.
Those eerie aquamarine irises were locked unblinking into the distance outside.
His face was barely a hand’s length from the window, and quick, shallow breaths briefly fogged the chilled panes.
“My apologies for the invasion,” she said quietly. “This seems the quietest corner of the hall.”
He didn’t respond or turn from the window.
“I am Duchess Reine Faunier, if you remember,” she added. “Except for my uncle and cousins, I’m . . . unacquainted with anyone here.”
Freädherich blinked once. His head turned just a little toward her. His eyes turned last, so reluctant to relinquish the view.
“I don’t know anyone but my family,” he whispered.
Unlikely for a prince of the realm, Reine thought, unless he had purposely cloistered himself for many years.
His gaze touched hers for an instant before he turned back to the window. It was enough to fill her with a sudden shiver. Over the outer castle wall, she made out the full moon hanging high above the dwarves’ distant mountain peninsula. It cast a shimmering road of light across the wide bay and out into the open ocean.
Reine stood rigid, watching Freädherich stare again out the window. She knew that desperate look, or thought she did.
There were times when demands of station, even in her remote duchy, grew too smothering. She would grab her horse bow, perhaps go hunting covey in the scrub, or just ride until exhausted. Her escapes always ended in the high eastern granite steppes. She would stand where the sky was large enough that she no longer felt trapped.
Freädherich gazed the other way, to the west. The desperation on his face wouldn’t let Reine back away.
“Then we’ll wait here,” she said, “and pretend a deep conversation. No one will bother us until dinner is announced.”
It was all she could think to say.
Freädherich’s eyes shifted her way but not to her face. He glanced over her foreign attire, ending not upon her sword but rather on her calf- high boots. It gave her a notion, something, anything to say.
“Have you chosen a mount for the ride?”
His thin lips parted suddenly, as if her words startled him.
“The tour of the local province?” she urged. “Your father arranged a ride. I have my horses but was wondering about the stock of your stables. I assumed that . . . you . . .”
Her voice failed as he shrank upon himself, as if no one had ever tried to force him into conversation like this.
“I don’t know how to ride,” he said.
“And I do not know how to swim,” she answered—then regretted it instantly.
Freädherich slid away along the sill, grown wary at some implied expectation. Reine was suddenly smothered in guilt for her quip. She’d thought only about his longing to escape. Stupidly, mistakenly, she’d frightened him more in turn.
“I can teach you,” she added. “With a gentle mount, it wouldn’t be difficult.”
Freädherich remained silent—then he nodded slightly, just once.
Another stillness hung between them for so long that Reine became self-conscious. This was something she’d seldom felt before coming to this coast among these seafaring people. When she finally grew too uncomfortable, she turned her back to the window and its disturbing view.
That seemingly endless ocean, dark yet with no firm ground to race across, could swallow her into its depths in the first step. Perhaps her ways of horse and plains and steppes were as unsettling to him.
She half sat upon the sill, and to her surprise, he turned and did the same.
But when Freädherich faced the crowd of drinking nobles, panic filled his eyes at the sight of so many people. Not like a child. More like a wild horse spotting roving winter wolves that hadn’t yet noticed it. On instinct, Reine slid her hand along the sill to cover his.
Not everyone was watching them—only Uncle Jac and the royals of Malourné. Or at least these were the only ones Reine noticed. The relief in Queen Muriel’s face was almost disturbing. King Leofwin took a deep breath, hand on his chest.
Reine was baffled by all of this.
When a finely suited servant rang a silver bell, announcing that dinner would be served, Freädherich’s hand tightened upon the sill’s edge beneath Reine’s. She watched his frantic eyes race about as everyone flowed toward the doors. Then he fixed upon someone across the chamber.
Reine’s cousin, Prince Edelard, offered his arm to one lady in their group. Prince Leäfrich did the same for his sister, thelthryth.
Freädherich looked down at Reine.
At first, she thought he might spin around, fleeing to the safety of