The Queen's Assassin (Queen's Secret #1) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,65

with your presence and wants you to go away.” I want to enjoy my victory, but the smile on his face is perplexing.

“Excellent!” he says, and begins to laugh.

I rap his knuckles, as learning the complicated language of a woman’s fan is a serious endeavor. “Here’s another. I’ll keep it simple. Same woman. But this time, she takes out her fan, flicks it open once, fans herself briefly, then closes it in her right hand.”

“She’s saying, ‘Bring me a glass of water, peasant.’”

“No, of course not! That’s two flicks and a twist.”

“You don’t say!”

Now it’s my turn to laugh. “I was joking!”

He blinks.

“Actually it means she’s open to conducting an affair with you.” I wiggle my eyebrows for comic effect. “Probably happens to you often.”

“So you admit you find me handsome, then?” He smiles, and the sun hits his dark eyes so I see there are gold flecks in them. He knows how handsome he is; he must. It is one of the qualities that make him so good at his trade. No one could suspect that someone so handsome would also be so merciless.

I turn to put away the remains of our meal so he won’t see me blushing. “No, of course not. I mean, not that you aren’t. I’m sure a lot of people think so.”

“Do they now,” he says. I can feel him smirking.

“You’re pretty fair yourself,” he says as he walks away. I pretend I didn’t hear, but I’m smiling anyway.

* * *

CAL’S HERBAL PASTE IS like magic on my arm—it’s almost back to normal in a single day—but we decide to spend one last night before continuing our journey. It’s safe here, and we both need the rest. We use the morning to continue our sword-fighting lessons, and in the afternoon we catch a few more fish. Cal goes off to bathe at the spring while I stay back at camp and prepare our meal. He returns with his hair wet and his skin glowing, and I can only imagine how the courtiers will swoon when he arrives at the court of Montrice.

Today he hasn’t been half as irritating, which I find rather irritating.

Once it’s dark, I curl up near the fire, drowsy and content, wishing we could spend a few more days here just like this, with nothing to worry about but training and catching fish.

Cal settles in across from me, his gaze trained on the fire. I haven’t had a chance to study him like this before, without worrying about being caught staring. He has a small scar near his left eyebrow, and a dimple in his right cheek that only appears when he smiles.

We watch the fire in silence, the two of us sprawled in our makeshift beds of leaves, next to each other. “Do you know any stories?” he asks. The expression on his face is so earnest, I know he can’t be teasing me.

“Do I know any stories,” I repeat, and pull my knees to my chest. My mind begins to wander, and before I know it, I’m telling him the story of Renovia, the one my aunts used to tell me at bedtime, when we were warm and safe in our cottage in the Honey Glade. It’s their favorite story, about the mage Omin and a queen and the love between them that established the ancient kingdom of Avantine, glorious and grand and full of magic and light.

I let myself get lost in the story, imagining my aunts gathered around me in bed. They seemed so big when I was so little and the way they spun this tale always left me in awe. At the end of it, Cal looks up at me. He is studying me the way I had studied him. “I know that story too,” he says. “You tell it well.”

Then without saying another word, he lies back and turns away so I can no longer see his face.

“Good night,” I say softly.

A moment passes before he responds. “Good night.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Shadow

WHEN I OPEN MY EYES in the morning, I find myself curled up against Cal, my head on his