“I did,” Daiyen said dryly, taking a sip of her drink. “But he became engrossed in his own conversation.” She leveled a cool look across the ballroom, and I followed her gaze from the dais to where Solara was holding resplendent court. She laughed gaily and slapped the chest of the current subject of her attentions. I blinked. Most people didn’t do the party equivalent of an elbow dig to Heathran Belarius. It wasn’t that he was heir to the most powerful family in the systems, the one we theoretically had an alliance with, so much as he had the humor of a frozen moon. He was tall, broad shouldered, and dark skinned, and possessed the strong features that made so many swoon over Belarius men, but I didn’t think I had ever seen a smile grace his face. That is, until now. I glanced at Daiyen, but she had turned back to Ket, and I couldn’t read anything in her expression.
The portion of my mind that typically enjoyed these games considered the implications there. Treznor-Nirmana had been trying to intimidate Belarius into distancing themselves from us, and I wondered if Xiaolan was making a move into what they perceived as a power vacuum. Leave it to Solara to thwart that little play at the party level—but not even that held my attention for long.
For once, I didn’t feel as though my heart was in the social “niceties,” duty or not. Ket ended up handling the brunt of the well-wishers, and soon, I was glancing from face to face with only one anticipation.
The strings started, bittersweet, and the bass hummed through the floor. I looked up from the dais toward to Alaxak again. When I looked down, I saw her.
She stood at the far edge of the ballroom, at the north entrance, and the crowd melted around her, keeping their distance. I could guess why. The Qole I had come to know was competent, keenly intelligent, and completely grounded. She stomped on the grating of her ship, she commanded mountains of men, she stood with a wide stance as if she expected a punch, and she would throw her own to protect her crew. Her greatest dream was to lie in a sunny meadow and watch the clouds. She was as rough as the planet she came from, and as surprising.
The Qole that I was looking at now was as mesmerizing and striking as the space in which she fished. Her hair rolled down in glittering coils like black smoke and stars. The dark swaths of her dress wrapped around her body, softening it to all arcs and curves, but nothing about her suggested that she was a safe plaything. If the other Qole was dangerous like a meteor, this Qole was dangerous like Shadow, an unknown element to the people around her, and they stayed well away, casting sideways glances.
Our eyes met. Hers were free of anger or intention, unguarded, taking me in. Like open windows, they invited me to see this other side of her that I hadn’t yet met.
I had to talk to her.
Even possessed of a certain madness, I knew I couldn’t simply abandon Ket and stroll over to Qole for some light evening chitchat. There would be attention on Qole before long, but we wanted the attention to be related to her diplomatic relationship with my family and her upcoming contributions to science. We distinctly did not want it from the tabloids.
Which meant I had to stop being a moody, disengaged princeling and put my skills to good use.
“Ket, my beautiful mirage,” I murmured, “I’ll be right back. I see the Royal Times photographer and I’ve been meaning to ask him about engagement photos.”
Ketrana craned her neck to where the man was in busy conversation with a duchess. “Oh, Nevarian,” she whispered excitedly. “He’s considered simply the best for arranging candid moments.”
I smiled. “I’ll arrange a fortuitous moment with him right now.”
To make it to the photographer, I distracted a potentate who was complaining about the erratic behavior of our drones by introducing her to a member of the clergy who had a theory regarding divine intervention and the relevance to drone activities, snatched a glass from a passing waiter in time to hand it to someone opening their mouth to speak to me, and pretended to not see an uncle once removed attempting to get my attention a few feet away. I arrived at the photographer’s shoulder, and his wife’s simultaneously alarmed and delighted expression caused him to turn and half choke on his drink.
“Your Highness! What a pleasure to see you on this auspicious day.”
I smiled and nodded. “Indeed, made all the happier thanks to your presence. I’m an eternal fan of your work. My betrothed, Ketrana, would love nothing more than to speak to you about where you found those touchingly beautiful models to represent disadvantaged youth in your social awareness piece.”
“The…Princess Ketrana? I would be honored, thrilled, pleased, I…” The photographer finished surreptitiously brushing crumbs from his waistcoat and ran out of words.
“She’s right over there.” I pointed. “You would do me a great favor if you could find it in your heart to have a brief conversation with her. In the meantime, I would be happy to entertain your wife with part of this dance.”
Three startled partner changes in half as many minutes later, I was standing in front of Qole.
“My lady captain.” I bowed. “Custom dictates that we continue this dance together.”
She started as if alarmed by my presence. I supposed I had essentially materialized out of the crowd, but it didn’t entirely explain the delicate flush to her cheeks that sprung up under her sharp-edged makeup.
“That’s the third terrible idea you’ve had today,” Qole retorted with her customary bluntness. I found it especially refreshing after the past hour. “I dance about as well as a rock. Or about as well as I fit in here.”
“Some rocks do dance, as you should know after expending extensive time in asteroid fields, and you’re right, you don’t fit in here,” I said. “You’re much too beautiful for these people.”
She started again as if I’d insulted her instead of complimented her.
Beautiful. I’d never called her that before. I hadn’t even truly thought it, but what else could I have said? Anything other than that would have felt false. She was, in this moment, utterly beautiful to me. Now that I came to think of it, maybe she always had been and I just hadn’t realized.
“Here,” I continued, reaching out to her. “You can’t come to a ball and not dance. And I promise you, I am the best teacher you will find here.”
Qole hesitated, but I was playing dirty—you can’t exactly deny a prince who is standing in the middle of a ballroom with his hand outstretched.
I watched her own hand rise and rest in mine. The warmth of her touch radiated down my arm and through my entire body. I stepped closer, placing my other hand at the small of her back, and then we were off.
Part of me expected to simply float off in a cloud of dynamic dancing, the sort of synchronicity that planets and stars experienced. Instead, we reaffirmed that Qole was not in the habit of exaggerating or lying. She tripped in her heels, and I almost stumbled in turn as her feet got caught between mine.
“See,” she hissed. “I implode at this.”
I grinned. “You made me cook, I make you dance. The universe is in balance.”
A hint of a smile played in her dangerous eyes. “The universe has a ways to go, since I doubt I could be as bad as your cooking even if I face-planted this second.”