Page 75 of The Golden Princess

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She smiled at me kindly. “Do you need an escort back to your home, Zaria? I understand it to be in the city somewhere? The moon is still slim, and the streets will be dark at this hour.”

“She’s spending the night with Adara,” Rek said in a tone that indicated the matter wasn’t open to discussion.

I bowed to the sultana. “Thank you for the offer, Your Majesty.”

Rek put a hand on the small of my back, gently propelling me toward the door. I paused to bow again, this time toward the sultan, before letting him push me out of the room.

It was Rek’s receiving room, but he shut the door firmly on his parents, leaving them inside. I winced, glad not to be present to hear the conversation that must be beginning in the room.

Instead I turned toward Adara’s room, the layout of the palace coming back to me more easily than I expected. Rek kept pace beside me, silent at first. After a couple of corridors, he finally spoke.

“I meant everything I said. I knew my Father wouldn’t approve, and it changes nothing about my feelings.”

“Rek, I can’t let you give up not only the throne but your family and your home. We can’t run away to the Four Kingdoms.”

“It might not have to come to that,” he said thoughtfully. “We do, after all, know where to find a dowry equal to the one given to Prince Zain.”

I stopped and grabbed his arm, lowering my voice. “Rek, that’s an impossible dream! Or are you forgetting that we were relying onyour fatherto find a way to break the enchantment? He’s not going to consider it a dowry from me when I can’t take any of it out of the cave.”

“So we find a way to break the enchantment ourselves,” Rek said stubbornly. “You found the cave, and if you find a way to access the treasure, he can’t possibly deny your right to marry me. Mother heard his promise, and she won’t let him go back on it.”

“Oh, you have some brilliant ideas on breaking the enchantment then, do you?” I rolled my eyes and started down the corridor again. “It’s not as if we have a great deal of time, either. Now that your captain is interrogating the thieves, one of them is sure to mention the cave—if not all of them. It isn’t our secret anymore.”

“No.” Rek looked regretful. “I’ve already sent two full squads to lie in wait near its entrance. If any of the retired thieves do come, that’s the most obvious place for them to go. If we’re lucky, they might even manage to capture Esai.”

I sighed. “At this point that doesn’t seem likely. He’s managed to evade the most obvious traps so far.”

We reached Adara’s rooms. I turned at her door and looked up at him, unsure what to say or do after everything that had just passed between us.

He cast a quick glance up and down the corridor, and when he saw we were alone, pulled me into his arms and pressed his lips against mine. Once again the rest of the world melted away, and no problem seemed insurmountable as long as his arms stayed around me.

A muffled shriek broke the moment. We pulled apart to find Adara standing in her doorway looking utterly delighted.

“I knew it!” she cried and pulled me into a hug.

“I’ll, uh, leave this to you.” Rek made an almost comically fast escape, leaving Adara free to pull me through her enormous sitting room and into her almost as enormous bedchamber.

“I knew it! I knew it!” she said again.

I fought the flush rising up my cheeks. “Rek wondered if you might have. Even back before…”

“Don’t tell me he kissed you back then and you never told me!” Her look of horror made me giggle.

“No, of course not! We were practically children back then.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Hardly. I could tell exactly how you felt back then. You giggled more around the twins, but you saved the heartfelt glances for Rek.” She assumed a pained look that was presumably supposed to be an imitation of my fifteen-year-old self.

I dropped onto the daybed that someone had set up for me to sleep on and buried my head in one of the soft pillows.

“I didn’t even know it myself back then,” I said in a muffled voice. “Or if I did, it was only in some very deep, dark corner of my heart.”

“You can fool yourself, but you can’t fool your best friend,” she said with satisfaction. “And Rek was even more obvious. He always favored you.”

I sat up. “That’s just because he thought I was more sensible than the rest of you.”

“Exactly! Rek likes sensible. And, of course, you’re gorgeous. So the rest was inevitable.” She sighed with happiness. “And now we get to be sisters.”

“Not if your father has anything to say about it.” I grimaced, filling her in on the scene with her parents.


Tags: Melanie Cellier Fantasy