out for the evening,” I told her. Considering, I unpinned my crown and gave her that, too. I supposed having them around could be useful. “Please pass the word that I’ll be with Conrí and you all may spend the evening as you wish. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Orvyki curtsied, then carried off my things with subdued reverence. I watched her go, a delirious sense of playing hooky on my responsibilities lightening me.
“Have you worked things out with your ladies?” Con asked as we resumed walking.
“Yes and no,” I replied, musing on how much attention Con paid to the trivial matters of my personal life. “They all wish to continue serving Me—and they are doing so with perfect etiquette, as you observed—but there is a coolness between us now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Lia. I know how much you rely on their company.”
I shook my head a little, realizing that it felt good to be free of the crown’s weight, slight as it was. “It could be that the distance was always there and I simply didn’t realize it.” I squeezed his arm and smiled at him, feeling a bit shy and exposed. “I have a new understanding of what it’s like to be truly intimate with someone.”
He covered my hand with his. “Me too.” After a moment, he added, in a low, gruff voice, “I never imagined I could have this, with you, so thank you.”
I burst out laughing. “It’s not a gift to thank Me for.”
He didn’t laugh, or even smile, simply gave me a very serious look. “Your heart is a gift, and I should be grateful for it. No matter what happens, Lia, I want you to know this has been the best part of my life. I know that’s not saying much, but it’s been … everything. I’m not good with words, but if I don’t survive Yekpehr, I—”
“Don’t even speak it,” I said, cutting him off, feeling superstitious and not caring a whit. “Those words are more than enough.”
We walked on quietly, passing out of the outer gardens and following the path that led eventually to the harbor.
“I’m trying to be smart about this,” Con said after a while. “Coolheaded and calculating, like you are.”
I slid him a side-eyed glance, but didn’t comment.
“I know Anure will try to manipulate me, so I’m thinking through the possibilities. Contingencies for contingencies.”
“That’s all I ask,” I said, restraining a sigh of resignation. I could not control this, so I’d let it go. As best I could. We’d turned away from the harbor path and followed a narrow foot trail through a grove of flowering trees. The setting sun filtered through the delicate, trailing bracts of the scarlet blossoms, giving them an otherworldly glow. In the quiet, the nearby surf rolled in steady rhythm, and a few nocturnal songbirds trilled their first calls. “Where on blessed Ejarat are we going?”
“You don’t know?” Con teased. “I thought you knew everything about Calanthe.”
“I know where I am, but I can’t imagine what your destination might be. This path doesn’t go anywhere but to the next cove, which is only a…” I trailed off in realization.
“A swimming beach!” Con finished triumphantly.
“You’re going swimming?” I replied faintly, trying to form a real response.
“We both are. Ibolya says you’ve never been, as far as she knows.”
“My life has not been one that lends itself to swimming. I don’t know how.”
“There’s not much to know. We won’t go deeper than you can stand with your head above water anyway. I taught myself, when I was a kid. There was this lake—so perfectly still it mirrored the sky—and I would sneak off to it and swim all day.”
“Eluding your tutors.”
“Exactly.” He grinned unrepentantly. “They never could find me there. No one could. I was free to do as I pleased.”
“You were the crown prince of Oriel,” I pointed out. “Do you really think they’d let you disappear for an entire day with no knowledge of where you’d gone?”
His smile faded, and I felt bad for saying something, but then he shook his head in astonishment, a light of affection in his golden eyes. “You’re absolutely right—and that never occurred to me. My parents let me do that, didn’t they?”
“It seems likely,” I offered tentatively. “It wouldn’t have been difficult to have you watched from a distance.”
“I remember being scolded,” he said in a musing tone, “but never punished. They let me go do that,” he repeated with some wonder. “Probably my other escapes, too.”
“They