To get us safe.
My protests dry up as I stare at him, my hand a death grip on the dagger. He stands in the shaft of moonlight, facing away from me, the broad planes of his back stiff with tension. There is a prolonged beat of silence. Then, reaching up, he does something that makes my heart seize within my chest. Something, I realize, I’ve been waiting for. For days. For a week. Since the very first moment I saw him, in fact, standing in front of my hanging tree, staring at me like my existence was the worst thing to ever befall him.
He takes off his helm.
There is a dull metal clank as it strikes the table. He braces his hands on either side of it, fingers splayed out along the wooden surface, and takes a deep, shuddering breath. I watch the muscles in his back ripple beneath his shirt as he exhales in slow degrees,releasing what seems to be a torrent of pent-up energy. His head is turned away. His hair falls around it, a shaggy curtain.
I catch myself wondering what expression he wears in that fraught moment; what he might look like with those shafts of moonlight painting him in shades of silver. By the time he turns to me, he’s schooled his face into the mask of cool indifference I’ve come to know so well. Still, I feel my tongue parch, my mouth going completely dry at the sight of him without the severe lines of his helm, without the serpentine nose guard to bisect his undeniably handsome features.
I swallow hard.
It is not the boyish beauty of a stage player, nor the flashy appeal of the male courtesans I’d seen loitering outside the brothels in Bellmere, Seahaven’s main port, on the rare occasion Eli allowed me to accompany him to the city. Penn’s is a sharp, symmetrical face with clean lines, a strong brow, and a straight nose.
It is, I decide, even better than I allowed myself to envision, all those nights I’d lain awake beside our campfire, wondering if I’d ever get a chance to see him unobscured. His hair, like the brows I’ve seen furrowed at me so often in frustration, is a lush, darkish brown. Neither long nor short but somewhere in between. I wonder if he wears it cropped when he isn’t undercover in the Midlands. The ends curl just past his ears—
His ears!
My breaths cease. My eyes widen. Because those ears…
They’re pointed.
He’s fae.
The dagger in my hand is clutched so tight, I think my knuckles might shatter. My heart begins to pound, my pulse increasing its tempo from a thrum to a roar in an instant.
“You,” I whisper, unable to say anything else. Unable to think anything else. Unable to even breathe properly. “You’re…”
A halfling.
Like me.
He does not move. Does not speak. Does not do a thing but stand there in that shaft of moonlight, staring at me.
“You’re fae.” I shake my head, rejecting the words even as I say them. “That’s…That’s not…Youcan’tbe.”
His dark brows arch. “Can’t I?”
“But…you’re a prince!” I blurt stupidly.
“And?”
“How can a halfling hold such a position?” I must still be dreaming. “How can anyone with a drop of fae blood be so…visible…without being hunted down for daring to exist?”
“Things are different in the Northlands.” His shoulders lift in a brief shrug. “We do not hold with the more primitive customs of our southern neighbors.”
At this, I blink. Stupefied. “Then, in Dyved…there are more like me? Like…us?”
“Nearly all who live beyond the mountains are at least partly fae. It’s rare to see a full-blooded human past the range.”
“Your men aren’t fae,” I point out.
“They are.”
I shake my head rapidly. “But their ears—”
“There are glyphs stitched into their uniforms. Enchantments. Nothing powerful, but enough to cast a faint glamour that allows the wearer to pass as human. If you honed your senses, you could pierce through the illusions easily.” He pauses. “Try it next time you look at one of them. You’ll see for yourself.”
“I can’t see through glamours.”