighty Berions,” Austyn said, her tone flat.
We spoke the response in unison, and I cut into the tiny meal, picking up the knife and fork allocated for this course from the array of cutlery beside my plate.
I'd always wanted to try that sauce and as it hit my tongue, I released a groan that caused Austyn to look over at me.
I grabbed my wine, taking another long swig as I waited for her eyes to fall away from me.
She was so beautiful it burned a mark into my heart.
A mark that had been there ever since our eyes had first locked.
Heat rose in my blood, the idea of her desiring me too exciting to ignore.
Even though I knew it wasn't me she wanted at all.
But tonight, I would know what it felt like to be someone she craved, and it tasted too damn good to deny it.
I made it through the rest of the courses without saying much at all and by the end of our Dunemare dessert, Prince Gurvine was filling the silence by describing the hall of fine wines he owned.
“You’re awfully quiet tonight, Count Nazari,” Austyn addressed me, and I sat up straighter in my seat. “Does wine not interest you?” She said it in a way that told me she was bored by this conversation as I was.
“Wine is good for drinking, not housing in dark cellars. Who cares how fine it is? I only appreciate that fact when it slides down my throat.”
A smile tugged up the corner of Austyn’s lips as she raised her chalice in my direction. “I will drink to that.” She took a sip, and I watched the movement of her delicate throat as she swallowed.
Prince Gurvine got to his feet with a huff. “Well good night to you all, I am not going to remain here to be insulted.” He looked to the princess as if hoping she might contradict him, but she did no such thing.
“Yes, run to bed little boy,” Kahn boomed and Gurvine threw him a scowl before storming from the room.
“If he cannot take a simple jibe, he will be no good as an emperor,” Hariot laughed, looking a little red in the face from how much wine he had consumed. “The throne needs a man of character, someone with charm, refinement, and above all else, clout.”
“Clout?” Austyn tsked. “How about someone with a good heart who cares for the needs of their people?”
Kahn and Hariot guffawed at that, and Austyn shoved to her feet, tossing her napkin down on the table.
Kahn rose from his seat a beat later, his hulking form throwing a shadow over me. “Princess, Mother says it is okay to ask for some privacy this evening. We could go to the balcony so I can regard your pleasant form under the moonlight?”
Austyn’s nose wrinkled and my teeth ground in my mouth, my hand curling tightly around the dinner knife in my grip. She quickly forced the look from her face, but I liked that I’d seen her true feelings. It was a glimpse into her thoughts. Beautiful or not, her mind somehow intrigued me more.
“Fine,” she conceded. “But to make it fair, I’ll have to spend time with each of you on the balcony.”
Her eyes strayed to me, and heat rose in my blood as I sensed her desire to speak with me. The idea of her wanting time with me was too exciting to ignore, but the feeling dissolved as I remembered it wasn’t me she wanted at all. It was Drake.