For although it had all indeed been a lie, it was preferable to the emptiness of the here and now.

“Have dinner with me.” A gruff, rushed request.

My eyes widened. “I don’t think that’s—”

“Please.”

An opportunity, as awful as it was of me to take it. A chance to find out more about Marvis. To seek answers about the swan.

I shouldn’t have cared a thing for where the human armies had sailed to, but I had little to care for anymore. So I would appease my curiosity. “Okay.”

FIFTEEN

Aster

The library wasn’t of much use, and I quickly ran out of time.

Deciding to return afterward, I left the books I’d been perusing upon the table in my parlor and readied to meet with the king.

While I didn’t wish to overdo it, I still made some effort. I chose a flowing apricot gown. The tunic-resembling sleeves billowed to my wrists, where they were cuffed with cotton in a dark orange that matched the faint beadwork in the loose bodice.

Rorn was already in the dining hall, his hands folded behind his back as he stared out the window.

He wore the same brown britches I’d seen him in earlier, but he’d changed into a fitted buttoned shirt of rich emerald. It would seem he had wished to make some sort of effort too, though I doubted his reasons were anything like my own.

Upon sensing my arrival, he murmured to the open stained glass of the window, “I had feared we’d never do this again.”

“Dine together?” I asked, still rooted in the doorway as an oily sludge made a home within my limbs at the thought of moving toward the table.

At the thought of spending so much time so close to him.

Rorn huffed, lips curved as he turned and walked to the set table to untuck the chair beside his own. “That too, but I was referring to the wide open window, which is now one of many. Another sheer simplicity we had lost to keep danger at bay.”

I nodded, forcing my bare feet to move. “And how long do we believe such simplicities will last?” I took the opportunity to press while he tucked me close to my waiting meal of quail, lemon-baked asparagus, and potato.

“I suppose we wait and see,” he said, taking his seat.

I watched him pour us each a glass of wine, near hypnotized as the blood-red liquid splashed against the sides of the glass.

“Eat,” he encouraged with a wave of his hand at my plate. “It smells and looks divine.”

“Indeed,” I concurred, unable to look at him.

As though he knew as much, he carved into his meal, steam rising from the bird, and then paused. “As do you.”

That earned him what he sought, my eyes lifting from my food to meet his.