Rafe lifted his hood and strode along the palace corridors, through archways, leading me on a merry chase through the palace after midnight. He didn't slow, didn't glance behind to see if I followed, just kept on moving.
When we came to the palace library's huge oak door, he pushed through, swept down dark aisles, and stopped at a bookcase tucked away in an unlit corner.
I caught up, breathing fast, and spun, wondering why on earth he'd dragged me into a corner of the library. Perhaps I was about to sample that delightful cock of his. Hm, him on his knees, or me on mine? Although he wasn't paying attention to me, he preferred instead to stare at the books.
He pulled one from among the others, and the shelf clicked, jolting outward on hidden hinges. Another secret. The palace was full of them. Rafe caught my eye, smiled, and slipped behind the bookcase, disappearing in a swirl of white cloak.
To show me such secrets, he surely trusted me. This was good. Or was it a trap?
Damn, I couldn't think.
In too deep and too curious to turn back, I followed him into a cool, dark tunnel, its sides hewn from rock. The prince's steps echoed ahead, guiding me through the heavy gloom. A downward slope tilted underfoot, and the tunnel corkscrewed back on itself, spiraling down. Then a rumbling began, like that of a sleeping dragon.
In all likelihood, I followed a dangerous man into the dark. A man who appeared to be one thing in one moment, and quite the opposite in the next.
Excitement and the thrill of the unknown set my veins ablaze.
Beautiful lie… He thought me beautiful, and a liar, a thorn on the stem of a rose.
The tunnel spun. I reached out, bracing myself. So very drunk. This was a terrible idea.
I moved on. Down and down, we went. Where was he taking me? Distant light flickered ahead. Rafe walked toward it, hands outstretched, stroking the walls. He'd been here so many times he hadn't needed the light to guide his steps.
Salt dried the air, and as we emerged from the dark into moonlight, the rumbling made sense. Dallin's great ocean shimmered beneath the moon, and beyond a small, pebbly beach, the ocean's waves thundered, smashing over enormous jagged rocks. By the time those waves reached the shore, they were tamed, gentle things.
It was… beautiful.
My steps slowed as I tried to absorb the sight.
Rafe strode down the beach, toward where the waves lapped at gleaming shingle, as though he meant to walk right out to sea.
I jogged after him, uncertain, enthralled, maybe dreaming.
He waded into the water up to his knees and stopped, cloak swirling around him. The moon had bleached the whole world white and grey, so that he stood in monochrome and was all the more dramatic for his lack of color. His smile, when he tilted his head and allowed me to see it, belonged to a free man. A man I was just now meeting. The true Prince Rafe, revealed here, under moonlight, like a spell had been lifted.
I was dreaming, asleep, drunk in my bed. It was the only explanation.
Or Rafe had been replaced by another man altogether, one made of starlight and dreams. He was… spellbinding.
His grin bloomed, turning sly. He waded back out of the water, up the beach, and stopped in front of me. "Where's your voice now, Levi?"
"I fear you've stolen it." Perhaps along with my dark heart, but certainly my wits.
He laughed, and the soft roll of it was new to me, too. This man was a stranger again, and in that moment, together on his secret beach, I ached to know him.
"Who are you?" I asked.
His laughter lessened to a chuckle as he shook his head. "I am the fool, and you are the prince." I frowned, and he laughed at that too, so freely I envied him. "No questions, hm. Let's not ruin this with unwanted truths."
"All right." Whatever game this was, my racing heart revealed how eager I was to play it. "Then if you are the fool, you should entertain me, no?"
He eyed me sideways, then relented with a chuckle. "Very well." I hadn't expected him to play along.
He untied the cloak from around his neck and tossed it on the shingles. He pushed up his sleeves and rolled his hand in a bow. "What would you have me do, Your Highness?"
What trickery was this? Prince Rafe had a sense of humor now? "Forgive my delay, I'm trying to fathom if I've lost my mind."
"I can see you're struggling. Allow me to aid you…" He studied the pebbles at his feet and selected three that were around the size of an egg, then, weighing them in his hands, he tossed one in the air and tried to follow it with a second, but instead, dropped them all.
I fought a laugh. "Are you trying to juggle? I fear you may have chosen an ill-suited profession."
"Wait…" He pointed. "I have this." After scooping up the stones, he rolled his shoulders and tried again. All three pebbles thumped into the shingle.
Folding my arms, I watched him try again, and again, until all the laughter snuffed out of his silvery eyes and frustration settled there instead. He wasn't going to surrender.
After another failed attempt, I lunged and snatched the three pebbles from their tumbling, juggled them with ease, and then launched all three into the waves, one after another.
He stared. "I almost had it."
"No, you really did not. But truly, your failure was spectacular. You should be very proud."
Laughter glittered back in his eyes. "You make it appear easy."
I arched an eyebrow. "I make a great many things appear easy, but many of them are exactly the opposite."
"Yes, I imagine they are."
His tone had changed, quietened, becoming thoughtful. Close enough to be scandalous in court, but here, on his beach, nobody saw. Just the stars and the moon, our permanent voyeur. We were not prince and fool, but two men, two almost-strangers.
My heart was a drum in my ears, hot blood in my veins, everywhere, all at once. "Why am I here, Rafe?"
"I said no questions, didn't I?" he teased, eyebrow arched. I dipped my chin. "Very well."
"If I cannot juggle, then I'll tell a tale of two kingdoms. You like stories, Levi, do you not?"
Hm, a story? "I do."
"Then you may judge mine." He stepped back and rolled his shoulders, as though freeing himself of another skin. "On the surface, all is well between these two kingdoms, but beneath, an old rift grows wider. We'll call them the Court of Flowers and the Court of Storms. How does that sound?"
My heart fluttered, but the thoughts in my head? They were dagger-sharp and focused all on Rafe. "Delightful."
"The Court of Storms churns with chaos, and the Court of Flowers, well… They are the flicker of hope in the darkness." He paced, and his boots crunched on the shingle. "How am I doing, so far?"
"Suitably dramatic, but lacking a figure your audience might sympathize with."
"Ah, yes, the protagonist. If we can call him such." He turned his face toward the sea. "A prince, although few would know it. He is afraid, you see? Afraid for so long, it's a part of him, in his veins, his bones. He hides it, hides all of himself, so the world won't know, so the Court of Storms don't sense weakness. But it's already too late. The storms have spread far beyond their borders, raining poison down on all they touch. It happened so slowly nobody noticed."
My heart thumped louder and louder, his story so keen, and so true, he might as well have been calling me out right there. "Alas, I fear the story is too bleak; it needs a happy ending or your audience will not return for more."
"Well, it's not over. There is hope…" Rafe threw me his radiant smile. "Our prince is not alone in his fear. There is one other. The most unlikely of heroes. Always observed but too easily overlooked. Seen in one breath, dismissed in the next. The perfect distraction."
"A beautiful lie?" It was out before I'd thought to keep it from my lips.
Rafe's glare cut to me.
His eyes widened, then narrowed as he regained his storytelling composure. "Yes… The beautiful lie."
My heart throbbed behind my ribs. "I fear fools can never be heroes, only pawns in a prince's game."
"Not this one, for you see, he is a fool in one court, but quite something else in another."
He knew