Page 398 of Kingdoms of Night

It’s not as if the prince truly cared for her. He should have—Isa knew her own self-worth; she was an intelligent woman with courage and a strong sense of loyalty. But he was a prince. He wouldn’t see her unroyal self as someone to truly court.

Most likely he saw her as a pleasant distraction. Maybe even a plaything? No, she knew his heart. The moment on the coastline—when she’d first seen him—had somehow opened his very soul to her. But how could that be? It was impossible. She tapped the table and chewed her lip. She must have hit her head during the storm and her efforts to save Nico. That was the only answer that made sense. Flattening her palms on the table, she breathed in slowly. All right. She would come at this with her head on straight. He simply needed to be made aware of her boundaries here and she had to find out what his expectations were.

“How was your rest?” Viridi’s decadent voice flowed into the room.

“Wonderful. Thank you so much for your hospitality.” She kept her gaze on the table and ignored her sweating palms. “I want to make certain we’re clear here though.” Facing him, she was hit once more with his otherworldly beauty. It didn’t seem fair that a man so lovely could also be so kind, caring for Nico and her like he was. How was she supposed to withstand him and think reasonably before acting? “I am not going to deny there is a spark between us. Wait. Do you hate that word because, well, fire and trees…”

His grin released butterflies in her stomach. “I know what you mean. We are—”

She held up a hand—notthe one with the odd patches of pale blue. “I simply want to allow Nico time to recover and perhaps get to know you more if you are interested in…in that. In me.” She sighed at herself. She truly had the tongue of a poet. “I am incredibly flattered by your attention, but I don’t want to be as reckless with my life as I’ve been in the past. I need time to think clearly.”

He bowed low and remained there, looking up at her through his thick eyelashes. “I understand and respect your wishes, Lady of the Sun. I would never presume to be anything to you besides your polite host.” The corner of his mouth lifted and his eyes went dreamy. “Unless of course, you request a deeper relationship.”

Pleasant shivers spread down Isa’s skin, and despite herself she was breathing too quickly, taking quick gasps that completely gave her away. She swallowed and looked away.

“Th-thank you.”

“Bien sûr, Lady of the Sun,” he said, using a dash of her native tongue and showing off his language skills. She was duly impressed. As isolated as they were here, it would have been easy for them to ignore the world, but his knowledge of distant tongues and customs showed he valued folk beyond his own shores.

“Why do you call me that?”And please always call me that in that voice, she thought, setting her goblet of wine aside. That stuff wasn’t helping her avoid reckless behavior in the presence of this gorgeous creature.

“When I saw you, your soul warmed me.”

She blinked. Had he had that strange, wonderful vision like she had? Had it been real and not the result of being knocked about in the sea? Had he felt their bodies pressing close, and imagined that kiss too? Surely not. “You seem to … care for me … and you don’t know me at all.”

“Dryad elves don’t simply see a person. We can sense elements of your soul and heart, of who you really are.”

“And you liked what you sensed of me?” She felt silly saying it, but her tongue didn’t want to stop working and she found she was eager to know. It wouldn’t be the first time or the last that her curiosity pushed her from dignified into foolish.

“I did. You remember when I first sensed you. On the beach.” He looked away for a moment and pushed his hair away from his face. “I am sorry for that.”

Warmth curled down her torso to gather low in her belly.So he did experience it.“What happened exactly? I thought I’d just been hallucinating due to the wreck and all of that.”

“Dryad elves are born with the ability to draw in humans and fae—any creature, really. It’s how we used to gain some of our energy, by draining it from others’ bodies.” He shuddered, echoing her own sentiments. “We gave up that brutal practice a century ago. My father told me the story. But the ability remains, and it is at times difficult to restrain, especially when we are strongly drawn to a soul.” He met her gaze and invisible arrows pierced her heart. “Now, will you tell me of your life and how you came to be shipwrecked here?”

“I was adopted into a family of weavers and merchants. I ran the tapestry workshop I inherited from my parents. Tallying coins, keeping the books, working alongside the weavers most days. We lived in Nid de Lapin, a middling town on the edge of Wylfenden. I was never very happy, though I should have been. I didn’t realize how wonderful my life was then. My tongue craved new flavors and my feet ached to walk new roads. Honestly, I felt trapped. But when a storm destroyed the workshop and our home, I lost everything and everyone. I was thrown into a darkness. I … didn’t know such things could happen to me, even though I’d seen tragedy hit many others.”

A memory of her cousin, Louie, flashed through her mind—his wide-cheeked face marred with bruises from the storm’s flying debris and his body lying lifeless on the cobblestones. She could almost smell the memory, the scent of the storm like deep ocean water. Her throat burned and she looked to Viridi to forget, to move past it.

Viridi’s face reflected a layer of her grief, his sympathy evident in the set of his shoulders and the wrinkle between his eyebrows. “We see ourselves as untouchable when we are young, don’t we?”

“I think so. Unless one is dealt a terrible hand from the start.”

Viridi nodded and took a drink. She breathed in slowly, waiting for the pain of long ago to hide where it usually did, in the far corner of her mind.

“What did you wish to see when you dreamed of wandering?” he asked.

“The peaked mountains of the Balaur elves. My parents adopted me from merchants who had found me in the borderlands, left along the roadside. I have always wanted to see the dragons who live near there.” She fisted the hand with the strange patches of faint color.

“Tracking wild dragons would be a dangerous hobby.” He smiled like he thought it might be fun.

“Yes, but I’ve always…I don’t know…I have dreamed of dragons since I was a child. I feel like they are misunderstood. I’d love to see them. And I want to visit the sacred forest of Illumahrah in Lore too. And of course, the spice markets of Khem, which I did get to see, albeit from a distance.”

His lips pursed tightly and his eyes pinched for a moment, then he smoothed his face as if he had remembered something he didn’t care to recall. Then he stood, pushing away from the table with the grace that princes always possess in stories and legends. He held out a hand.

“Will you dance with me, Lady of the Sun?”

“Now?”

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