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
ELLIE
Lady Nightingale was a skilled dancer.
Watching her and Evander twirl around the dance floor with such grace and ease, one would have thought they’d done it a thousand times—oh, wait, probably because they had done it a thousand times, and it had me wondering just how long they’d been together.
“Two decades,” the king said with that annoying little habit of his that had me questioning whether the Dwellen fae had also been blessed with the ability to read minds.
It was probably just my soured expression, though. Or the way I was crossing my arms so hard, my forearm muscles bulged.
Two decades? Evander had courted this female for longer than I’d graced this side of the sun.
Though I supposed the king could have made up a number just to get under my skin. The fae curse kept him from lying, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t spout out random numbers when he hadn’t even been asked a question.
One dance, I told myself.
But when one had decades of history up their sleeve, did they really need anything more than a single dance to rekindle the flame?
As if in answer, Lady Nightingale leaned in close and whispered something to Evander. I averted my gaze to the floor and began counting marble tiles. I couldn’t stand to witness his reaction.
