Chapter 3 Gina

Nobody drowns me, yay, not immediately, anyway. Instead I am swept off to a tent at the edge of the courtyard, where three palace maids descend on me like I am a horse being prepared for auction, all pins and powder and disapproving clicks of the tongue.

"Small waist," one of them says, measuring a length of gold thread against my back like I'm not standing right here. "Lucky. Prince Kael's bride had to be laced within an inch of her life."

"Doesn't matter what shape she is," says another, tugging a comb through my hair. "You know what they say about the water ones.

"What do they say?"

"That he doesn't need fire because he already runs hot enough underneath." She lowers her voice, though not nearly enough. "My cousin worked in his wing for a season. Said the maids used to draw straws over who brought his morning tea, because he'd come out of his room naked and half-aroused and not think twice about it."

"Gods."

"Mm. Said it near ruined three of them for ordinary men after."

I sit very still while they talk about my future husband's body like I am a piece of furniture that happens to have ears.

"Excuse me," I say. "I'm right here."

"We know," the first one says, not even glancing at me. "Chin up, please, I need the line of your jaw."

I lift my chin. Apparently my dignity is optional but my jawline is not.

"Is it true he never keeps anyone past a week?" the third one asks, threading a pin through my hair with more interest in the gossip than the styling. "Before this. Before the Choosing."

"He's a prince. Princes don't keep anyone."

"He's the puddle prince. I heard even the palace girls stopped volunteering for his floor."

"That's not because he's uninterested," the second one says, and there's something in her tone that makes the other two lean in. "That's because he's very interested, and it apparently gets a bit much for mortal stamina."

They all laugh. I sit there with a comb dragging through a knot at the back of my skull and decide I would rather they discuss my tan again.

My mother hovers by the tent flap through all of it, wringing her hands, though whether from nerves about the wedding or from having overheard the last five minutes, I genuinely cannot say.

"Gina."

"I heard everything they heard. Possibly more, given I'm the one they were discussing."

"Please don't repeat any of that to him."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because you repeat everything to everyone, always, at the worst possible time."

I open my mouth to argue and find, unfortunately, that I have no argument.

By the time the maids finish, I look like someone dressed a very confused bride doll and then had second thoughts halfway through. Gold thread winds through my hair. The gown is stiff enough that I could stand upright in a hurricane and never sway. I smell like crushed lily petals, which is at least an improvement on salt and vinegar.

I step out of the tent, and Rhyan is waiting. Alone. No guards, or brothers, none of the officials who spent all morning making sure he didn't do anything undignified.

He's changed into something simpler, dark blue, no embroidery. It suits him better. Like he's finally allowed to stop performing.

"You cleaned up," he says.

"So did you. Also I know entirely too much about your mornings now."

His eyebrows lift. "That sounds very much like a threat."

"It's palace maids. Everything they say is half threat, half prophecy."

"What did they tell you?"

"That you don't keep company well." And that you have a huge duck that some want to taste and those that do, run... or was the running because of your stamina? I lost track.

Something shutters behind his eyes, quick, there and gone. "Is that meant to scare you off?"

"I don't scare that easily."

Mostly because I already know we won't ever be intimate. I've read enough stories to know how this goes — the reluctant bride, the brooding prince, the wedding night where everyone conveniently falls asleep on opposite ends of an enormous bed. I fully intend to become the world's foremost expert on staring at ceilings.

"Good," he says, "because I'm not sure it was true in the first place," and I can't tell if that's a denial or a dare.

He offers his arm. I take it, and his skin runs warmer than it should, like something banked just beneath the surface, patient, waiting.

We walk. The courtyard has emptied of girls and mothers, leaving only servants lighting torches one by one as the sky bruises toward evening. Music starts somewhere ahead, thin and formal.

We reach the doors of the feast hall, where light and noise spill out onto the steps. His six brothers are already seated inside, their new brides glittering beside them, and the entire court seems to be watching the doors, waiting for us like we're the evening's real entertainment.

Rhyan stops before we reach the threshold. I stop with him.

"Once we go in, there's no undoing this," he says. "I need you to actually hear that, not just nod at it."

"I'm hearing it."

"I can still send you home. Tonight, before anyone signs anything. I have that much say, at least once."

I open my mouth to give him the easy answer, the one I've had ready since the courtyard, and it doesn't come.

Because I think about it. Really think about it. Home, and my mother's kitchen, and the harbour, and never having to know what it means that a prince runs hot enough to ruin castle maids for ordinary men. No dragons or court staring at me like I'm a story they get to tell later. Just my old life, small and known and entirely mine.

Rhyan watches me not answer, and something in his face changes, like he's already bracing for it.

"You're actually considering it," he says and his voice carries a hint of hurt in it.

"Give me a second. This is the first real choice I've had all day and I'd like to enjoy it."

"Take your second."

I do. I look past him, at the doors, at the noise, at the life waiting on the other side of them that I did not choose and cannot undo, and then I look at him, at the way he's gone very still, like a man waiting for a verdict he's decided he already knows.

"If I say I want to go home," I say slowly, "what happens to you?"

"I go back to being the one nobody wanted enough to argue for."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the honest one."

I hold his gaze a moment longer than I mean to

"Well," I say finally. "Let's give them something to talk about instead."

Something moves through his expression, relief he doesn't quite manage to hide, sharp and unguarded before he catches it.

He pushes open the doors, and we walk in together, into a room full of people wearing the exact expression you'd wear watching someone volunteer to pet a shark while they're bleeding.