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body as he quietly laughed at what I had said. I crossed my arms before me. He laughed a little more.
    "We have a problem," he said, once he'd managed to get himself more or less under control.
    I twisted to look at him, thinking a small glance at his face was all I'd do, but his eyes were flashing those hypnotic greens again and it was several seconds before I realised I'd lost all train of thought. He was smiling at me, watching my reaction, smirking at how easily I had fallen under his spell.
    Crap. I was better than this. Way better. I flicked my glance away when he let me and looked resolutely at the floor. It was marble and patterned prettily with colourful gems here and there. Everywhere about them the Dökkálfa were determined to have colour and light.
    "You said a problem," I reminded him, ensuring no questions were asked. It was harder than it should have been. I was feeling exhausted all of a sudden and I was sure it wasn't entirely to do with the frenetic spin dance I had just done. This exhaustion was familiar though, but right then, faced with Aliath and his green eyes and his obvious agenda, I was having trouble focusing on anything other than not returning his gaze.
    He shifted me again on his lap and I knew the repositioning was intentional. Aliath had never shown an attraction to me before, in fact when we first met he had been appalled to have to work alongside me at all. Somewhere along the way we had formed a type of friendship, at least we had become allies. But my proximity right now, or watching me spin fight, or maybe the memory of tasting my courage, meant he was feeling rather amorous. I couldn't miss it and it just made me suck in a breath and freeze. He ignored my reaction.
    "My court will expect me to punish you. You challenged me after all."
    "It wasn't a challenge." At least not intentionally. "You requested a spin fight demonstration, part of the dance of spin fighting is to land the final blow. I was merely giving you the complete performance."
    He was silent for a moment, digesting that I think.
    "You would have been aware how my Court would react to such a movement."
    "I had hoped to please them all. To entertain." It wasn't exactly the truth, but as I wasn't Dökkálfa, I could get away with a little white lie or two.
    "Even so, to approach me at all was taking a risk. You could have approached one of the guards and still given the Court a performance that would entertain."
    This was unfortunately true. But I couldn't allow him to think I agreed. I fumbled for a moment for an excuse, for a reason why I had chosen him, but my mind seemed to be getting more and more sluggish. I blinked rapidly trying to clear my vision and sucked in a couple of deep breaths to stop the headache that had started behind my eyes. Something was definitely wrong, but I didn't have time to consider what right now, I had to get Aliath back on side.
    "I was drawn to you, Your Majesty. I could no further ignore you sitting there than stop the dance on my own."
    I think he liked that, he shifted my body closer to his. It confused me slightly, Aliath was better at playing Court politics than this, yet right in this instant he was reacting and not thinking his responses through. Then it dawned on me why I might be so tired, he had consumed more of my courage than ever before, wearing me out and because of that, he was now compromised too, as though drunk on it. It made some sense, but there was something in the back of my mind that led me to believe that wasn't entirely correct.
    Aliath's head came down to rest on my shoulder, an intimate gesture that the Grey Lord would never have performed before. It startled me so much that I looked down at him, thankfully his eyes were closed and I didn't get bamboozled by all that gorgeous green. He was breathing deeply though, matching my own efforts to get enough oxygen into my lungs. You'd think we had both run a marathon, but whereas I had an excuse, having been pushed to my