Laya scowled and waved him off. “Go on, then. Don’t you have swords to sharpen? Fish to catch?”

Luntok’s mouth twisted in annoyance. He was among Maynara’s highest-born sons, and he hated nothing more than her gibes likening him to a common fisherman.

But as she pulled away, he grabbed her hand and held it to his lips. “I’ll catch you a whale shark, Laya. How about that? Then I’ll string you a necklace out of its teeth, and we’ll carve our wedding bed from its bones.”

“Sharks don’t have bones,” Laya said. Her fingers twitched in his hand, but she didn’t jerk them back. He needed to leave now, before his promises left her breathless.

“An elephant, then. Or a wild boar.” Luntok looked up from her knuckles, hope glistening in his eyes.

Her heart broke then. She couldn’t give him what he wanted. She couldn’t ask him to stay.

“You really should leave. Someone will catch you,” she said, this time a touch less cruelly.

Luntok sighed once more. He planted a last rueful kiss on the back of her hand before releasing her. Wistfully, she stared as he swung one leg over the balustrade.

“I’ll come back,” he vowed, “whether or not you send for me.”

Too cheeky. Laya frowned. “You’ll come back when I send for you, and not a moment sooner,” she told him. The fatigue swept through her once again, and his promises became too heavy.

Luntok chuckled in return as he heaved himself atop the balustrade. In a flutter of scarlet, he disappeared over the side of the balcony. Halfway down the wall, he fell, landing with a groan in the bushes beneath Laya’s window. She bit back a laugh as he dusted himself off. Luntok stopped once more to salute her, flashing her a final disarming grin. Laya gazed at his back as he retreated into the gardens, through patterns of blossoms and fruit sprawling northward behind the palace. From the gardens, he would head for the thick stone ramparts encircling the complex. Then he’d slip beneath them through a long-forgotten drainage tunnel, which emptied into a narrow alleyway that oft evaded the Royal Maynaran Guard’s view.

No soul apart from the two of them knew of this tunnel. Laya was the one who’d shown Luntok its entrance, a rusted grate scarcely visible beneath a thicket of tangled vines. He must have taken it over a hundred times by now. This was the only path to her he was allowed.

When I am queen, Laya thought sadly, all this will change.

The false hopes she fed Luntok were trite compared to the lies she told herself.