“Of course it’s customary. Royalty can’t be found sitting around waiting for their guests to show up like any regular dinner party. It’s assumed that we make an entrance.”

“No, thank you,” I said, gulping down the anxiety.

He raised a brow at me. “I don’t remember you being this nervous about the crowd during our first trial.”

“That was because I was tad distracted by my impending death,” I hissed.

Smiling, he leaned in close and whispered in my ear, “Don’t worry. Just hold on tight to me, and you’ll be fine.”

I cringed. Whether it was out of disgust at Evander’s arrogance and blatant flirting, or the pleasant tingling on my cheek where his hair had just grazed, I vowed never to admit to myself.

He grinned. “Ready?”

“No.”

The doors opened, and the noise of the partygoers swelled. The ballroom was enormous, and its ivory walls sloped into a dome over our heads. Fae nobility bedecked in an array of sparkling gowns and fine dress coats mingled in small clusters across the rooms, their chatter eager and lively. They all looked too lovely, too regal to be real—a duke and duchess whose matching tattoos snaked up their arms in a pattern of tangled thorns; a female dressed in garments the color of moonlight with hair and a diadem to match, a red jewel dangling from her wrist the only splash of color in her attire; a male who snatched a pastry from a nearby serving plate with a flick of his wrist and a gust of wind. Musicians played flutes and lyres—fae tunes that I had never heard. Songs that made my feet feel like dancing as soon as they hit my ears.

“Introducing Prince Evander and His Betrothed.”

We stepped forward, and the crowd halted their conversations, erupting into applause.

Evander leaned into me again and grumbled. “I’ve got to tell them to start using your name, El.”

El. It rang in my ears and warmed my heart, the sound of my name on his lips.

I shoved that thought, that feeling, deep down.

He doesn’t love me, I told myself. He told me himself that he doesn’t love me.

But then Evander dropped his hand down my forearm, firing a whir of warmth through my blood as he clasped his fingers around mine and sent me twirling before the crowd. The crowd gasped, and the applause swelled again.

By the time Evander caught me in his arms, I was already breathless. His lips twitched into a smile.

But then the herald spoke again. “And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for. His Majesty King Marken and Her Majesty Queen Evangeline.”

A louder but somehow more reserved applause echoed off the marble ceiling as the king and queen entered behind us, and I couldn’t help but wonder how genuine it was. Evander had told me that this crowd was full of noblemen and fae. If that were true, did the wealthy ruling class support the king’s reign, unlike the poorer and middle-class humans? Or was there malice and envy lacing the applause?

Evander placed his hand on my back and turned me to face the king and queen, who both approached us with a flowing grace that I would never have bothered aspiring to.

Evander’s father wore a silver dress coat with indigo lapels, while the queen sported a matching silver gown that flowed behind her in a train of silken starlight.

The king’s steely eyes fluttered over me, and he smiled, a look that made my stomach sink into the pit of my stomach. “You look like a queen.”

I pursed my lips and curtsied, lest I say something foolish. Just because the king tolerated me challenging him in private didn’t mean things would go well for me if I tried the same in front of all his lords and noblemen.

It was already shocking enough that the king had yet to punish me for embarrassing him during the second trial.

“Doesn’t she?” Evander asked, then turning to his mother, said, “I believe between the two of you, we’ve been graced with the two most beautiful females in Alondria.”

I’m embarrassed to say, my beam probably outshone the queen’s. Evander must have noticed, because he nudged me ever so slightly.

Evander wasn’t the only one to notice.

The king’s lips curled into the most unfriendly grin I’d ever had the misfortune to witness, but his gaze cut above my head, across the ballroom.

“My dear Lady Nightingale,” he crooned, just as a stunning female with sleek black hair and tanned skin approached us.

I couldn’t have missed the violence with which Evander flinched at her name if my limbs had been numbed by frostbite. I shot a questioning brow at him, but he avoided my gaze.

“My King,” Lady Nightingale answered, extending her hand for the king to kiss. “It’s been far too long.”

“Indeed,” he said. “Evander often complains of just that.”

“Does he now?” Lady Nightingale’s gaze flicked over to Evander, and with that one knowing look, I understood just why Evander had stiffened in her presence.

The former lover alarms that sounded in my brain could have rivaled the king’s battle trumpets.

If someone told me that Blaise had painted the smile on Evander’s face, I might have believed them. “My father is prone to exaggeration. It comes with the crown, so I’m told.”

That the king didn’t seem at all perturbed by his son’s slight had me fighting to keep myself from rocking back and forth on my heels.

“Son, why don’t you offer the first dance to Lady Nightingale? For old times’ sake?”

The queen cleared her throat. “Dear, traditionally the first dance is given to—”

“I’m sure Lady Payne wouldn’t mind.” There was nothing but challenge in the king’s cold gray eyes.

The muscles in my back knotted. My stomach clenched. If this female hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge my presence, I doubted she’d bother acknowledging the betrothal that tied my life to Evander’s, and with their obvious history…

“Of course I don’t mind,” I said, trying not to bare my teeth as I released Evander’s arm. I’d rather not give the king the satisfaction.

“Lady Nightingale,” Evander said, placing a warm hand on my back. “I’m afraid I intend to give the first dance to my future wife.” My heart swelled at his touch, at the sound of those words on his lips. My future wife.

“Of course, Evander,” she said, her voice saccharine, “I understand that you have obligations that must be upheld.”

Something sparked in me. “You know what, Evander,” I said, stroking his arm in a way I supposed I’d never done before given the way he rose his brow in surprise, “let Lady…what was it? Thrush?” Lady Nightingale’s eyes narrowed. “Let her have the first dance. What’s a first dance to me, when I’m the lucky woman who gets your last?” When I cut my eyes over at Lady Nightingale, I made sure to give her a smile that could have won awards.

She returned it, but I liked to think mine looked less forced.

Evander’s mouth went ajar, and he swallowed. “If you say so.” He took his ex-lover’s arm and led her to the dance floor.

When he placed his hand on her tiny waist, my heart wilted, my smile with it.

“He kept her around the longest of all of them,” the king crooned.

I no longer wondered how he planned to punish me for embarrassing him during the second trial.

CHAPTER 41