2. The Sea-faring King #2
“Let’s start again. I’m King Cornelius, your neighbor to the west in Sairin.”
“King Cornelius?” Sapphira quickly drops low in a bow, her heart beating quickly. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. I had no idea.” Her aunt will truly make her suffer.
The man touches Sapphira’s shoulder, guiding her to stand. “There’s no need for that. It’s a . . . new venture.” He says it like he joined a merchant guild, rather than became a king.
Sapphira heard a rumor that the previous head of Sairin had passed. So King Cornelius must be the flighty adventurer son.
“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” she says, her eyes still diverted to the ground in a short bow.
He waves her away. “Don’t be. It was the old bastard’s time.” He says it so flippantly. Sapphira’s jaw drops. “But less about that. Let me hear about—”
Sapphira’s eyes wander. A flash of yellow passes her view. The king notices her distraction and follows her gaze.
A woman stands away from the party, across the courtyard. Far enough that she can’t possibly hear their conversation, but close enough for Sapphira to notice she’s watching them.
“Don’t worry about her. She’s with me,” Cornelius says, laughing. “She’s my right-hand woman. Can get quite clingy.”
“Oh.”
The woman is distracting in her beauty, with long, sunshine hair and eyes that burn in the night like stars. There’s a confidence in the set of her shoulders and the brutal cut of her jaw that Sapphira hasn’t observed in any of the other women she’s seen tonight.
I want to know her, she thinks.
“I can introduce you if you’d like,” Cornelius says when her eyes have strayed too long.
Sapphira’s cheeks heat with mortification. She scrambles for an excuse. “No, I— That isn’t—” She fans herself. Maybe I had too much wine, she thinks. It’s suddenly so hot.
The king pushes closer. He leaves very little space between them as he leans down to whisper in her ear. To anyone watching, it looks intimate, like two friends sharing improper secrets.
“I’m a well travelled man,” Cornelius says. “I know a great many things. One thing I’m most sure of, is that the courage to speak is greater than the courage to act.”
“Why is that?”
He taps his temple. “The body often moves without the mind’s knowledge, so you can’t take full credit for its action.”
“A bold judgment.”
“Is it?” he parries. Sapphira doesn’t realize they’re moving closer. She’s drawn in by his words. “You wouldn’t praise the lungs for taking air or the veins for circulating blood. But people hide many things in their words. So, when they dare to say what most men fear, it is something to commend.”
Sapphira’s lungs seize. King Cornelius is an overwhelming man. His presence is like a tidal wave that threatens to pull her under, stealing the oxygen from her lungs.
She puts space between them, acting unaffecting as she watches lilies twirl around one another in the pond. She catches her breath as her fingers brush the rough surface of a pillar as she circles it.
When she has steadied her racing heart, Sapphira says, “I hate to admit I am a coward then, King Cornelius. I jump first before I ever consider using my words.” She peers at the king around the pillar she put between them.
The man hums. “Isn’t that disappointing.”
“I’m sorry to let you down.”
Sapphira’s eyes wander back to the beautiful woman who lingers at the edge of the party. She takes another sip from her glass, their eyes meeting.
“I’m lucky. In my position, I have others to do the speaking for me.” She watches the maidens weave through the crowd with their trays in hand. “The cleaning up of my messes too.”
The king closes the space between them once more. He rounds the pillar and takes Sapphira’s hand in his larger ones. They’re coarse and hardened from life on the sea.
Sapphira gasps at the king’s forwardness. He places a kiss on the back of her hand.
“Don’t be sorry,” Cornelius whispers, his eyes twinkling.
“Most people are a disappointment. But this conversation has been very enlightening, and I wager you’ve revealed more than you realize.
I think we might be more similar than you think, Princess Sapphira.
And, with a little push, we might be a perfect match.
” His eyes follow Sapphira’s back to the Sairin woman. “ Nearly a perfect match.”
Sapphira wants to draw away from the king’s touch, but when she notices her Aunt Agath wandering around the pond, her eyes on the pair of them, she stops herself. Her aunt told her to make a match, didn’t she? Cornelius doesn’t seem like such a horrible choice. If she had one.
“Hopefully, we get another opportunity to talk,” the man says. “I think I could teach you a great many things.”
Sapphira’s heart thunders. “I’d like that. And I’d love to hear more stories about architecture and perhaps your travels.”
