Night came too quickly.
Sarisa had spent the late afternoon pretending she was not thinking about the dinner at all, which of course meant she had thought about almost nothing else.
By the time the lamps in her chambers were lit and the sky beyond her windows had turned into deep violet silk, she was standing in front of her wardrobe with her arms crossed, staring at her dresses like they had personally betrayed her.
What, exactly, was one supposed to wear to a romantic dinner one did not want?
A sack would have been honest.
Black would have been too obvious. Red would suggest effort. White would look bridal and might make her throw herself out of the nearest tower on principle.
There was one green gown she disliked enough to consider, and another in cream that made her look sweet and harmless, which was its own kind of insult.
Maybe she should wear the ugliest dress she owned.
Yes.
No.
Maybe that would only start another conversation about her "mood" and "attitude" and "whether she was opening herself to the future." The words alone made her want to commit tax fraud.
She was still standing there in her shift, glaring at the wardrobe as if she could bully one of the gowns into becoming a shield, when there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," she said, already annoyed.
A servant entered carrying a long garment box with both hands. Sarisa saw the box and knew immediately.
Of course Vaelen had sent something. Why simply endure a romantic dinner when one could be dressed for it like a prize mare on exhibition?
The maid set the box carefully on the bed and opened it with the sort of reverent caution reserved for jewels, relics, and things rich people expected others to admire.
Inside lay a gown the color of open sky.
It was beautiful.
Sarisa hated it on sight.
The silk was a soft, luminous blue, edged in silver embroidery so delicate it looked like frost climbing morning glass. The sleeves were long and sheer at the wrists.
The neckline dipped just enough to flatter without scandal. The skirt would move like water. It was exactly the sort of dress designed to make a woman look gentle, radiant, and tragically easy to love.
It was vile.
She stared at it with all the enthusiasm one might reserve for a venomous animal someone had thoughtfully placed on the bed.
Of course he had chosen this one. Of course he had. The sentimental, polished bastard. The elegant little menace in embroidery. This was not a dress. This was propaganda with a waistline.
"His Highness hoped Your Highness might like it," the maid said carefully.
Like it.
Sarisa nearly laughed.
"Yes," she said inwardly. I adore it. It perfectly captures the feeling of being slowly buried alive in sky-blue silk by a kind man with excellent manners and the instincts of a decorative executioner.
Outwardly, she only said, "Leave it there."
The servant bowed and escaped, probably sensing the room had become unsafe for innocent bystanders.
Sarisa looked at the dress for another long moment.
The truly infuriating part was that it would look beautiful on her. She knew it. The cut would suit her.
The color would catch in her hair and soften her eyes and make her look exactly like the kind of woman Vaelen wanted to be seen with under candlelight.
Which made it worse. Much worse. If it had been ugly, she could have rejected it on principle. But this was a gorgeous, manipulative little snake of a gown.
She wanted to burn it.
Instead, because the universe was cruel and she was tired, she put it on.
Her maids came in after, called in by whatever psychic terror had informed them this would be one of those evenings.
They laced, pinned, smoothed, and brushed until the sky-blue nightmare fit her like it had been made by someone who knew every line of her body.
Which, she thought bitterly, it probably had. There were enough people in this palace professionally employed to observe her and report the details.
By the time she was finished, she looked exactly as she feared she would.
Beautiful.
Soft.
Approachable.
Like a woman about to walk into a romance instead of a sentence.
She wanted Lara with such sudden force it almost made her dizzy. Wanted her there to look at the dress, swear about it, call Vaelen a peacock-faced bastard, and then kiss the fury out of Sarisa's mouth.
Instead there was only her reflection.
And the door.
When she stepped out into the corridor, a servant was already waiting to escort her to the private dining pavilion Vaelen had apparently reserved. Reserved. For romance. The thought made her skin itch.
The pavilion lay at the edge of the palace gardens, all arched stone and climbing vines, one of those places designed to look intimate without sacrificing an ounce of royal spectacle.
