Chapter 30
The next day, as I walked toward the gardens with Lys following a few steps behind me, I could barely contain my excitement for the ball.
Now that the fear of being married off had disappeared, all that remained was the celebration itself and the thought of every eye in the room being fixed on me for the entire night.
Very few of the stories people spread throughout the city were actually true, but the one claiming that the youngest princess adored attention was absolutely correct.
I loved dressing up and wearing gold across my chest.
I loved dancing, and I loved being desired by every gaze that followed me. I loved being a princess.
"Here, Lys, put the blanket down," I said, stopping beneath an old oak whose wide branches cast a deep shade over the grass.
I rested my hands on my hips and looked around.
The edge of the little forest stretched out behind us, while ahead, a meadow bursting with flowers shimmered beneath the summer sun.
Father had brought their seedlings home from the hundreds of journeys he had taken throughout the years.
"Of course, Princess."
He spread the blanket exactly where I had pointed, then carefully placed the basket he had been carrying in his other hand in the middle of it. After giving a small nod, he stepped back several paces.
Still standing with my hands on my hips, I looked down at my shoes before letting my gaze wander to the rough bark of the tree, crawling with tiny insects.
As if he had understood what I wanted from nothing more than a glance, Lys walked over and extended his metal hand toward me.
I wrapped my fingers around the warm steel and slipped off one shoe, then the other.
"Ah," I sighed, throwing myself onto the impossibly soft cashmere blanket.
A gentle breeze carried the scent of flowers through the air while bees buzzed lazily around us. For a brief moment, my eyelids grew heavy, but the familiar creak of Lys's armor pulled me from the edge of sleep.
Guilt settled over me once again.
Rolling onto my stomach, I propped my chin on my hand and looked at him.
Lys stood perfectly still, half in the shade and half beneath the blazing sun. Sweat had already begun running down his temples. Wrapped in metal from head to toe, except for the helmet he had never bothered bringing, he had to be boiling inside that armor.
"Come on, ser. Sit by my side," I said without thinking, nodding toward the empty spot beside me on the blanket. For a moment, those brown eyes settled on mine before he answered quietly.
"It would not be appropriate for me to sit beside you, Princess."
I rolled my eyes and flopped dramatically onto my back like a child. "Appropriate for whom? The bees and the flowers?" I waved a hand toward the meadow around us. "We're completely alone, and I'm fairly certain they won't tell anyone. They promised me.“
I pushed myself up again so I was facing him. "You're standing in the sun. Come sit with me in this blissful shade."
It was interesting how much more talkative he had become over the past few days, and I enjoyed every second of it. Even when every word that left his mouth was simply another argument against mine.
He glanced away, then toward the empty place beside me. Something crossed his face, something I couldn't quite understand, but he still walked several heavy steps toward me before stopping just short of the blanket.
"Princess... I'll dirty your blanket." I looked him over from head to toe before answering.
"Take the armor off, Lysande. You're overheating in it, and there's no reason to wear it out here anyway. Lys... there's no one here. It's alright," I assured him after noticing there was something in his eyes beyond simple stubbornness.
He pressed his lips together for a moment before giving himself a small nod. "The sword stays, Princess," he said before unbuckling it from its sheath and setting it down beside me.
I couldn't take my eyes off him.
Not from the way his strong fingers removed each piece of armor one after another, carefully stacking them on the grass.
Not from the way the muscles beneath his soaked shirt tightened with every movement, the fabric clinging shamelessly to his body.
Not from the way his scent slowly overpowered the fragrance of flowers and the forest itself.
I quickly turned my head toward the gardens the very moment I felt my heartbeat somewhere other than inside my chest.
Several moments passed, though they felt more like minutes, before I felt the blanket shift beneath a great weight settling itself about three feet away from me. I pulled my knees against my chest, rested my chin on them, and glanced at him from the corner of my eye.
"Thank you, Princess," he said quietly before looking around us. "It truly is beautiful." My lips curled upward.
"Lysande... could you please stop calling me 'Princess'?" The question surprised even me.
"But you are a princess. I'm forbidden from addressing you as anything else." I was stepping into dangerous waters by saying this, yet I said it anyway.
"Before you knew I was a princess... I was only Sol."
He fell silent for a moment before replying. "You were much more than that."My heart skipped a beat, but I refused to let it show on my face.
"Call me by my name, Lys. Please." My voice had dropped into something strangely quiet, almost a whisper.
"Alright." His answer caught me completely off guard.
I turned to look at him, only to find that he was already looking back at me. Soft brown curls had fallen over his eyes, while those pale pink lips rested in the faintest hint of a smile.
I had been many things.
