of opportunity to focus on other skills, and the art of communication was supposedly one of them, though his training was failing him at the moment.
He looked out, wondering what she could possibly have been staring at for the past hour. The sky was turning dark. Behind them, the sun was beginning to set. A white crescent hung low on the horizon, but there were no stars on which to make wishes. Just endless air spotted by clouds dropping into the misty void below, beneath which no one knew what lay.
“Thinking of making a run for it?” he teased as he knelt beside her.
The dove’s tone was unnervingly even as she replied, “I haven’t decided yet.”
Xander gulped, but decided he would stay the course for them both, and that he would fight in the only way he knew how. “What do you think you’d find?”
“The place where the dragons come from, I suppose,” she murmured, eyes flaring to life for the briefest instant. “I’ve heard the fire god walks the earth, the king of a barren wasteland.”
“They say the ocean has turned to a sea of molten flame,” he suggested. “To go near it would mean certain death.”
“Certain?” She joined the fun. “I doubt it would be anything a little snow couldn’t soothe. Worth a bit of pain, surely, to see beneath the mist, to know what waits there.”
“You’re not afraid?” he asked, surprised. “Of the fire god’s wrath? Of his dragons?”
“Other things scare me more,” she told him, voice so soft it was nearly drowned out by the wind whipping over the edge, pressing into their chests, making the blanket snap loudly, though she didn’t seem to notice.
What?
What scares you more than that?
Xander ached to know what could make her afraid, this princess who had won the trials, who had bested all her peers, who had defied tradition, maybe even the gods, by her actions. What could she possibly fear?
“Why did you choose me?” he asked, instead. Because they were little more than strangers, and he didn’t think he’d earned the answers to his other questions. Not yet, at least.
“I didn’t, not exactly.” The princess finally turned toward him, the barest hint of a smile on her lips.
He couldn’t tell if she was teasing, but he thought maybe, for a moment, she was. Yet, despite being delivered in a light tone, the words stung. Xander tried not to cringe. “My brother, then. Why did you pick him?”
“I didn’t pick him, trust me.” A frown passed over her forehead, etched deep with frustration. “He’s rude and somewhat of a grouch. And I just— I—”
The princess paused. Her words had released a knot in his chest, and Xander couldn’t stop a small grin from flittering over his lips at her rather apt description of Rafe. But then she sighed as she unweaved whatever tangled mess was in her unreadable mind. “What would you have done? I had four princes to choose from, all of whom were little more than strangers. My father matched me with Damien, and I’m sure he would’ve made a good mate, but if I’d followed along, then my whole life would have been decided for me. And I wanted a say. Maybe that makes me the typical spoiled princess who doesn’t realize how lucky she is. Maybe it just makes me human. I’m not really sure. All I know is that I chose the last mate anyone thought I would, and it gave me the slightest bit of pleasure to shock them all.”
Xander nodded.
He understood the binds of royalty. He understood the weight, the restrictions, the sacrifices. But unlike her, he embraced them. All Xander wanted to be was a good prince, a great king for his people. Everything he’d ever done was for them—to erase the mistakes of the past, to ensure them a better future. In every decision he placed them first, over his honor, his desires, and even his pride.
“Why did you say yes?” Lyana asked.
“Because,” he started, and then paused. He could lie and say it was her beauty or her brashness, that he’d been swept away in the moment. But it wasn’t the truth. In his heart, he’d gone there expecting someone else, wanting someone else, mind full of a dream that would never come true—the silly dream of a boy, the sort of dream an heir wasn’t allowed to follow. And his mate deserved honesty. “Because you’re the daughter of Aethios.”
Lyana nodded, a series of unsurprised rises and falls, before she