Kiera almost sighed heavily when she was delivered another invitation only a few days after the salon. Instead, she took the invitation that was openly offered to her by one of the main palace's maids. She then closed her room door and retreated further inside to open the invitation. She had hoped the disaster of a gathering would deter any other people from sending her invitations, but her hopes were all shattered when she heard the polite knock at her door.
Sam. Her eyes read the neatly scribed name at one corner of the light blue colored envelope. She supposed a prince would be expected to have neat penmanship, but as she opened up the letter and read the contents of the invitation, she was baffled by the prince's handwriting.
Dear Kiera, she read silently, I do hope my letter does not catch you off guard as I wanted to see you as soon as I could. Today, I woke up not knowing that I would laugh the most I have ever laughed upon hearing about a certain gathering at a salon hosted by my dear elder sister. Believe me when I say that I am still beside myself with laughter as I am writing you this letter.
She continued reading.
The days that I've not seen nary a hair on your head have been long and arduous for me. I feel myself growing weaker and weaker with each passing day that I do not see you. Please, please, if you have any compassion for someone as weak as I, would you come to visit me? If only for a little while.
I'll be waiting with bated breath.
Yours, Sam.
She scoffed when she read the last line of the letter, but when she raised her head she caught the dainty smile that had formed on her lips. Immediately she frowned and erased all traces of her smile. She then shook her head and left the letter by her bedside table.
***
"Thank you for stopping by." Even as she blinked her eyes several times, she still could not believe it.
Prince Sam smiled warmly at her. His emerald eyes were as bright and vibrant as ever as he peered at her from across the table.
They were sitting underneath a white lattice structure in the middle of the prince's garden. Ivy hung from the walls and hung from the lattice ceiling, creating a perfect serene scene as the prince watched her with adoring eyes while Kiera pretended not to notice.
"Well I can't refuse a direct invitation from royalty after all." She took a sip from the teacup that was placed in front of her by one of the few of the prince's maids. She had noticed today, as she was being brought to the garden, that the prince only had a handful of staff at his residence.
"Is that so?" Her eyes curiously looked up just in time to see a mischievous glint inside his eyes as he leaned forward and placed his cheek on his hand. He caught her stare and smiled sweetly at her. The very sight of him looked as if he could do no wrong.
"More sugar?"
"What?" She blinked at him, momentarily confused by his question. He only chuckles politely at her stupor.
"I'm asking if you would like more sugar in your tea."
"Oh yes, please." She regrounded her thoughts as she reached over to pour more sugar into her tea.
She didn't know why she was behaving this way. Or why she came to the prince's palace at all. It was all so very unlike her, but nevertheless, she was having tea with the third prince in his own garden. As soon as she saw him waiting for her underneath the lattice structure, she immediately felt embarrassed. The memory of when she had cried on his shoulder invaded her thoughts and now the usually calm twelfth Beast General isn't as sharp as she would have liked.
She stopped stirring her tea with her spoon and took a sip. The extreme sweetness of what was once bitter made her want to spit out her tea. Instead, she swallowed it with great difficulty. "Is it too sweet for you?" She shook her head at the blond haired prince's question. Kiera did not want to acknowledge her mistake. Fortunately for her, the prince did not ask her twice.
"I heard my sister was unkind to you." Kiera was perplexed by his sudden change in emotion. To her, it almost seemed like he was angry. "It is a common tactic of hers. She invited you to the salon in order to embarrass you in front of all the noblewomen she could gather." He looked lost in thought for a moment before he changed the emotion on his face again.
"But apparently her schemes were no match for a certain Beast General." He looked absolutely pleased with her, smiling again at her with the force and power of two suns behind such a smile.
"You made short work of them." Proudly, he recounts the rumors of the noblewomen fainting after the salon session. "Masterful work indeed. I couldn't do it better myself."
She laughed lightly at his praise.
