most mortal queens wouldn’t know how to fill the prominent spot, especially when entertaining a powerful party such as theirs.
Unsurprisingly, Neri didn’t have that problem. Head held high to show off a long, elegant neck, she slid into the high-backed wooden chair and immediately began peppering Xandrian with questions about his time in Effendier.
King Eros nodded his head as Haven took the seat opposite Bell’s, next to the king. Surai and Delphine sat together on the opposite side, and Haven bit back a grin as she noticed Surai had picked up enough signs to carry on a conversation.
That left Stolas to her right. A quick glance revealed he looked gorgeous in a long, expertly cut gold and black tunic that matched the kingdom’s style.
Something tossed and turned inside her chest, and she ignored the wicked grin he flashed, quickly refocusing on the king.
But even without looking, she felt Stolas’s razor-sharp focus prickle over her skin—particularly along the bare flesh of her back. The sinfully thin fabric of her emerald-green dress draped seductively over her collarbone and shoulders, held together by two exquisite pink-diamond encrusted seahorse jewels.
Neri gave Eros a triumphant grin. “I told you the emerald color would be perfect on her.”
Eros chuckled. “Neri chose all your clothes. She has quite the eye for that sort of thing.”
“I was a royal seamstress and clothier’s assistant in Ashiviere, before . . . all of this.” Surprise widened Haven’s eyes, and Neri met her stare. “How do you find the dress compared to the fashion in Penryth?”
If everything didn’t rest on Haven convincing them she was Goddess-Born, she would have snorted. “Different. There’s—well, there’s definitely less of it, for starters.”
Neri’s tinkling laugh filled the air. “The nobles of the previous court kept to the old, cloistered fashion, even after the citizens adopted the Asgardian’s more practical loose fitting silks and linens.”
“But you changed that tradition?” Haven asked as an attendant poured water into her cup. Inside their cylindrical glass enclosure, everything—from the rush of water in her glass to her voice—seemed amplified.
“We changed a lot of things.” Neri flicked up her dark eyebrows almost mischievously. “In a time of such upheaval, it makes sense to question the more archaic rules of the past.”
Neri’s gaze pointedly lowered to Haven’s arms and chest. With so much of her skin exposed, her fleshmarks glittered like the golden rays of fading sunlight that flickered through the water’s depths.
Eros didn’t bother hiding his fascination with them.
“Were you born with the marks?” he inquired, as two bronze-skinned attendants poured decanters of golden wine into their glasses.
She shook her head. “They were given to me by . . .” Her throat tightened, and she caught Surai’s gaze before meeting the king’s stare once more. “By friends.”
“Those must have been powerful friends.”
“They were.” The moisture fled her throat, and she took a steadying breath before sipping the wine. The cool drink tasted of apricots, grass, and lemon. “They didn’t know then who I was or, well, I imagine they would have refused.”
Lie. Bjorn knew. Or suspected. And Surai would have still gone through with the plan regardless of who Haven was.
But Archeron . . . he had begged her not to do it.
Did some dark, ancient part of him know it would come to this?
She realized her fingers were trembling slightly around the stem of her wine glass. Stilling her hand, Haven took another practiced sip.
“And have you always possessed both kinds of magick?” he continued, his hands steepled together beneath his chin, his wine untouched. The look in his rich brown eyes was curiosity, nothing more—but she hadn’t been ready for such broad examination, and something inside her recoiled from the questions. The memories they dredged up.
Teeth gritted, she shrugged. “They showed up around the same time.”
“And when did you learn of your . . . unique lineage?”
Warm sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. How to answer that? When she was bound and nearly killed by Archeron, her almost lover and the new Sun Sovereign?
Beside her, Stolas took the world’s most theatrical sip, swirled the wine around in his mouth, and sighed loudly. “This wine is almost as exquisite as your wife, Eros. Where is the vineyard, did you say?”
As the king begrudgingly tore his focus from Haven, she felt the muscles of her jaw unclench. You didn’t have to save me, she mentally shot to Stolas, annoyed more at herself than him.
She should have expected these types of questions. Should have been more prepared.