CHAPTER 10
ELLIE
Both Imogen and Blaise escorted me to the dining hall, which really was, as the name suggested, a hall and not a room at all. It stretched the length of three of my family’s house, and a crystal table acted as its centerpiece. Silver lamp stands supported the tiniest of candles, whose light scattered across the room, dispersed through the intricate cuts in the crystal table. In fact, every object in the room seemed to be intent on reflecting light every which way.
Including me, I realized, as my form cast not a shadow upon the floor, but a dazzling array of colorful specks of light.
As we were the first to arrive, Imogen and Blaise escorted me to my seat, but Imogen stopped me with her hand before I sat down. “No one sits before the king arrives,” she explained.
“So I’m just supposed to stand here?” I asked, annoyed.
“If you wish to make a good impression, yes,” she whispered, her eyes wide, as if to heavily suggest that I should at least try to make a good impression.
Blaise just rolled her eyes.
As much as Blaise was starting to grow on me, Imogen was right. My and the prince’s plan hinged on winning the favor of the king. So I stood, a gentle hand upon one of the silver-plated chairs, just as Imogen instructed.
It wasn’t long before the prince strolled in and stood behind the chair immediately across the table from me. His eyes grazed what seemed to be every inch of the fabric of my dress, and not for the first time tonight, I found myself thankful that the gown was fairly conservative.
Not that it likely mattered to the prince. He’d had two centuries to train his mind to identify the curves in a potato sack.
“Hm,” he said, the corner of his mouth twisting. An assessment of surprised approval that made my skin crawl with irritation.
“What? Did your mystery woman tell you that her faerie godmother bewitched all the dresses in the kingdom to only look good on her?”
That wiped that wretched grin off his face and plastered it right onto mine.
“Ah, it seems a voice of reason has entered my son’s life,” said a strong, hearty voice behind me. I jolted in place, which, judging by his not-so-subtle wink, seemed to amuse the prince.
“Good evening, Father.” Prince Evander nodded in deference as the king appeared at the head of the table. The motion was so jolted, so unnatural, it had me wondering if this was the first occasion the prince had attempted a gesture of respect. “May I introduce Miss Ellie…I mean…erm…”
“Elynore.”
“Right, Miss Elynore Payne, my betrothed.”
The king’s eyes settled on me, and he offered me an approving nod before silently dismissing Blaise and Imogen with a wave of his hand. The king was just as handsome as his son, and hardly looked five years older, which I found immensely unsettling. The fae’s magic kept them from aging as quickly as humans, making them, for all intents and purposes, immortal. At least, that was what we all assumed, since no one had yet to document a fae who died of natural causes. Still, when the prince had described his father, I’d imagined someone older. Someone with frown lines.
Instead, the king appeared to be hardly pushing thirty in human years, though I wondered if without his carefully trimmed beard he’d look even younger. His hair was blond, his skin lightly tanned, much like his son’s, but his eyes were a deep gray, a wall of steel that might have guarded millennia’s worth of pain.
Ah, there it was.
The signs of age.
The tired, exasperated aura. I wondered if it exuded from him all the time, or if it was selective to encounters with his son.
“Welcome, Miss Payne. Or shall I say Lady Payne, now that my son has promoted you? My condolences for your loss.”
I fought the tug of amusement that pulled at my lips, but I avoided looking in the prince’s direction.
“Marken,” a deep, female voice said, full of disappointment. “Must you speak so unkindly of our son?”
A fair-skinned female fae, the Queen of Dwellen, apparently, appeared beside her husband, her hair pulled back into an austere knot that almost had her looking older than her son.
Almost.
It made me a bit queasy recalling that she had birthed him.
Fae were strange.
Off the queen’s shoulders hung a silver dress that complemented her hair, so light it was almost white, and I wondered if that was from age, if it was natural, or if it was one of the fae glamours I’d heard about. Her face was dainty, and she looked to be about twenty, barely older than me. Except when her gaze fell upon her son. The flood of warmth that swelled in her eyes would have betrayed their relationship even if her words had not.
One couldn’t fake that look. That kind of love.
She took the chair between the king and their son, leaving me at the king’s right hand. Nerves made my arms jitter, as this didn’t seem the proper way to do things at all. But then the king and his wife and son sat in unison, and I found myself the odd one out.
The prince stifled a laugh, and I plopped myself down in my chair. The clatter of my chair legs scraping the marble floors echoed across the hall. This sent the prince into a choking fit, and I shot a glare in his direction.
“My son is quite the charmer,” the king said, turning to me. “At least, until he’s opened his mouth. He seems to have figured a way around that, though, when it comes to females.”
A sly smile broke across Prince Evander’s face, but it didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m not so sure about that, Father. They seem to like my mouth just fine.”
The queen coughed into her napkin, which did nothing to mask the mortification staining her pale cheeks, but it seemed embarrassing one female at the table wasn’t enough. Because Evander flicked those stunning sea-foam eyes toward me and said, “Isn’t that right, Miss Payne?”
I shrugged, then against every sound piece of judgment my parents had ever offered me, said, “I’ve kissed better.”
This, of course, wasn’t remotely true. I’d never kissed anyone in my life. But as I was the only one at the table who possessed the capacity to lie, I considered it my duty as a human to take advantage of that fact.
The prince’s eyes shuttered, which I might have found more satisfying if they weren’t examining my mouth with such intensity that I couldn’t help but wonder if he was searching for evidence of whether my statement was true.
