Chapter 24
The Dance Lesson
The Dowager departs not long after. The moment the doors close behind her, the room exhales. Servants begin quietly clearing the small refreshment table while the musicians gather their instruments.
Colsar remains seated for a moment, staring at the empty doorway as though considering several uncharitable thoughts at once. He pushes his chair back and rises. “Well,” he says dryly, “that was pleasant.”
I lift my glass and take a small sip.
“Your mother seems very fond of King Sevrin.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “My mother is fond of whatever she finds useful.”
A servant appears at the doorway. “Your Highness, the dance instructor has arrived.”
Colsar closes his eyes briefly. “Of course.”
The instructor enters moments later, a thin man in immaculate black who bows so deeply I half expect him to fold in half. Behind him, musicians begin arranging themselves along the far wall.
“Your Highness. Princess,” he says. “If we might begin—”
“No,” Colsar says.
The man freezes.
Colsar rubs a hand across the back of his neck, irritation written plainly across his face. “I do not wish to dance.”
The instructor opens his mouth, no doubt preparing to explain that princes rarely have the luxury of refusing their mothers.
I rise before he can begin.
“Thank you for coming,” I tell him pleasantly. “We will not require your services today.”
He blinks. “Princess, Her Majesty specifically—”
“I am aware,” I say gently.
He looks between us, uncertain. Colsar watches the exchange with open curiosity now, saying nothing.
After a moment the instructor bows again, gathers his musicians, and retreats from the room with the quiet panic of a man who would rather disappoint a queen later than remain in a room with a prince who looks like Colsar.
The doors close. Silence follows.
“You realize my mother will ask how the lesson went.”
“I am sure we will invent something convincing.”
He studies me for a moment, then he laughs under his breath. “Bold.”
I step closer. “Your mother believes you prefer swords to civilized company.”
His brow lifts. “Do you disagree?”
“No,” I say.
Before he can react, I reach for the weapon at his waist. The sword slides free in a smooth arc of steel.
Colsar stills.
I step back, testing the weight in my hand. The balance is excellent.
“Dance with me,” I say, lifting the blade.
For a moment he simply looks at me. Then something dangerous brightens in his eyes.
Colsar does not move immediately. He watches me.
The sword rests easily in my hand, its weight settling into my palm with a familiarity that surprises him.
I see it in the slight shift of his posture, the way his attention tightens as my stance adjusts without thought: feet angled, shoulders loose, the blade balanced at a quiet ready position.
“You know how to use that?” he asks.
I lift the blade lightly, testing the balance. “I told you I took swordfighting lessons with Master Forsamin,” I say. “Did you not believe me, Prince?”
Recognition touches his expression. “Forsamin trained the border guard.”
“Yes.”
A slow smile begins to form. “Well then.” He retrieves a blade from the weapons stand near the wall.
Steel slides free with a soft, familiar sound that sends an unexpected thrill through me.
“Let us see what he taught you.” He comes at me suddenly, fast enough that a less experienced opponent might have flinched.
The strike glances toward my shoulder. I turn it aside instinctively, our blades meeting with a sharp ring that echoes through the open room.
He shifts at once, testing another angle, then another, his movements precise and probing as though he expects to find the weakness in my guard within moments.
He does not. The realization appears slowly.
At first it is nothing more than a faint narrowing of his eyes.
Then the next exchange lasts a little longer. The next strike comes harder.
I answer each movement in kind. The rhythm grows between us, steel flashing through the warm afternoon light as we circle across the polished floor. He presses forward with increasing force, searching for hesitation, for imbalance, for the small betrayals that reveal an amateur. There are none.
The first time my blade slips past his guard and halts just short of his throat, he stills. Then he laughs. The sound is unexpected, low and genuine, threaded with something that feels dangerously close to delight. “You were holding back,” he says.
“Of course I was.”
His eyes brighten. “Good.”
After that he stops testing me. He begins fighting in earnest. The change is immediate.
His movements grow faster, more fluid, the weight of real training behind every strike.
For a few breathless moments we move together in a blur of steel, boots sliding across the smooth floor as our blades meet again and again.
It has been too long since I have fought like this. The exhilaration rises before I can stop it. When I pivot beneath one of his strikes and turn his momentum aside, his laughter returns, quick and startled.
“You are enjoying this,” he says.
I meet his next strike and drive him back a step.
“So are you.”
He does not bother denying it. The exchange grows reckless after that.
Our blades lock together, the pressure between them sending a shiver up my arms. He twists suddenly, attempting to disarm me.
I shift to counter the movement, but my heel catches the edge of the carpet beneath us.
For one disorienting instant there is only movement, and then we hit the floor together.
Colsar lands first, the breath leaving him in a hard exhale as I tumble half across him.
My hand catches against his shoulder to keep from striking the ground too hard, the sword clattering harmlessly somewhere across the marble.
For a moment neither of us moves. Then he begins to laugh. The sound is different from the cutting amusement I have heard from him before. It rolls out of him freely, unguarded in a way I had not thought him capable of.
I realize, with some surprise, that I am laughing too.
The man beneath me looks nothing like the Prince I thought I knew.
His hair has loosened slightly from its tie, ash-blond strands falling across his forehead, and his breath still comes uneven from the fight.
One hand rests lightly at my waist where he must have caught me as we fell.
The laughter fades. Our eyes meet. Something in the air between us changes. It is not the charged hostility I expected when this marriage began, nor the careful politeness we showed one another at the table earlier.
This is something quieter. Warmer. For the first time since I arrived at Rathmor, I find myself wondering if the Prince I feared and the man lying beneath me might not be the same person after all.
His hand tightens slightly at my waist.
Neither of us speaks. For a long moment we simply look at one another, the echo of the fight still humming faintly in the air around us.
“Princess,” he murmurs.
The word sounds different from him now, softer than I have ever heard it. My eyes drift downward for a moment, lingering at his mouth. For an instant everything beyond the quiet space between us fades.
Then a knock sounds at the door.
It is gentle at first, almost apologetic, as though whoever stands outside senses they are intruding.
Neither of us moves. Then the knock comes again, louder this time.
“Your Highness?” a servant calls through the door. “Princess? Luncheon has been prepared.”
The moment loosens around us like a thread slipping free.
Colsar exhales slowly beneath me, the sound half amusement, half resignation. His hand slips from my waist. “Naturally,” he mutters.
I push myself upright, smoothing my skirts as I rise, though part of me still feels caught in the quiet pause we shared on the floor.
One of the swords lies several feet away where it fell.
Colsar rolls smoothly to his feet and retrieves it, then offers me a hand.
When I take it, he pulls me upright with effortless strength.
For a moment he does not release my hand.
Something thoughtful lingers in his expression, a curiosity that had not been there before today.
Then the corner of his mouth lifts faintly.
“Well,” he says, sliding the blade back into its sheath, “that was certainly more instructive than ballroom dancing.”
I retrieve the other sword and return it to the weapons stand.
“Our lesson was extremely productive,” I reply.
His eyes brighten with quiet amusement. “My mother will be delighted to hear it.”
The door opens just as he finishes speaking.
Colsar gestures toward the corridor with exaggerated courtesy. “Princess,” he says smoothly, the mask of princely composure settling back into place, “shall we go pretend we learned to waltz?”
As we step into the hall together, I feel his attention linger on me for a moment longer than necessary. And for the first time since arriving at Rathmor, I realize that I am smiling.