Chapter 41
After dinner and several speeches from people I didn't know, speaking as though they had known me their entire lives, people began rising from their tables and moving toward the open space in the middle of the ballroom.
Laughter and conversation echoed throughout the enormous hall, while hundreds of servants moved between the guests carrying drinks and food on small trays.
Surrounded by lords and princes who wanted nothing more than my smile or a moment of my attention, my gaze always found its way back to that table in the corner of the room.
"Come on, Isolde. It's time for us to get up too," Meera said, taking me by the hand and pulling me to my feet.
When they saw us rise, people paused for a moment before greeting us with their voices and hands until we had descended those few steps. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lys and Corian trying to move closer to us, but about twenty feet away, the servants stopped them again.
"They aren't allowed to come any closer than twenty feet unless there is imminent danger," Meera whispered, and my eyes flickered with anger.
I turned over my shoulder toward the end of the table and saw Faran watching us with a smirk. When our eyes met, he winked at me. I turned away without giving him the satisfaction of a reaction.
"Idiot. Can't he see that he's sitting at the end of the table too?" I muttered to Meera, and she only scrunched her nose.
Several high-ranking guests approached us, especially younger lords who were doing everything they could to earn our attention and affection.
After all, we were two unmarried princesses, and regardless of our appearance or our wishes, every one of them wanted what our status could give them: endless wealth and an enviable title.
A conversation with one of the lords was interrupted by Princess Yan, who approached us from the side accompanied by a man dressed in a beautiful white suit embroidered with golden thread.
"Princesses." The man bowed to us, even though his rank was equal to ours. Yan gave Meera a warm, polite smile before turning toward me.
"Princess Isolde, earlier I promised I would introduce you to someone, and I believe now is the perfect time." She stepped slightly to the side, placing the young man at the center of our attention, and gracefully gestured toward him. "This is my brother, Prince Haarza, the second son of King Yasi."
"It is an honor to meet you, Princess."
His voice carried a heavy accent I didn't recognize, but unlike Lys's voice, it did nothing to me. Even though he was beautiful, with dark skin, hair as black as night, and eyes so light they almost seemed to glow, nothing happened inside me.
Of course, especially after Meera tugged at my arm to bring me back to reality, I had to return the same warmth.
"It is an honor to meet you as well, Prince. I don't believe I've ever seen you before, even though I often visited Princess Yan when we were children."
He laughed, and his white teeth gleamed beneath the light of the crystal and lamps before he extended a hand toward me.
Since it was proper etiquette, I offered mine, and he took it in his soft, well-kept hand, the kind of hand shaped by the privileges only a prince could have, before bringing it to his lips.
Hands far too soft. A face without scars.
Lips I did not want touching me.
The lips I dreamed about every waking and sleeping moment of my day and night stood about fifteen feet behind the prince.
Lys watched every movement the prince made with an empty face and rigid posture, but his eyes, those two brown spheres, carried such defeat that it hurt to look at him.
He knew it too.
This man standing before me, or someone like him, was supposed to be my future.
When the prince's lips finally left my skin, my eyes returned to his face, and he smiled softly as though this were exactly what he had been waiting for.
"I have spent my entire life traveling the world and studying under great teachers. When my sister wrote to me about your ball, Princess, I had to come and see the beauty and grace she had told me so much about."
I smiled exactly as I was supposed to, but there was none of the warmth in my stomach, none of the fire that Lys's words created inside me.
His compliments had never been as beautifully arranged or as perfectly spoken as the prince's, but I could have laid down my life swearing that every word Lys ever said to me had been completely true.
They came from heart to heart, from soul to soul.
"We're glad you came, Prince, and I hope you've now seen the beauty and grace you speak of so wonderfully," Meera said.
He answered without taking his eyes off me.
"I have. And she is even more beautiful than I expected."
At that moment, I wanted two things more than anything in the world: to feel Lys's lips and to roll my eyes so far back that they reached my brain.
Not even in the romantic books I read did men make statements like that.
Still, I had to give him a shy smile and lower my gaze in the feminine response expected of me.
"Of course, I did not come empty-handed."
I couldn't leave my old habits behind so easily, and the moment someone hinted at a gift, my head lifted.
"I had to bring something with me that I believed would be worthy of your femininity and beauty alike."
He looked at me before turning toward one of the three exits from the room.
He waved to the guards and then to the musicians.
The music stopped, and guards opened the doors.
I couldn't see what was beyond them, but the gasps from the people closest to the entrance were enough to bring the first genuine smile of the evening to my face.
People began moving aside, creating a path, and Prince Haarza murmured, "Just a second," before walking through the narrow opening between them. Everyone followed him with their eyes. But for a brief moment, I turned toward Lys.
His beautiful face was now lowered toward the floor. Still empty. Emotionless. Cold as the stone he was staring at. As though he sensed me looking at him, he lifted his gaze toward mine.
"Princess?"
It wasn't his voice. It belonged to the prince. The sound of hooves beside Lys made me break eye contact with him. With gasps rising from everyone around us, Haarza led a large, no, an enormous white horse into the ballroom.
The horse stood taller than he did, with a long white mane, powerful legs, and a coat so bright and glossy it looked as though it had been poured over with water.
"I know you're accustomed to gold, jewels, and everything that can be made from them, but I wanted my gift to you to be something a little more useful."
He approached us, but wisely left enough space that I would have to step toward him.
My curiosity about the horse was enough to make me do exactly that.
I stepped closer to its face and placed my hand against its enormous, warm muzzle, and it gently shook its head.
"This, Princess, is the fastest of all horses and the most beautiful of all beautiful things. There is only one herd of them left in the entire world."
He began moving around the horse toward its head until he stood only three feet away from me.
"I hope you accept my gift." He offered me the reins.
"Thank you, Prince, for this beautiful gift. I appreciate it a lot." He placed his hand against the horse's muzzle very close to mine. People began applauding, and his smile grew even wider, proud of his own gesture, while I slowly removed my hand from the horse's nose.
I don't know whether he noticed, but he continued immediately.
"I know it is customary for the first dance to be with the man who is most important to you, and I would never interfere with that. But I would ask you for the second dance." He took the same hand I had just pulled away and brought it to his lips again.
I couldn't even bring myself to look at Lys.
My heart tightened, and somewhere behind my eyes, I could feel tears gathering. "Yes, Prince. It would be my pleasure to dance with you."