I had done many things.
I had wanted things that existed on the very edges of the world.
But in that moment, beneath that ancient oak and upon that blanket, I wanted nothing more than to feel those soft pink lips against my own.
I swallowed the lump in my throat before opening the picnic basket that had been separating us this entire time.
I pushed aside neatly wrapped food and small flasks of drinks until I found something I actually wanted.
Pulling out a little bag of biscuits made with expensive vanilla pods imported from the vast Kingdom of Valebran, each one dipped in a thin layer of dark chocolate, I nearly moaned the moment their sweet scent surrounded us.
Without thinking, I immediately shoved two biscuits into my mouth, one into each cheek, and only then remembered that I wasn't alone.
Maybe I wouldn't have cared if it had been anyone else. But it was Lys who sat here.
My eyes flew open as I felt the warmth rush from my neck all the way to my face. Still sitting there with my eyes impossibly wide and my cheeks even wider thanks to the biscuits, I slowly, very slowly, turned my head toward him.
He had been watching me the entire time, his lower lip hanging ever so slightly open. For several long moments, his eyes wandered across my face as I finally turned fully toward him.
Then, painfully slowly, his lips stretched into the biggest smile I had ever seen.
When people said someone was smiling from ear to ear, Lys's face should have been the example they used.
Heat flooded my cheeks all over again. I tried chewing as discreetly as possible. It was a complete failure. Lowering my head between my knees, I began chewing aggressively, yet somehow my mouth only seemed to become fuller with every bite.
And then I heard the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life. I lifted my head, for I had to see it too.
Lys was laughing. Truly laughing.
One hand clutched his stomach just beneath his ribs while the other failed miserably to muffle the sound. When he noticed me staring at him, probably wearing an even more ridiculous expression than before, he completely gave up trying to hide it and laughed even harder.
He threw himself onto his back, covering his eyes with his forearm, yet the laughter never stopped.
Then I started laughing too. I felt it in my stomach. In my lungs. My own laughter made my entire body bounce against the blanket. But the harder I laughed, the more I choked on the biscuits, and the moment he lowered his arm and saw me coughing, he burst into another fit of laughter.
"Stop," I mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs, unable to control myself.
He only started wheezing harder. "Stop!“ I didn't even realize when I had climbed over the basket and ended up sitting right beside him.
I gave his chest a light shove, but he barely moved before laughing even more.
Finally, I managed to swallow the doughy mess in my mouth and gasped for air before dissolving into laughter right alongside him again.
I flopped onto my back next to him, barely one or two feet separating our heads, and just laughed.
Neither the birds hidden deep within rain-soaked forests nor the songs of great gray whales beneath the sea could ever rival the beauty of this sound.
His laughter.
It was deep.
Rough.
Warm.
So undeniably masculine that it seemed to set every inch of my skin ablaze.
I wanted this sound to wake me every morning and lull me to sleep every night for as long as these ears of mine could still hear.
Rolling onto my side, I tucked one hand beneath my cheek, still giggling quietly.
A moment later, he turned as well, unconsciously mirroring my position.For a brief second, those brown eyes pierced straight through mine.
Then they flickered down to my lips.
My heart began pounding so violently that I was certain he could hear it.Or at least feel the rhythm echoing between us.
Still looking at my lips, he slowly reached his hand toward my face. His brows pulled together for the briefest moment.
Then, surprising both of us, his rough thumb brushed gently across the corner of my mouth.
I nearly smacked myself in the forehead or stood up and rammed my head into the tree. There had been chocolate on my face.
Only then did I realize how unbelievably red I must have been.
I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to escape the embarrassment before I had to witness his reaction again.
But they fluttered open again the instant I felt his thumb linger against my lips.
For no longer than it takes an eye to blink, he seemed completely lost in that moment.
Then his eyes suddenly snapped back to mine.
His own widened. He immediately threw himself upright into a sitting position and lowered his gaze.
"I apologize, Princess. I shouldn't have done that. Please—"
"It is all right, Lys," I said quickly, reaching toward him, startled by how suddenly he had changed.
"No... I apologize. Please forgive me. I'm only a knight, your servant." He shot to his feet and, within seconds, began hurriedly pulling every piece of metal armor back onto himself.
I remained sitting where I was, trying to tell him that it was alright, that he hadn't done anything wrong. But he only kept apologizing.
He had no idea... No idea how desperately I had wanted that. His touch. His laughter.
His warmth.
I let him finish dressing before returning to the place he had chosen earlier without saying another word.
Quietly, I picked up another biscuit and took a small bite.
He could never know how badly I wanted to feel those fingers again, not only against my lips, but against every other part of my body.