“A messenger would have sufficed.” Aldrik stood, glaring at his brother.

Vhalla rose stiffly, everyone else was on their feet, and she did not want to stand out any more than she already did.

“My sincere apologies for interrupting your lunch.” Nothing in the senator’s words sounded like an apology as his eyes assessed the half-eaten box of food. Aldrik looked back, following his stare.

Vhalla brought her hands together before her, grabbing her fingers with white knuckles to keep from fidgeting. Turning away from the senator and his brother, Aldrik’s eyes were significantly softer, but it was the trace of worry between his brows did not reassure Vhalla.

“It was nothing,” Aldrik responded, his voice void of emotion.

Vhalla knew he could not admit to associating with her. He was the crown prince—as if he would want anyone to know he had spent time with someone so lowly. She stared at her feet. She could never be anyone to him.

“My apologies to you as well, Vhalla...” The senator held the end of her name, waiting for her to fill in the empty space.

“Yarl,” she responded purely out of obligation.

“Vhalla Yarl,” the Senator repeated thoughtfully.

If Vhalla could rip her name from his tongue and mind she would have.

“I will be in attendance at your war council in a moment, Senator Egmun.” It must have been her imagination that Aldrik took a half-step between her and the senator.

“I’ll see her out.” Prince Baldair smiled, offering Vhalla his elbow. She stared at the appendage before looking back to Aldrik. His face was stony again. “You have more pressing matters, brother.”

“Indeed.” The crown prince turned, and Vhalla was left with no option but to take the golden prince’s arm.

The head of Senate, Egmun; Vhalla committed the name to memory. Aldrik walked out first and the dark prince did not even look back at her. The two men began talking halfway to the gate, but Vhalla only heard the wind as her prince left her behind with his brother.

IF VHALLA COUNTED the reasons for her to be escorted by Prince Baldair, she would use zero fingers. Yet she strolled with him through the garden and past the gate. Her hand rested in the crook of his elbow and Vhalla realized that, despite his size, he was not as warm as his brother.

She stole a glance down the hall where Aldrik and the senator had turned. They were nowhere to be seen. Not even a faint echo of their voices could be heard. To add to her discomfort, Prince Baldair led her in the opposite direction. The opulence was the same as the last time she walked with Aldrik, but the servants must have been ignoring their cleaning duties due to the festival for it did not shine as brightly today.

“So,” the prince finally started. His voice was higher than Aldrik’s, less gravely. But it was a rich and full sound, almost song-like. “How does someone like you end up in my brother’s garden?”

“Someone like me?” Vhalla asked carefully. She knew exactly what he meant, but perhaps answering his question could be avoided if she turned it back upon him.

“A library apprentice,” Baldair grinned. He ran a hand through his ear-length wavy blonde hair. His easy response told her he had seen through her efforts to dodge his inquiry.

“I...” Vhalla looked at the thin cracks between the tiled marble beneath her feet. She wished she was small enough to slip through one and fall to the center of the earth. You’re a bad liar, Sareem’s words echoed in her treacherous mind.

“He’s not blackmailing you or anything, is he?” There was genuine concern in his voice.

“What?” Vhalla blinked up at the prince. “No, of course not.”

“Well, I know you weren’t enjoying his company.” Prince Baldair gave a full laugh as though he had made a great joke.

Vhalla frowned. Aldrik would not want her to disclose that they enjoyed each other’s company, or at least she did his. But she felt strange standing there without defending him in the face of a blatant insult.

“I think he has an astoundingly sharp mind,” she answered delicately.

Prince Baldair looked at her sideways. “That may be one of the nicest things I have ever heard a staff or servant say about my brother. Let’s see, I’ve heard egotistical, a royal pain, his head stuck in a variety of places that I don’t think are anatomically possible...” The prince laughed again.

Vhalla felt her whole body tense. “I doubt those people took the time to understand him,” she mumbled.

Prince Baldair stopped laughing and looked at her queerly. “You’re so polite, Vhalla.” Prince Baldair chuckled. “Fine, fine, I won’t push you to be anything but the good girl...for now,” he added with a wink.

Vhalla’s cheeks were stubbornly hot. The younger prince seemed to love jesting. “How is the front?” she asked, struggling for a change of topic that wouldn’t reveal too much to the Heartbreaker Prince.

“Much like my father said, the Northern capital refuses to fall. A few clans continue to resist, but we will have them in time.” He spoke as easily about it as if it was the weather.

“Is what’s happened serious?” Vhalla asked, glancing over her shoulder. They had long since passed the entrance to the servants’ and staffs’ quarters, and Vhalla’s tension slowly ebbed due to her curiosity over the towering walls of glittering gold and carved stone around her.

“What’s happened?” he repeated. Prince Baldair held out his arm as she momentarily was distracted by inspecting a fresco. He remained close enough to maintain contact; Vhalla did not realize how close.

“The war council—” She turned and almost bumped face-first into his wide, muscular chest.

“Oh that,” the younger prince chuckled. “I’m certain it’ll be fine. I have no doubt Father wants to ensure Aldrik understands everything that has occurred for when he returns to the front.”

Vhalla stopped. Everything stopped. Only her breathing and heartbeat moved in the whole world. As Vhalla stared at a distant point, she missed the blonde’s quizzical gaze. It was as though she could see the moment Aldrik would leave. He would go back to war.

“Vhalla?” The golden prince turned. Much more forward than his brother, calloused palms wrapped themselves around her shoulders, completely covering them.

Her head snapped up at the handsome man who now filled her vision, her trance broken. She struggled to form words, and he seemed content to wait.

“Sorry.” Vhalla shook her head, pressing her eyes closed. How had she not realized it before feeling the crippling horror at the idea of the prince leaving? How had these emotions crept up on her? “I just, felt dizzy.”

“Dizzy?” The prince made a low humming noise in the back of his throat. “Now, we can’t have any of that.”

With a laugh and a surprisingly graceful motion for such a mountain of a man, he lifted her small form into the air with ease. There was no hope for Vhalla as she blushed. She fumbled clumsily with her hands, not knowing where to place them as her entire side was flush against the royal’s chest.

“I’m fine!” She shook her head.

“Nonsense. I interrupted your lunch; I’m certain any lightheadedness is from that. Allow me to remedy such.” The prince grinned, and Vhalla sat helpless in his palms.

Vhalla was distracted from her awkward position as they entered a central atrium with a beautiful stained glass dome, the sun at its apex casting a kaleidoscope of colors on the floor. A gold staircase spiraled around the atrium with several halls leading off at various levels. On the floor was a mosaic of the palace done in painstakingly small tiles.

Vhalla gazed upward in awe as the prince carried her through its center. She stared up at a picture of the world cast in sparkling yellows. A crescent continent was off to the side of the Empire’s mainland, barrier islands in emerald dotting the space between the two land masses. Oceans were cast in sapphire blues, and she saw hints of land upon the edges of the dome, lands she had never heard of and wondered if they even existed.