The other shoe never dropped. He never lost his temper about me not coming to my senses and seeing what a great thing was in front of me. Dain was simply my friend, full stop, and after a while I started easing into it, myself. With dread, I expected to feel the options narrowing for us, falling away until one day we'd be laughing together and everything would click into perfect alignment, and being best friends or allies or even siblings would be as natural for us as breathing. It didn't, though, and I couldn't decide whether to be relieved or guilty. We were still up on the cliff, looking out towards affection, but I couldn't unhook from the knowledge of what it meant, and so we stayed up there, only looking.

Dain didn't seem to mind, or to be worried as the weeks rolled past. We did all the things we'd been doing before: sitting in open court together, eating together, going on deerback rides together, and attending revels together with Dain watching me dance from his throne. I started falling into a rhythm; kind of inevitable, I guessed. There's only so long you can be dislocated, even in a place where most people around you move like wild animals and call you "your highness." Even in a place where, from time to time, someone tries to kill you or your scary crown prince soulmate, sometimes in very inventive ways.

The two of us were minding our own business, strolling through the garden in the warm morning sunlight of the crisp late-autumn day, when Dain suddenly grabbed me and whirled, putting his body between me and something. I heard two thunking sounds, one after another, and Dain's body went stiff against me. Without ceremony, he shoved me into the rose bushes and out of the way, wheeled, and had his sword out in time to meet the downswing of a fae's blade.

He had two arrows jutting out of his back, long and brightly colored, the type of thing you might buy at a Bass Pro Shop for target shooting with your redneck cousin's compound bow. For a frozen moment, I stared at Dain's back from my unfriendly bower, at the tawdry lime green and hot pink against the spreading wet on his clothing.

That's why, I thought, feeling sick. The black hides the blood.

Everything around me screeched into motion again, the way a video chat moves too fast to catch up with the audio after lagging. I'd seen Dain fight before, many times, but I'd never seen him fight for his life. He moved with precise, furious speed, but he took hits from his three assailants, not getting out of the way when he could have easily turned or stepped aside.

Me. He was staying in front of me. He was defending me—I was the reason there was blood streaming down his thigh and shoulder. I was the reason he was hurt.