As if reading her mind, Leopold asked, “Have you seen the Empress’s daring gown? Every man has his jaw on the floor.”
“But not you?” Safi asked, eyes narrowing.
“No. Not me.”
The lie of the statement crawled over her skin, but she didn’t care enough to press. If Leopold wished to hide his interest in the Empress’s perfect shoulders, why should Safi care?
“Do you wish to meet the Empress?” he asked abruptly.
Safi gasped. “Really?”
“Of course.”
“Then yes, please.” She thrust her unfinished strawberries at a waiting attendant while Leopold stepped lightly into the throngs of people. She followed him toward a low stage at the back corner where a small orchestra tuned their instruments.
But it was strange, for as Safi and Leopold moved amongst the curious nobility of all ages and nationalities, there was a single bright question on everyone’s lips. Safi could no more hear what they murmured than she could read their thoughts, but whatever it was they considered, their question burned with the sharp light of truth. It flickered down the back of Safi’s neck and in her throat—and it made her enormously curious to know of what they spoke.
Leopold reached a swarm of colorfully clad women—their gowns also made from the same striped, draping cloth as the Empress’s—and a clump of men. Nubrevnan men, Safi thought when her eyes settled on their loose black hair and salt-roughened skin. Their coats fell to their knees, most of them the color of stormy blue, though one man wore silver gray and cut into her path.
“Excuse you,” she muttered, trying to sidestep him.
But the man stopped, blocking Safi entirely, before glancing back.
Safi choked. It was the Nubrevnan from the pier, cleaned up and practically glowing beneath the candlelight.
“Why it’s you,” she said in Nubrevnan, her voice overly dulcet. “Whatever are you doing here?”
“I might ask you the same.” He didn’t look impressed as he shifted his body toward her.
“I am a Domna of Cartorra.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”
“I see,” she drawled, “that you have learned how to work a button. Congratulations on this no doubt life-altering feat.”
He laughed—a surprised sound—and bowed his head. “And I see you have cleaned the bird crap off your shoulder.”
Her nostrils flared. “Excuse me, but Prince Leopold fon Cartorra is expecting me—and surely your prince needs you as well.” She spoke flippantly, barely aware of what she said.
Yet the result was extreme, for the young man smiled. A true, beautiful smile that made everything in the room fall away. All Safi saw for a single, stuttering heartbeat was how his dark eyes almost crinkled shut and his forehead smoothed out. How his chin tipped up slightly to reveal the muscles in his neck.
“I have absolutely nowhere to be,” he said softly. “Nowhere but here.” Then, as if she was not stunned enough, the man swooped her a half-bow and said, “Would you honor me with a dance?”
And just like that, all of Safi’s shields crumbled. She forgot how to be a domna. She lost control of her cavalier cool. Even the Nubrevnan language seemed impossible to wield.
For this man seemed to be mocking her—just like the doms and domnas from her childhood, just like Uncle Eron. He intended to embarrass her. “There is no music,” she rushed to say, launching past the man.
But he caught her arm with the ease of a fighter. “There will be music,” he promised before calling, “Kullen?”
The enormous man from the pier materialized beside them.
“Will you tell the orchestra to play a four-step?” The Nubrevnan’s gaze never left Safi’s face, but his smile eased into mischief. “If you don’t know the Nubrevnan four-step, Domna, then I can choose something else, of course.”
Safi held a strategic silence. She did know the four-step, and if this man thought to embarrass her on the dance floor, then he was about to be very surprised.
“I know the dance,” she murmured. “Lead the way.”
“Actually,” he answered, voice rippling with satisfaction, “I don’t move, Domna. People move for me.” He flourished a single hand, and suddenly all the Nubrevnans cleared away.
Then Safi caught the words of nearby viewers: “Do you see with whom Prince Merik dances?”
“Prince Merik Nihar is dancing with that fon Hasstrel girl.”
“Is that Prince Merik?”
Prince Merik. The name swirled and licked across the floor and into Safi’s ears, glowing with the pureness that only a true statement could.
Well, hell-gates, no wonder the man looked so smug. He was the rutting prince of Nubrevna.
* * *
The dance began, and it did not take long before Merik realized he’d made a mistake.
Where he’d hoped to teach the girl some manners—she was supposed to be a domna, after all, not some street urchin—and perhaps to relieve some of the ever-present rage in his chest, Merik was only serving to humiliate himself.
Because this foul-mouthed domna was a far better dancer than he could have ever anticipated. Not only did she know the four-step—a Nubrevnan dance popular between lovers or performed as a feat of athletic prowess—but she was good at it.
Each triple stamp of Merik’s heel and toe, she repeated right on beat. Each double twirl and flip of his wrist, she managed to throw back as well.