Chương 81: Chapter 79 Edited

Princess Talena I was not supposed to be smiling. Queens-in-training were expected to maintain composure, dignity, and something my tutors liked to call measured emotional restraint. Apparently that did not include grinning at my reflection like an idiot while my handmaiden tried to finish fastening my hair.

"He is coming," I said again. I may have done a little dance while saying that. Shaking my rear in a very unprincess-like way.

"Yes, Your Highness," Mira replied patiently, though she had already heard me say it four dozen times in the last ten minutes.

"Not just attending," I added.

"He is coming to meet Father and then go to the Isle and protect me at the Gala." Mira lifted a section of my hair and began weaving the final pins into place with careful fingers.

"That is generally what protectors do, my princess."

"You are missing the point."

"I suspect I am not," she said calmly. I turned slightly in my chair, trying to see the arrangement of silver clasps she was threading through the back of my hair. The mirror showed enough to make me satisfied. My hair fell in long waves of pale silver with the faintest violet sheen, and Mira had arranged it so the royal clasp sat just above the curve of my neck.

"Perfect," I said.

"You said that five minutes ago."

"Yes, but now I mean it more." Mira stepped back to examine the result, her dark eyes scanning the lines of the gown laid across my shoulders. The dress itself was deep midnight blue, woven with mana-thread filaments that shimmered faintly when the light shifted. It hugged the waist before falling into layered silk that moved when I breathed.

"You look like a princess," she said.

"I am a princess."

"Yes," Mira replied evenly.

"Tonight you look like the kind that starts wars." I considered that.

"Good. I want him to lose his breath when he sees me." Mira gave me a warm smile despite her obvious exasperation, and honestly I could not blame her. I had been talking about my mercenary since the incident. I could not wait to see him. This time I was not going to let him go away or say no. ⁂ My thoughts caught on the parameters of my mercenary's contract. I glowered.

"You are still upset about the marriage restriction, aren't you?" My glower turned into a scowl. I stared at the mirror like it offended me.

"I am furious."

"It is probably for the best. Your father seemed quite firm."

"My father is wrong."

"He is also the King."

"That has never stopped him from being wrong before." Mira pinched the bridge of her nose in a way that suggested she had already regretted this conversation.

"You cannot simply propose marriage to a mercenary in the middle of this type of political gathering."

"Why not?"

"Because it would cause diplomatic chaos, and your father already has enough to deal with." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"That sounds like a him problem." Mira crossed her arms.

"Marriage is probably not high on your mercenary's list of things to do with you. You also tried to imprison him last time."

"That was a misunderstanding."

"Misunderstandings do not usually involve chains."

"They were ceremonial restraints. A bond of our potential love."

"Princess. I would question your definition of love if it requires chains." I waved a hand dismissively.

"Details." The truth was that none of that mattered. He was coming. ⁂ I leaned forward slightly and studied my reflection more closely. My tutors said I looked like my grandmother when she was young. At almost six feet, I was tall, sharp-featured, with eyes that carried the pale blue-green glow that marked the Aurion line. I ran my hands along my hips, noting how perfectly the dress was cut to maintain propriety while giving me the sensual edge I needed. And I would find a way to make him notice.

I looked at the dimple I shared with my grandmother, though tonight I did not care about dynastic resemblance. I cared about the one person who had cared about me without worrying about my title. My mana stirred quietly beneath my skin as the memory surfaced. I had been in a bad mood that day. The boy I liked had taken up marriage talks with another girl, some sword heiress from one of the giant martial clans in the Dominion of Nigon. I had been upset and had not been treating people particularly well.

I had seen him around the palace in his strange black attire, standing in different locations and surveying the area with the patience of someone who was actually watching rather than simply present. People treated him like he was part of the decoration. When the attack came, it happened so quickly that most people never understood what they had seen. Shouting, collapsing stone, the kind of violence that trained soldiers recognized immediately. People around me died, and then I was surrounded.

Before anyone could touch me, he materialized out of nowhere and placed himself between me and the men who had come to take me. I do not remember every movement. My mind filled in gaps with flashes of motion and steel, the sound of bodies hitting marble, and the sharp scent of fractured wards collapsing under pressure. Elementa Arcanum, fire and wind, and a great deal of it. The chaos was brutally destructive. What I remembered clearly was the moment he stood between me and the men who had come to take me.

The man had no apparent sense of self-preservation. No attempts to negotiate. He did not ask permission. He did not hesitate. He placed himself there and made it very clear that they should back away. He emphasized the point by disintegrating one of the raiders in front of his companions, which was an effective method of communication. I should have been scared. I was scared. Something else happened. My Sense Expression touched his mana.

The Aurion line carries a sensitivity that my tutors call Expression Resonance. When our powers brush against each other, we feel echoes of the emotional current beneath it. Normally it is faint. With him, it was not. I felt it clearly, so clearly that it was like examining something under direct light. The first thing I noticed was how calm he was. Not the false calm of someone pretending to be fearless.

The quiet certainty of someone who had already decided how far he was willing to go and exactly how everything was going to resolve. There was anger there too, sharp and controlled, directed entirely at the people who had threatened me. And beneath that, something else. Resolve. The simple decision that I would not be harmed while he was standing there. Made before it was consciously made, which meant it was not a decision at all so much as a fact about who he was. I had never felt anything like it before.

That was how I knew. ⁂"You are thinking about him again," Mira said. My face went a bit red.

"I am always thinking about him." She shook her head.

"You spoke to him for less than four minutes."

"That was enough." Mira raised an eyebrow.

"You do not know what he looks like. You do not know his background. You decided he was your destined husband because you felt his emotions through your mana."

"Yes."

"That seems ambitious."

"You did not feel it."

"No," she said dryly.

"I was busy hiding behind a pillar while men with swords tried to kill us."

"That was also a good decision." Mira sighed again and reached forward to adjust the neckline of my gown.

"You realize if he does show up, you are still not going to really see him."

"What do you mean?"

"He is showing up under a contract. He will wear the mask again." I paused. That thought had occurred to me earlier. He wore a mask. He had every time I had seen him. Mercenary masks were not uncommon. People like the Saint of the Sun, the Storm Weaver, and the Ghost of the Wastes were famous for them. His was completely dark, expressionless, and totally unreadable. I had only seen his eyes for a moment when the mask had shifted during the chaos. Then he disappeared again into it. I smiled anyway.

"Good." Mira blinked.

"Good?"

"Yes," I said. Because the truth was simple. Mask or no mask, armor or no armor, he would be there. Tonight, in a ballroom filled with nobles, diplomats, and half the political elite of the Dominion, I would see him again. Mira finished adjusting the last line of the gown and stepped back.

"Well," she said, "if you insist on falling in love with a mysterious mercenary, at least you look terrifyingly beautiful while doing it. Though I am not sure your father will approve of that amount of cleavage." I stood and turned once in front of the mirror. The reflection looking back at me was composed, radiant, and unmistakably royal. A striking woman, my tutors would say. Almost eighteen. And very ready for the evening to begin.

"Good," I said softly.

"You are coming, and you are very foolish to think I am simply going to let you go."