“You’re the second son.”
He frowned, and his hand tightened on her nape for just a moment before he realized his error and released her. “Yes, I am. And I am not like my father.” He knew there was too much aggression in his tone, and when she cast her eyes up, he nearly lost all his patience for this game. He wanted this girl. More than that … he required her. And he was not always the most patient hunter. He was preparing to ask her for another dance when his brother stepped into view.
“A princess as lovely as you should spend the entire night upon the dance floor. Allow me to correct my little brother’s error.”
Casimir held out a hand in offering, and Cassius’s fingers itched for the blade he usually wore at his hip.
“Mir,” he grumbled in warning. But that only made his brother push more. They were alike in that. When Aurora laid her hand in Mir’s, he pressed a kiss to her palm. A long kiss. Fire licked up Cassius’s spine, and nearly a dozen Stormhearts burned hot and cold and everything between as they filled with his energy. His brother was very, very lucky that the Stormhearts could only influence storms, not create them. He wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from raining down fire and floods, brother of his blood or not.
Cassius snapped, “That’s enough, Casimir.”
“Come now, Brother. Surely, you would not deprive me of the chance to get to know my future sister.”
Cassius bared his teeth in grim smile. “Get to know her from a distance.” There was no hiding the threat in his words.
Mir winked at the princess and said, “He never has been good at sharing.”
“And you never have been good at keeping your hands where they belong.”
Cassius was nearly vibrating with fury now, but his brother was still as calm as could be, his thumb lazily stroking Rora’s palm as he kept hold of her hand. “No. No, I have not.”
Cassius gripped Aurora’s shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. The headdress blocked his view for a moment before he leaned around and fixed his brother with a glare.
“Careful, Cassius.” His brother smiled. “You’ll frighten her away before she’s truly yours.”
“Boys.” A tinkling, fake laugh drifted over from where their mother sat. “At least pretend to be civilized.” The dais was set apart enough that no one could have heard their words, but his mother’s warning cleared Cassius’s head enough to remember that people were watching.
“A little healthy competition never did any harm,” his father replied, looking at Casimir with approval. Once upon a time that might have been a painful blow to Cassius, to see his brother favored over him, but take enough of those hits, and eventually you don’t even feel them.
His mother turned to the Pavanian queen and said, “You are so lucky you have no sons. They are beasts on their best days.”
Queen Aphra’s smile faltered only for a moment, but it was long enough. Unlike in Locke, where secrets were easy to bury, there was not a kingdom on the continent that had not heard of the death of Pavan’s heir. His mother looked out at the dance floor, her lips tipped up in mimicry of pleasantness. Everything about his mother’s looks should have lent her warmth—her honey skin, dark brown hair, and eyes that shone somewhere between. But there was no disguising the cold in her.
Enough. He cared not for silly dances and frivolous parties, but he would keep Aurora on the floor until morning if it kept her in his arms and his family at a distance. He took her hand and began pulling her away without explanation. To his brother he called back, “You’ll have to beg a dance another time. Perhaps after our wedding. Tonight is ours.”
*
Aurora’s cheeks hurt from smiling, and her face was hot from what felt like one unending blush. She held Cassius’s elbow, leaning in to him as she tottered like she had drunk her weight in wine. She hadn’t had a single drop, but she felt slightly drunk all the same. He held both her hands atop his forearm, keeping her steady every time she inevitably tripped over her dress.
Yesterday she had been certain that life as she knew it was coming to an end, with her future resting on a blade’s edge as thin as the half-truths they’d told for years. But now … all the world looked different through hope’s glow.
She peeked behind Cassius’s shoulder at the brooding brother who trailed them. He was playing chaperone, king’s orders, as Cassius walked her back to her rooms.
Casimir was nearly as tall as his brother, but his body was leaner, his face a little softer, more pampered, perhaps. His hair was longer with a slight curl to the ends. If she did not already know which was which, she would have assumed that Cassius was the famed elder brother known as Prince Cas. Taller and broader—she assumed him the more powerful, but perhaps that misconception was part of what made Casimir all the more dangerous. He was quicker to smile and joke, and would no doubt make a charismatic ruler, but there was a hint of cunning to him. As if every word was a strategic move on a game board that she could not see.
The three of them made their way down the main stairs onto the ground floor. “Prince Casimir,” she called back, “my mother said that you were also recently engaged to be married.”
Casimir’s eyes flicked to his brother’s back before he answered, “I’m afraid your mother’s information is outdated. That betrothal was dissolved.”
She wasn’t sure whether to offer condolences or ask for more information or remain silent. But she’d never been one to keep her mouth in check for long. Still soaring from her unexpectedly wonderful night, her curiosity got the better of her.
“How does one go about dissolving betrothals?”
She was smiling widely as they entered the north residential wing, and a few moments passed before she noticed the brothers had gone rigid. Cassius’s expression was dark and hard, like that of the intimidating man he’d been at first sight, and it made the air feel thick in Rora’s throat.
“There’s only one way a betrothal sealed by a royal contract can be broken,” Casimir answered.
It wasn’t the eldest brother who continued, but Cassius. “She died, Aurora.”
She wanted to rip one of the skyfire crystals off her necklace and shove it down her throat.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but she knew the words meant little. They couldn’t change anything, couldn’t unravel time. But he thanked her anyway, and dropped back as they approached the ornate archway that separated the royal chambers from the rest of the wing. Cassius touched the gold-painted, carved wooden frame, but didn’t pass under it. Rora whispered, “I’m sorry I brought up the engagement. I didn’t know. I never would have—”
Cassius cut her off, grasping her chin between his fingers. She went silent and very, very still. His gaze pinned her in place, making her forget her panic.
“You did not know. Besides, we Lockes don’t dwell on the past. We move forward. Always forward.”
“Does that come from your family creed?”