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have so much female chattering about day and night. You’ll be happy, I’m sure, when the prince has chosen his bride. Then you will have a sister, will you not?”
    Dira looked away, toward the seawall. “So it would seem.”
    A shadow crossed the path, and Aurora would have sworn the world went still.
    Lorcan, self-proclaimed king of Twylia, stood before them.
    He was tall and strongly built. His hair, nearly copper in color, spilled to the shoulders of his purple cloak. Jewels glinted in his crown, on his fingers. His sharply ridged face had the devil’s own beauty, and so cold was the blue of his eyes that Aurora wasn’t surprised to feel the queen tremble beside her.
    â€œYou dally in the garden while our guests wait? You sit and dream when you are commanded to take your place?”
    â€œYour Majesty.” Going with instinct, Aurora lowered herself to one knee at the king’s feet, and used a small dash of power to draw his attention and thought to her and away from his wife. “I most humbly beg your pardon for detaining Queen Brynn with my witless chatter. Her Majesty was too kind to send me away and she sought to soothe my foolish nerves. I am to blame for the lateness of her arrival.” She looked up and put what she hoped was the slightest light of flirtation in her eyes. “I was nervous, sire, to meet the king.”
    It was, she realized as his taut mouth relaxed, the right touch. He reached down, lifted her chin. “And who is this dark flower?”
    â€œSire, I am Aurora, daughter of Ute, and the foolish woman who has earned your displeasure.”
    â€œThey grow them fair in the west. Rise.” He drew her to her feet and studied her face so boldly she didn’t have to fake a blush. Though it came more from temper than modesty. “You will sit beside me at tonight’s banquet.”
    Luck or fate had blessed her, Aurora thought, and laid her hand on his. “I am undeserving, and grateful for the honor, sire.”
    â€œYou will entertain me,” he said as he led her inside, without, Aurora noted, another glance at his wife or daughter. “And perhaps show me why my son should consider you for wife.”
    â€œThe prince should consider me, sire, so that I might continue to entertain you, and serve you as a daughter would, all of your days.”
    He glanced back at Dira now, with thinly veiled disgust. “And how might a daughter serve me?”
    â€œTo do her duty. At the king’s pleasure, sire, and at her husband’s. To bear strong sons and to present a pleasing face and form. To do their bidding day and . . . night.”
    He laughed, and when he stepped inside the crowded and brightly lit banquet hall, Aurora was at his side.
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    T HANE watched from the spy hole in the secret chamber beside the minstrel’s gallery. From there he could look down on the feasting, and the lights and the colors. At the scent of roasted meat his empty belly clutched, but he was used to hunger. Just as he was used to standing in the shadows and looking out on the color and the light.
    He could hear women’s laughter as the ladies vied for Owen’s attention and favor, but there was only one who drew Thane’s interest.
    She sat beside the king, smiling, sampling the delicacies he piled on her plate, flirting with her eyes over the rim of her goblet.
    How could this be the same creature who had come to him in dream and vision the whole of his life? The womanwho had offered him such love, such passion, and such shining honesty? This coy miss with her sly smiles and trilling laugh could never make him burn as her light made him burn.
    Yet he burned, even now, just watching her.
    â€œYour back needs tending.”
    Thane didn’t turn. Kern appeared when and where he chose, as faeries were wont to do. And was as much bane as blessing.
    â€œI’ve been whipped before. It’ll heal soon