Page 39 of Prince of Shadow and Ash

“It sounds to me like Lord Hargreaves is fortunate to have you as a friend.” Her eyes shone playfully.

A friend.As if two words could sum up their complicated relationship. All the times Regulus hadn’t been a worthy friend to Dresden threatened to overwhelm him.

“Drez is a better friend than I deserve,” he admitted. “He’s had my back for years. We’ve been through everything together. There’s no one I trust more or owe as much to.”

Dresden laughed, but it sounded uncomfortable. “He owes me nothing. I’m far more fortunate to have Regulus as a friend.”

As if that’s true.He knew Drez meant it. He just didn’t agree.

Adelaide didn’t respond. Was she judging him for being too familiar with one of his knights? Or wondering about his past? She watched him, her head tilted, gaze intense. Heat crept up his neck and he looked away.

Across the room, a man stared at him. He looked closer. Nolan Carrick stood rigid, glaring. Without breaking eye contact, Carrick moved his hand to the dagger at his belt and gave the smallest shake of his head. Carrick smiled, as if nothing had happened, and followed a squire to a seat next to Sir Glower.

Regulus shifted and looked back at Adelaide. She watched Carrick take his seat, and his chest constricted with disappointment. But her eyes narrowed, and her jaw tightened. She shook her head and her features relaxed. He recalled her letter.“It was a miserable party.”

“Does this mean I didn’t offend you?” Adelaide’s quiet voice interrupted his confused thoughts. “You never wrote back.”

His face burned. “No. I’m sorry I didn’t respond. I’ve been traveling on business,” he faltered, “for a friend.” And he hadn’t known what to say.

She traced a slender finger over the edge of her plate. “I’m truly sorry.”

He grasped for a proper response. “I’m sorry you suffered a miserable party. Although, I assumed the Carricks would host extraordinary parties.”

“Oh, the party was spectacular.” Her hand curled into a fist, her voice dark. “The company was miserable.” She darted a glance at Regulus, then fixated on her plate. “Have you...heard anything? About the Carrick’s dance?”

“Should I have?”

“No.” Her posture relaxed as she exhaled.

The gentle clanking of a fork against a goblet drew their attention to the head of the room. Sir Glower welcomed everyone and thanked them for coming and Etiros for providing for their safety and health.

As servants filled their goblets with wine, Adelaide spoke. “According to Sir Jakobs, you wanted to get to know me. What do you want to know?”

“Oh.” His mind blanked. “I...well, I don’t know much about you. What would you want me to know?”

“Hm. No one’s ever asked me that.” She smiled at a servant as he set a basket of bread in front of them.

Regulus studied Adelaide while she buttered a roll and thought. Her round cheeks and slender nose. The dark brown of her eyes. Her soft pink lips. Her hair, tumbling about her shoulders in black waves. Like a calm sea on a dark night. The wide collar of her crimson dress hugged her upper arms, leaving the top of her shoulders exposed. Her black hair against the rich brown of her skin and the vibrant contrast of the red nearly took his breath away. He forced himself to stop staring. A servant set down a roast duck and began carving it in front of them.

“I speak Khast,” Adelaide said between bites of roll. “My mother taught Minerva and me, although I’m more fluent than Min. Mother always says, ‘I may have left Khastalland, but I am and always will be a Khastallander. It is part of me, and it is part of you, even though you have never seen it,Tha Shiraa.’”

Regulus inclined his head, trying to remember the few Khast words he had picked up, but he hadn’t had reason to think of them in years. “Thah Sheer-ah?”

She blushed and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “My mother’s nickname for me, in Khast.Tha Shiraa.Little Tigress.” She pulled a comb from the other side of her head and showed it to him. An ivory carving of a sleeping tiger curled into a ball, delicately painted in striking orange and black. “It’s why she gave me this.” She returned the comb to her hair.

“Tha Shiraa,” he repeated. “Why tigress?”

“Too many times testing the limits, pushing the bounds of safety. And a penchant for speaking out of turn. Father said I was bold, and Mother agreed.”

“Bold like a tigress.” Regulus chuckled as he cut into the roast duck the servant set on his plate. “That’s wonderful.”

“Really?” Adelaide looked at him.

“Of course,” he murmured, transfixed by the intensity of her eyes.

“Many find boldness...unfeminine,” she said, not breaking eye contact.

He couldn’t suppress a snort. “Many people are fools.”

---