Page 69 of A War of Crowns

He ignored them all.

Gaze locked onto the gray-eyed beauty across the way, he did his best to keep his gait languid as he cut through the very middle of the dance floor in his quest to bring himself alongside his fellowmonarch at last. Here was the meeting he had been anticipating the most.

A chance to truly speak. To gain each other’s measure. To test the sharpness of the other’s tongue.

When he was nearly upon the Queen of Elmoria, she finally stopped pretending as though she was not watching him out of the corner of her eye and turned to face him in full.

Beneath the soft light of the lanterns, it was easy enough for him to overlook her age and simply appreciate her prettiness. He bit back a sigh when he saw she was, indeed, in a foul mood already. That deep frown of hers greatly marred her features.

“Seraphina,” he greeted her as though they were old friends. He smiled enough for the both of them. “The brightness of your beauty dims all others.”

When he extended his hand to claim hers for a kiss, he flinched away from the sight of an usuru of all things striking out at him from beneath the drape of the queen’s chestnut locks. The beast even dared hiss.

He frowned in reply.

Finally, a tight smile pulled at the queen’s lips when she offered her hand to him in return as though nothing at all had just transpired.

Still watching the winged serpent out of the corner of his eye, Edmund took the queen’s fingers without hesitation and brought them to his lips. “I am truly glad we can properly speak at last,” he murmured to her, ghosting the words across her knuckles. His attention flicked to take in the rest of her entourage.

She had an elderly man and woman with her, both dressed in black and silver. A handful of ladies. And two handfuls of guards.

“You flatter me, Your Majesty—”

“Edmund, please,” he insisted when his attention returned to her. “We have so much history between us, after all.”

For a few moments, the queen stared up at him in silence with those wonderfully smoky eyes of hers before she jerked her fingers from his grasp.

More moments ticked past in which Edmund basked in the awkward pause spanning between them. Eventually, though, the queen shattered the growing silence with a frigid declaration of, “Sir Tristan Dacre is alive, if just barely. Thank you for asking.”

Who? Ah, right. Her champion.

“Yes, you have my apologies for that. My brother can be…”

“Abominable?” the queen suggested, a trace of venom in her voice.

Edmund presented her with an indulgent smile. “Well, I was going to sayoverly enthusiastic, but we can certainly go with abominable, yes.”

“The Oracle is praying over him now,” she quietly informed him. But even while she spoke, her gaze slipped away and skimmed across the pavilion as if she was searching for someone amongst the courtiers already dancing beneath the faux starlight.

He arched an eyebrow. “If it is my brother you are looking for, my dear, you will not find him here,” Edmund dryly advised. “He has never been one for parties.”

The queen’s voice was all heat when she immediately denied, “I am looking for no one.”

Edmund shrugged, in no mood to argue over something so paltry. “Will you not dance with me?” he invited her instead. “I can think of no better place for us both to forget the unpleasantness of this afternoon than upon the dance floor.”

When the woman didn’t immediately accept the opportunity to dance with him, his smile turned a touch brittle. “As your honored guest, dear Seraphina, I must insist you dance with me.”

Those words seemed to warm her to the idea at last. But when her hand slid into the clasp of his again, that blasted usuru of hers lifted its head to once more hiss at him from its perch about her shoulders.

Edmund’s lips twisted with distaste. “Must you bring your…wingworm?” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

The way her eyes flew wide in response to his words might have almost been a comical sort of thing if he weren’t so put out by the serpent. “A…wingworm?” the queen murmured back, sounding bewildered more than anything. “Alyx is an usuru.”

“Oh, I know very well what it is,” Edmund snapped. “But perhapsAlyxmight be more comfortable staying with your people?”

“Oh, I think Alyx is quite comfortable right where she is. But thank you for your concern.”

“Is she?” Edmund used his grip on the queen’s hand to twirl her about in a sudden swirl of beaded sapphire silk once, twice, thrice—

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