The Imperial Rose Garden was beautiful, fragrant, and currently the temperature of a well-stoked kiln.
It was noon. The sun beat down on the gravel paths with no mercy. Kaia stood beneath a frilly parasol that offered about as much protection as a lace doily, trying not to sweat through her new lemon-yellow day dress.
"This is barbaric," she whispered to Beckett. "If love requires heatstroke, I think I'd prefer to remain a spinster."
Beckett, who was looking rather pale in his dark wool coat, gave a weak chuckle. "The Empress believes the sun symbolizes passion, Lady Kaia. Though I admit, I am currently feeling less 'passionate' and more... roasted."
He adjusted his cravat nervously. "Do you think my poem is adequate? I rhymed 'heart' with 'start'. It felt... efficient."
Kaia looked at him. He was sweet. He was gentle. He was currently sweating so much his chocolate-brown curls were sticking to his forehead.
"It will be perfect, Beckett," she assured him, patting his arm. "Just don't rhyme anything with 'orange'."
A few feet away, Victoria stood like an ice sculpture. She hadn't broken a sweat. She was staring at the podium where the Emperor and Empress sat, her gaze fixed and hungry. She wasn't looking at Aeron, who was standing near the roses with his hands clasped behind his back. She was looking at the crown on the Empress's head.
"Begin!" the Empress chirped, waving a fan made of peacock feathers.
The competition was a disaster of epic proportions.
Lord Halington recited a poem to his betrothed that compared her eyes to "moist newts." Another suitor forgot his lines halfway through and simply shouted "I LOVE YOU" before fleeing into a hedge.
Kaia was trying very hard not to laugh.
"Prince Beckett!" the Empress called out. "Let us hear the depths of your soul!"
Beckett stepped forward. He pulled a small, crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. He looked at Kaia, his silver-grey eyes apologetic.
"My Lady," he began, his voice wobbling. "Your spirit is... sturdy. Like a good wall. Or a bridge. You support the... things around you. With grace. And stone."
The court was silent.
"Architecture," the Emperor grunted. "Solid. I like it."
"Thank you," Kaia whispered as Beckett hurried back to her side, looking like he wanted to dissolve into the gravel.
"And now," the Empress announced, her voice pitching up with excitement. "The Crown Prince! Aeron, show us the fire of the Valdamar bloodline!"
Aeron stepped away from the rosebushes.
He didn't have a piece of paper. He didn't even look nervous.
He walked to the center of the garden, the sunlight turning his hair into a blinding halo. He adjusted his white gloves—a slow, deliberate tug on the silk cuffs that made Kaia's breath hitch in her throat.
He turned to face the Taryn sisters.
Publicly, he was looking at Victoria. His body was angled toward her. He bowed his head in a gesture of perfect, courtly respect.
But his eyes—those cold, steel eyes—slid past Victoria's shoulder.
They locked onto Kaia.
It was subtle. To the crowd, he was merely looking at the Taryn family. But Kaia felt the weight of his gaze land on her like a physical touch. He looked at her mouth, then her neck, then lowered his gaze to the curve of her hip hidden beneath the yellow muslin.
"I need no paper," Aeron said, his voice smooth and projecting effortlessly across the garden. "For the muse is standing before me."
Victoria preened, lifting her chin.
Aeron began to speak.
"You wear the silence like a second skin,A mask of ice to hide the heat within.They see the silver, bright and pure and cold,I see the fire that cannot be controlled."
Kaia's grip on her parasol tightened until the wood creaked. Silver. Everyone thought he meant Victoria's hair. But Kaia knew he meant the moonlight in the garden.
"You play the Saint, you curtsy and you bow,But I recall the sweat upon your brow.I know the taste of secrets in the dark,I know the place where you conceal your mark."
Kaia stopped breathing.
The mark. The heart-shaped birthmark on her hip.
Panic flared in her chest. She looked around wildly. Did anyone else hear it? Did they know?
But the court was sighing. Ladies were fanning themselves.
"Oh, how romantic!" a Duchess whispered behind her. "He means the mark she has made on his heart!"
No, Kaia thought, her legs trembling. He means the one he traced with his tongue.
Aeron took a step forward. He wasn't looking at Victoria anymore. He was staring directly at Kaia, violating the Eye Contact Rule in plain sight, masked by the distance.
"Let others praise the light, the sun, the day,I claim the night, where we have gone astray.So keep your gloves, your silks, your hollow lies,I only want the ruin in your eyes."
Silence.
Absolute, stunned silence.
Aeron held the gaze for one second longer—a second that felt like a lifetime—before breaking it and bowing deeply to Victoria.
"For you, My Lady," he lied.
Victoria looked stunned. She actually blushed, a rare, human reaction breaking through her ambition. "Your Highness... that was... most intense."
"It is how I feel," Aeron said, his face a mask of saintly devotion. "Intensity is the burden of the Crown."
"BRAVO!" The Empress leaped to her feet, clapping furiously. "Oh, my heart! 'The ruin in your eyes!' Passion! Danger! Aeron, you are a poet!"
Caspian, standing in the shadow of a trellis, looked like he was about to vomit into a flowerbed.
Kaia felt dizzy. The heat of the sun was nothing compared to the heat curling in her stomach. He had just confessed to a crime in front of the Emperor, and they were applauding him for it.
He was insane. He was reckless.
And god help her, she wanted him to drag her into the greenhouse right now.
"Well," Beckett whispered beside her, sounding thoroughly depressed. "I suppose 'sturdy like a wall' doesn't quite compare to 'ruin in your eyes', does it?"
"You did good too," Kaia managed to choke out, watching Aeron accept a glass of water from a trembling Caspian.
As the court dissolved into chatter, Aeron turned his back to the crowd. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his brow.
But it wasn't a handkerchief.
It was a small, white silk glove. A woman's glove.
He pressed it to his lips for a fraction of a second, inhaling the scent, before tucking it back away.
Kaia saw it.
She saw him smirk.
And she knew, with terrifying certainty, that the poetry competition was just the opening move.