By the time Sarisa arrived, lanterns had already been lit among the flowers outside, and inside the long room glowed with too many candles, polished silver, and soft music from somewhere discreetly hidden.
Vaelen stood when she entered.
He turned, saw her, and for one unbearable second his whole face opened with genuine admiration.
"You look…" He stopped, smiling a little. "You look breathtaking."
There were probably women in the world who would have blushed.
Sarisa only thought: yes, well, your cursed sky dress did its job, didn't it?
"Thank you," she said with the exact amount of warmth required not to start a war before soup.
He came forward, offered his hand, and she let him take hers because apparently her life had become a series of graceful submissions measured in inches. He pressed a light kiss to her knuckles.
Her smile remained perfectly composed.
Inside, her thoughts were less elegant.
If you say anything poetic, she thought, I will stab this candle and make us eat in darkness.
Fortunately, Vaelen only guided her to the table.
The setup was intimate enough to be embarrassing. Just the two of them, set at a small round table rather than opposite ends of a long one, surrounded by hanging lanterns and pale flowers.
There was wine. There were candles. There were little dishes of fruit and soft bread and everything arranged with such careful charm that Sarisa wanted to lie face-down in the nearest fountain.
She sat.
He sat.
And the awkwardness arrived immediately, vast and invisible and impossible to ignore.
Vaelen, to his credit, seemed determined to treat it as something that could be charmed into submission.
"I thought you might prefer dinner away from the formal room tonight," he said. "Something quieter."
Quieter, Sarisa thought. Yes. Just me, you, and the deafening scream of my own soul.
Aloud, she said, "It is certainly quiet."
He smiled as though that were progress.
The first course came. He made conversation with the kind persistence she had begun to suspect was either admirable or a symptom of some deeper tragedy. He spoke of the music.
Of how the weather had turned mild enough for the gardens to smell sweet after dark. Of a painting he had seen in the west gallery and thought she might like.
He even managed, somehow, to flirt in a way that was not aggressive, merely polished.
"You always look striking in silver," he said at one point, lifting his glass. "But this color may be my favorite on you."
Sarisa nearly choked on her wine.
Not because the compliment was especially bold. Because it was earnest. Which somehow made it more painful than if he had tried to be clever.
"This color," she said, glancing down at the hateful sky-blue silk, "was your choice."
"Yes."
"I noticed."
His smile softened. "I hoped you wouldn't hate it."
That almost made her laugh. Almost.
She looked up at him. His bruises had faded now.
The court had restored his appearance almost completely, as if once his role as injured prince had served its purpose, he had been allowed to return to something handsome and manageable.
Manageable. That was what this dinner was. What he was trying to be. A safe choice in a carefully lit room.
"I don't hate the dress," Sarisa said.
She hated everything attached to it.
He seemed pleased enough by that to keep trying. There was more conversation after, most of which fell into the same uneasy pattern. He reached. She answered. He smiled. She gave him courtesy in place of softness.
Every now and then she found herself wondering, not for the first time, whether he felt the absence of what ought to have been here. Whether he could sense that all his charm landed on her like rain on sealed glass.
And still he tried.
It would almost have been touching if it were not so exhausting.
By the time the second course arrived, Sarisa felt stretched thin enough to snap. She was answering less now, mostly because every second of this carefully arranged intimacy made her miss Lara more. Lara would have laughed at the flowers.
Lara would have stolen half the fruit and made obscene commentary about the shape of the wineglasses. Lara would have looked at the blue dress and known instantly how much Sarisa despised it.
Vaelen was saying something about a concert in the next week when the doors at the end of the pavilion opened.
Sarisa looked up.
Malvoria stepped inside first, all black silk and dangerous ease, as if she had simply wandered into a romantic dinner by accident and found the whole thing mildly amusing.
And beside her, bright-eyed and entirely unconcerned by atmosphere, was Aliyah.
Aliyah spotted them at once, lifted one hand high, and chirped happily into the candlelit awkwardness:
"Hi."