And just like that, before she knew it, a maid announced the monarch with a whisper in her ear. Corinn looked down the steps leading up to the dais and there he was, head bowed. His turbulent hair sported no crown, but that was a reasonable deference here in the heart of the empire. It wasn't that he really looked like Igguldan had, years before when Corinn first met him, but the sight of Grae came bearing more import than she had expected. First love, she thought. That's what it was. Foolishness. So thinking, she cursed herself for asking him over. What emotions would show on her face if she thought of such things here, with all the court's eyes on her? But she could do nothing now but go forward, composed.
The Aushenian straightened. Tall then. His shoulders broad and his form slim beneath them. He wore the loose-fitting shirt his nation favored, open at the collar, partially revealing the lean muscle beneath his coppery chest hairs. 'Your Majesty,' he said, smiling. 'I am honored. I did not wish to disturb you, only to watch this wonderful occasion from the fringes.'
Ah, that Aushenian accent. She had heard it often over the years, but it still had a strange effect on her. Its bold tones and clipped edges had poetry in their very nature. She felt her cheeks threatening to flush, but quelled it. 'It wouldn't do to have a king sit among the merchant class. There are so few kings of note these days. I couldn't help but ask you to sit beside me. Please do.'
'I'm honored.' He pressed his lips to the rings of her proffered hand and then took the seat recently vacated by the priest. Grae's face was dangerously reminiscent of Igguldan's, though of slightly more masculine cut, just a little bit heavier in the jaw and bolder in the cheekbones. Even his freckles contributed, as if they had been splashed there playfully, intentionally. He was handsome. Corinn admitted Rhrenna was right about that.
He passed a few moments spouting the usual expressions of respect, and then sat grinning at the gathering before them. 'Your Majesty,' he said, 'I'm ever amazed at the spectacle that is an Acacian banquet. The food alone is amazing. The music entrancing. The guests both dignified and courteous. The women are the most beautiful I've yet discovered in the world.'
'Have you made a thorough survey of beauty in the world?'
'I have traveled, and I have eyes.'
Certainly you do, Corinn thought. The kind of blue eyes that adolescent girls swoon over. 'Detail your findings for me, then.'
Grae laughed and moved to dismiss the subject with a motion of his fingers.
'No, I mean it, sir. Tell me.'
She held him to the point until he began an awkward description of the empire's races and descriptions of their women's qualities. He fumbled at first, but picking up on Corinn's projected good humor he soon made a game of it. Halfway through his discourse, Corinn joked that he seemed to have found beauty everywhere he looked. He did not dispute it, but by the end he circled back to where he had begun. He concluded that Acacian beauty is superior because it contained so much of the world within it. 'All the virtues of the races, none of the flaws. Your beauty, my queen, is that of the center point of the world.'
Corinn's brow wrinkled with skepticism. 'Indeed.' She took a wineglass offered her by a servant. Grae did the same. 'Where's your brother?' she asked. 'I heard you two travel together frequently.'
'We do,' Grae said, 'but he's off studying agricultural techniques on the Mainland. He likes to be industrious, my little brother.'
'I know the type. You were close to him when you were young?'
They were, Grae agreed. At Corinn's prompting, he told her several tales of their youth, hiding in the far north of Aushenia. Such a wild country, he made it seem, though that might have been because he still imagined it with a frightened child's eyes. She could picture those mountains and thick forests and white bears and snowstorms and swarms of insects as thick as flocks of migrating birds.
'We could not hide forever, though,' Grae said. 'So I did eventually come back into the world. Only it was a world in which my father and older brother no longer lived. It was a world in which my nation was overrun with foreigners, carved up, a playground for the Numrek. Dire times. Better that they are behind us now.'
'You didn't fight for my brother, did you?'
'For Aliver?' Grae looked uneasy, but then regained his composure and answered with what appeared to be simple honesty. 'No, I didn't, but I would have. Proudly, I would have. When he was massing to press his battle against Maeander in Talay, I was fighting for the life of my nation. I fought the remnants of the Numrek still on my soil, and I expelled the Mein and closed the Gradthic Gap. It was bloody, and… Well, I would argue that Aliver and I were fighting common enemies, even if we did not do so together.'
