Chapter 30
The Entrance
Evening spreads through the Baron’s house as lamps are lit one by one along the halls.
Servants hurry past carrying trays and ribbons of silk toward the ballroom.
Music drifts through the doors long before I reach them, bright and restless, threaded with laughter and the low hum of a hundred conversations already underway.
Then the doors swing wide. Conversation falters. Laughter thins. Heads turn in cautious increments as the court decides how it is meant to look at me now.
I step inside and the pause stretches, uncomfortable and uninviting. I am aware of too many eyes and not a single friendly one. The air feels close, heavy with assessment rather than welcome.
I lower myself into a deep curtsy before the high table, before the King and the watching court, and before my father.
My father offers nothing in return. No smile touches his mouth, no inclination of his head marks the change in rank between us.
His expression remains as distant and unmoved as it has always been, as though the years have altered nothing and the daughter he once refused still stands before him exactly as she did then.
I straighten. For a moment, no one moves. Then Nyara appears at my side, quick and decisive, looping her arm through mine as though this had always been the plan. Brinette joins her at once, claiming my other arm with casual ease. Relief moves through me so fast it is almost dizzying.
“There you are,” Brinette says lightly, loud enough for others to hear. “I knew you would make an entrance worth remembering.”
Nyara leans closer. “You look devastating,” she murmurs.
With Nyara and Brinette guiding me, the room loosens its hold just enough for me to breathe again.
We pass a servant bearing a silver tray, and I reach for it without thinking.
The pastries are the kind my father insists upon at every formal gathering.
Dense. Overly sweet. Designed to be admired more than eaten.
I take one anyway, just to prove that I can, and follow it with a flute of champagne.
The bubbles bite pleasantly at my tongue.
“Brave,” Nyara murmurs.
“I loathe them,” I reply, just as quietly, and take another sip.
Across the room, the Prince watches. His ash-blond hair is slicked back, his gray coat tailored to quiet perfection.
Something hard passes briefly across his expression when he sees Nyara and Brinette at my sides, as though my entrance has already unfolded differently than he intended.
With them flanking me, I make my way through the court toward the raised space before the high table.
Protocol demands acknowledgment. If the court expects a spectacle tonight, it will not come from me.
I lower myself into a measured courtesy. “Your Highness.”
Colsar acknowledges it with the smallest inclination of his head.
When I rise, I step toward the chair beside him.
Jessamy sits there. She lounges in the seat as though it belongs to her, one arm resting along its edge.
Her brown hair is piled high, intricate and glossy, her ice-blue skirts spilling across the marble in soft folds.
The color mirrors one of the Prince’s eyes with such precision that the choice cannot possibly be accidental.
They look well together. Balanced. Practiced.
She smiles when I stop before her. “Oh,” she says lightly. “Princess.”
Her fingers rest upon the arm of the chair. “I’m afraid this seat is taken.” The words carry farther than her voice. Nearby conversations thin. A few courtiers suddenly discover a deep fascination with their wine cups, though the angle of their bodies betrays their attention.
For a moment I simply look at her.
Then Colsar speaks. “Stand.”
Jessamy blinks, startled. “I—”
“Stand.”
She rises slowly. The faint amusement that colored her expression fades as she becomes aware of how many eyes are now fixed upon her.
Colsar does not raise his voice. “I did not escort you to this ball.” A ripple of murmurs moves through the nearest cluster of courtiers.“You arrived on your own,” he continues evenly, “and appear to have misunderstood your position.”
Jessamy swallows. “I only meant—”
“You meant to forget yourself.”
His hand lifts slightly, indicating the floor.
“Kneel.”
Shock flashes openly across her face, and for a moment she glances around the room as though someone might intervene.
No one does.
Slowly, stiffly, she lowers herself to the marble.
Colsar turns slightly toward me.
“Apologize.”
“My apologies, Princess,” Jessamy says quietly.
Colsar waits.
The silence stretches until it grows uncomfortable.
Then he adds, almost mildly, “Louder.”
“My apologies, Princess.” The words carry across the hall.
Colsar allows the moment to breathe before speaking again. “Do not occupy a place that does not belong to you.” His attention drifts briefly across the room. It lingers for the smallest fraction of a moment on the Baron, then on Mysin. “That instruction applies to anyone who requires it.”
Jessamy rises quickly and withdraws into the crowd, her composure visibly fractured.
