The music slowed, drawing them toward the final steps of the dance. He eased her into the last turn, the touch between them lingering as the melody faded into silence.
At the end, he bowed low, brushing his lips lightly across her knuckles.
“Thank you for the dance, Princess Reiyana,” he murmured. “Perhaps one day, I’ll earn more than just your patience.”
When he straightened, her gaze held his.
“Thank you, Prince Kaelendrin,” she replied, a faint unsteadiness in her voice, as if caught between the distance she maintained and the pull of something else. “For a most . . . enlightening dance.”
They stood there, unmoving. He should have let her go, but something in the weight of her stare, the crack in her composure, made the moment feel unfinished.
His thumb brushed against her hand—a fleeting touch, a tether.
And before he could stop himself, the words left him.
“If the tournament didn’t happen, what kind of a person would you choose for yourself?”
Her lips parted, but no immediate answer came. For a moment, he thought she might rebuke him, cut the moment short.
But then, she answered.
“A man who listens, who doesn’t seek to control me. A man who sees me as I am—not a prize, but an equal partner.”
His brow lifted faintly. “A rare kind of man. Few would stand beside power without wanting to wield it.”
Her smile flickered—faint, wistful, devoid of humour. “I know.”
They stood there, the pull between them thrumming—quieter now, but no less charged.
“And if that man stood before you now,” Kaelen said, his heart quickening, “would you recognize him?”
Reiyana’s lips twitched, just barely—but then, her expression stilled. Her posture shifted, her focus sliding past him.
He barely had time to register it before instinct prickled at hisnape—the unmistakable awareness of eyes on his back. With her hand still nestled in his, he turned.
A man stood just beyond his shoulder, medium-built with sun-touched brown hair curling at the ends. He carried himself with a quiet elegance that didn’t demand attention—until one gave it. Effortlessly refined, in the way Betas sometimes were. Handsome, his features smoothed to perfection, utterly composed in a way that made Kaelen wary.
The kind of man one noticed too late, after he was already in the room, already shifting the balance in his favour.
The princess’s fingers twitched in his hand, as if to pull away. He tightened his grip a touch.
“Lord Castiel,” she said softly, dipping into a curtsy, though her hand remained in his.
Kaelen’s gaze flicked between them. The name tugged at something distant in his memory, but it was the princess’s reaction that held his attention.
Not just the shift in her voice, but the way she gasped . . . so faint most wouldn’t notice, but he did.
There was no mistaking the flicker of guilt in her eyes. The way she straightened, as if bracing for something inevitable.
His brow furrowed.
Was this the man she had described?
Chapter Six
REIYANA
Reiya’s chest tightened as Castiel approached. He was a polished reminder of everything she was meant to want. Her fingers flexed against Prince Kaelendrin’s, the warmth of their dance still clinging like an ember refusing to die.