Corinn did not comment on the later statement. 'Tell me, when you say that you fought, what does that mean exactly? I mean, I fought Hanish himself, right here in Acacia, but that doesn't mean I actually drew his blood with my own blade. My sister does that sort of thing, not me. But you, when you fight, do you fight yourself, or do you instruct others to fight in your name?'
'My sword is no virgin blade,' Grae said. Corinn noted a flare of arrogance held back. 'I never sent men into battle. I led them into battle. I will not brag to you, Your Majesty. That would be unseemly. But I invite you to ask others of my character. I think you will find my reputation is sound.'
No doubt, Corinn thought. He did look the part of a leader of men. She could imagine him in armor, sword in hand, inspiring others to acts of bravery. Outwardly, he was the type of man both men and women would follow. She made a note mentally to look into his reputation, as he himself had suggested.
Beneath them the banquet continued. At some point, Wren entered. Corinn followed her with her eyes for some time, believing she could just see the first signs of her pregnancy at her waist, not enough that others would notice, but it was there. Lady Wren, secretly carrying Dariel's child. What did she intend? Delivegu had learned that she planned to announce the child once the prince had returned. Doesn't trust me to react with joy to the news, is that it? Corinn wondered. You may be shrewder than I credit. I'll figure out what to do with you yet.
Different courses came and went from the tables. The musicians played. On several occasions Corinn and Grae had to pause to acknowledge some toast or to chat briefly with those who had the temerity to approach the dais. Once a storyteller told of how King Standish put down the revolt and kept peace in the world, an elaborate tale that Corinn knew had little truth in it. She had enough of the early king's private journals to know how much the official record differed from the confessions of the monarch behind the myth.
She was not listening much, for Grae made for diverting company. Praise for her horse culture plans rolled off his tongue. Aushenians, he said, considered their equine traditions part of what had nurtured their independent spirit. To imagine such a connection with noble beasts near the heart of mighty empire like Acacia excited him greatly. He offered his countrymen's expertise, if Acacia had use for it. Corinn said she likely did, half forgetting that she had started the whole business just to keep her ambitious councillors busy.
Grae was almost too diverting. She sensed something held back in him, an arrogance that hid beneath his genial facade. It wasn't exactly unattractive-especially as he controlled it-but it did make her wonder.
Perhaps she had absorbed too many breaths of her own spell, for she asked, 'King Grae, just what is it you're really after?'
Grae jerked his glass of wine away from his lips in midsip, spilling a bit. 'My lady?'
Feeling as playful about it as she appeared, she leaned close and, knowing the posture pressed her breasts together and that Grae had to keep his eyes from straying to them, asked, 'No man comes to me without wanting something-not even a king. What is it you want?'
'I won't try to hide the truth from you,' Grae said, losing his relaxed demeanor for a moment. 'I'd fail if I did. I'm an admirer. I always have been, but… perhaps I've matured enough to understand it.'
'And become brave enough to voice it, at least vaguely.'
Grae dipped his head, but kept his eyes on her. 'I'll happily get more specific if you-'
'Would like? Well, I would. Indulge me.' She stretched out the last sentence, using her lips and the tilt of her head to add allure. She still did not know quite what had gotten into her. When was the last time she had flirted with a man? Ages. Since Hanish, but what sort of flirting was that? Mostly, she had attacked him with her sharp tongue. Strange method of courting. No, she had not batted her eyes at a man since adolescence, since Igguldan. But whereas that had seemed a memory too painful to approach before, Grae seemed a version of the same things she had admired in his brother-a living version, sitting beside her.
'You really wish to know?' he asked. 'For me to say it outright? That's not Aushenian style. Normally, I'd have to compose a poem-'
'Which would be very entertaining, I'm sure. Do compose one and recite it for me later. At present, though,