The chair beside Colsar now stands empty. He moves behind it and draws it back slightly. The gesture is formal, controlled. An invitation.
“You look well tonight,” he says. His attention moves slowly over the fall of gold and burgundy silk at my shoulders, the lace along my sleeves, the faint glimmer of the chain at my throat hidden beneath the bodice.
The look lingers long enough that I feel it, and for the briefest instant something unsettled twists beneath my anger.
Only hours ago he had watched while my father spoke of confinement and punishment as though I were some misbehaving animal. He had allowed my brother to shatter porcelain at my feet and force me to kneel on the floor before them all.
He had said nothing, and yet now he stands here looking at me as though none of that had happened.
As though the woman before him is something worthy of consideration rather than humiliation.
The contradiction makes my stomach turn.
What does he want now? Admiration for enforcing his authority?
Gratitude for humiliating Jessamy? The thought nearly makes me laugh.
Fuck him.
I lift my hand gently before he can say anything further. “No need to trouble yourself, Your Highness.” My voice remains perfectly composed. “The terms of the contract will suffice.”
Colsar opens his mouth to respond, but another voice cuts in.
“Princess.”
I turn. A man wearing a gold-embroidered jacket with dimples that flash like weapons stands only a few paces away, bowing with effortless elegance. “You are late.”
Someone nearby murmurs, “the Prince of Yorali.’”
Prince Tamal of Yorali. The realization registers fully as he lifts his head and his eyes find me.
They brighten at once, open and curious, as though I am not a problem to be measured but a discovery.
His dark hair is worn artfully undone, his posture relaxed in a way that suggests confidence rather than carelessness.
“Fashionably,” I reply.
His laughter is immediate and unguarded. “I was told you were worth waiting for.”
Nyara gives my arm a subtle squeeze, amused. Brinette watches him with open interest.
“And,” Tamal adds, glancing at the pastry in my hand and the champagne I am very clearly drinking, “clearly unafraid to make yourself at home.”
“I’ve had a long day,” I say. “I decided not to pretend otherwise.”
His smile widens. “Excellent. I despise pretense.” He offers his arm. “May I steal you for a dance before someone wiser intervenes?”
Suddenly the air tightens in the way that only Colsar’s power can. A courtier nearby coughs, clearly feeling the strain.
“Colsar,” the King says.
I try to form words, yet the air is too thick to speak.
“Colsar,” the King says again.
“The Princess was just about to sit down,” Colsar replies coolly.
“Colsar.” The King’s voice rises now. “We are at war. You will not make enemies of allies simply because you cannot control your wife or your temper.”
The pressure breaks at once. The room exhales as one. Tamal coughs lightly into his arm, and I catch the brief flash of smug satisfaction on Colsar’s face.
Bastard.
I do not look at him. I do not respond. I take Tamal’s arm anyway. “Prepare to be ravished, Highness,” I say as we walk toward the center of the ballroom.
“Oh?”
I smile. “I suggest you savor the moment.” I raise my champagne flute. “After another glass or two you may find my coordination lacking.” I take a sip. “But my rhythm will remain questionably spectacular.”
He throws his head back and laughs. As we step onto the floor, I catch myself glancing through the crowd, wondering briefly if Eravic might be here tonight. I shake the thought away. Prince Tamal moves beautifully, light on his feet and attentive.
“I must ask,” he says, leaning closer as the music carries us, “what you have done to distress your husband so deeply. He has brought an average woman to his side when a beauty like you exists.”
I lift one shoulder. “In truth, I do not know.”
“A shame,” Tamal says. “One would think with a wife as skilled with the sword as you that he’d be more… careful.”
I blink. “What do you know of me and swords, Prince?”
His smile widens. “Master Forsamin is currently at our court, training my younger cousins. He speaks very highly of you.”
My brows lift.
“Apparently the Princess of Veynar can put most men to shame,” Tamal continues lightly. “Your brother in particular.”
I lean closer, lowering my voice. “My brother does most of the work himself.”
He studies me, then grins. “I have just returned from Kisernia. The trees there rise so high you cannot see their tops.”
My face brightens. “Is it true,” I ask, “that they grow a strange white fruit?”
His brows lift. “Why yes. They’re called—”
“Yaforins,” we say together.
He laughs outright. So do I. Across the room, my sister dances with the King. He is smiling, but his attention keeps finding me. I imagine he is furious, remembering my drunken words from the other night.
Behind me, I still feel the Prince’s stare.