He smiles, squeezing her hand. Then, he pulls away. His cloak whips around him as he turns, melting into the dark and the crowd of dancers as if he were never there. Sapphira’s left feeling barren. Shaken and alone. She doesn’t know what that means.
As the night draws on, Sapphira thinks a lot about the king. She hasn’t seen him since his disappearance, but his right-hand woman hovers at the edge of Sapphira’s vision wherever she goes, always watching her.
As Sapphira dances with a Duke of Neptor, home of the artisans, and listens to him drone on and drone about textile work and leather making, there is the sandstorm woman, her eyes boring into Sapphira over her glass, a smirk turning the side of her mouth.
It’s as if she’s daring Sapphira to do something, but Sapphira isn’t sure what it is.
Did King Cornelius ask her to watch me , she wonders. Or is this the woman’s own choice?
Sapphira tries to distract herself, flirting with the beautiful women in attendance—the daughter of a king, the sister to a duke—but every time she secures a dance, the pale woman is watching. And then Agath is there, shaking her head and herding Sapphira away.
“You are here to make a match, not make friends,” her aunt says. And a match is precisely what I had in mind, too, though Sapphira doesn’t dare say so. She revealed one truth when she told Cornelius she was a coward, and that is her limit for the night.
The night feels surreal, a performance—flashing bright colors to attract a mate like she’s a prized bird. Sapphira still feels like she’s up in that window, peering down at the figures below. Still caught in a cage.
When she gets a chance to sneak away, with Agath’s back to her as she speaks to their closest trade ally, Sapphira falls into the grass with Dorian who slipped away from his guard duties. She’s exhausted, rubbing her temples as she hides behind an obscene pile of gifts.
The ground is cool beneath her, making her skin itch as her fingers card through the blades of grass and a breeze rolls through. Her skin is still flushed from dancing, and her chest rises quickly with her heavy breath.
“Who’d have thought they’d plant a garden just for my birthday?” Sapphira muses. The assortment of wildflowers around the pond wasn’t there the last time Sapphira was out here. The weeds have been plucked, and the courtyard has been landscaped. It feels like a whole new place.
“It’s beautiful,” Dorian says. “I hope it stays like this all the time.” He tilts his head, humming to music drifting through the night. His jacket is unbuttoned, and his boots lie by his side.
Sapphira snorts. “Agath won’t pay for the upkeep. Not when she visits only a few times a year, and that’s only to ensure I’m behaving.”
She plucks a flower from the ground, twirling the stem between her fingers. The ground is cool through her dress and now that she isn’t surrounded by bodies, she shivers as a breeze rolls through. “I’m surprised she even knew we had a courtyard.”
Dorian is silent for a moment, then he turns to her and asks, “Doesn’t any of this please you?” A crease furrows between his brow. The question is abrupt. It catches Sapphira off guard. “I know the night isn’t what you imagined, but the music and the dancing. Isn’t any of it enjoyable?”
“Sword fighting is enjoyable,” she says.
She folds her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around them.
“Having princes step on my feet while Auntie Agath breathes down my neck is not . I had to watch Cedella and Giselle flirt! It was the most painful thing I’ve ever seen.
The poor men looked like they wanted to jump from the highest rooftop. ”
Dorian frowns, pushing a stray lock from his face. It droops right back into place. The shiny buttons on his uniform flash in the darkness as he reaches inside his jacket and lays a sloppily wrapped gift in his lap.
Sapphira stares at it. “I don’t . . . think it’s time for presents,” she says, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, this one is from me, and I want you to have it now,” he says, holding it out.
Sapphira stares, wide-eyed, as she takes it. “I thought you didn’t get me a gift,” she teases.
Dorian’s cheeks puff out in embarrassment. “Of course I got you a gift. It’s nothing special, but—”
“I love it,” she says before he can explain further. She loves everything he gives her. Under her bed, she has a box of all the presents she has ever gotten, and every one of them since the death of her parents was from him.
Sapphira shakes in excitement as she tears at the wrapping paper.
When she’s done, a small wooden star sits in her hand.
It’s small but heavy. She can tell the star was whittled with inexperienced hands, but detailed carvings curl along the surface like waves crashing against the shore. Emotion wells up in her chest.
On one side, the strokes are smooth and clean, reminding her of the sea outside her window on a calm morning. And on the other side, the wood is jagged and rushed, like the dangerous waves that nearly drowned her.
“It’s perfect,” she whispers, unable to look away from it. “Did you make this?”