"I only scared them. In truth, I let their comments get the better of me." She confessed quite easily to him. "I should have said nothing." She should have retained her quiet dignity and let the ladies talk all they wanted. Instead, she let them get a rise out of her, and she painted a vicious picture of herself.
"Why should you?" He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "Why should you sit back and let some petty noblewomen ridicule you? Those ladies have no right to criticize you. Most of them have never had to lift a finger for the luxuries they get to enjoy every day."
She found herself laughing. At this moment, he reminded her of her captains whenever they got angry on her behalf. She found it rather cute.
Once again she slipped up inside her thoughts. She sighed and vowed not to let herself slip into such thoughts anymore. Forgetting about how sweet the tea had become, she took another sip and had to force herself to swallow it down.
"It has been almost a month since the start of the peace talks." Prince Sam changed the subject, taking a sip from his own cup now that his anger had subsided.
"Yes, it has been almost a month." She had hoped the talks would not last even a month but look at them now. They were not any nearer to the redrafting of the Golden Rose Treaty. It infuriated her to no end.
"May I be frank?"
"Please do. I love when you speak your mind." He looked happy, resting his cheek on his hand once more.
She chose to ignore his last comment.
"I don't understand how hard it is for them to come to an agreement. The Golden Rose Treaty doesn't need any more clauses. Land distribution, taxes on imports, and all of that can be talked about outside of the peace talks. Why must they be incessant over such matters? Isn't ensuring the continuing peace for all of the kingdoms more important?"
"What is peace when you could get more money out of a deal?" The prince gave a rather sarcastic answer. "My father and the other kings are more interested in gaining any benefit before arbitrarily making any promises to keep the peace."
She studied the prince's expressions, feeling the shift inside him from the normally playful man.
"What would you do? If you were king?"
Prince Sam coughed, taken aback by her question. He quickly composed himself though.
"There would be many changes if I were king." He smiled fondly. "Although I have no such thoughts to become Solomon's King, if there ever comes a future in which I am next to inherit the throne, I would make sure that peace persists. Especially peace between Solomon and Wolfcrye Forest."
"I would ask the Beast Army for help in the subjugation of the monsters in Solomon. The Beast Army wouldn't be helping for free obviously. I would pay not just in coin, but with goods as well. Items that would be hard to come by in the Forest."
"Interesting." Kiera nodded her head. "There are several things I can think of that are almost impossible to get your hands on. That is unless you are a noble or have a lot of money."
The two of them talked more, and as time moved on, Kiera grew more and more excitable. The prince was much more knowledgeable than she had thought. She enjoyed picking his brain for hours.
"The abandoned buildings we saw that day," she remembered the district they walked through when the prince took her outside the palace walls.
"My father forcefully removed the people, he didn't want his esteemed guests to see the state of things in a city that is directly controlled by him. Some of them were moved with the promise of a few gold coins."
"Has that side of the city always been like that?" He shook his head.
"Not in my great-grandfather's time. But because of the declining state of each province, the usually wealthy people of the capital have become as poor as the people in some of our more remote villages. It got worse when my father became king."
"Recently, the situation has been getting better. With the introduction of a better farming method, the crop yield within our agricultural regions has steadily increased with every harvest season."
Kiera listened intently as he continued. With every word he spoke, the image she had of him previously faded away into obscurity. A new image of him started to cement inside her head.
"There's another thing I don't understand." His smile was sweet, letting her know she could continue.
"What is it? If it's something that I am knowledgeable about, I would be more than happy to answer any of your questions."
"Then tell me about you." He became ecstatic at her sudden interest in him. The light shining within his eyes shone more brightly.
"What would you like to know?"
"Why do you act this way?"
The smile on his face indicated that he had known she would ask him that question.
"At first, it was because I didn't want to get assassinated by my other siblings."
"Would your siblings really do such a thing?" He shrugged.
"Maybe not when we were younger. Back then, it was really their mothers that I feared the most. My father's other queens. I appeared as non-threatening as I could so the queens wouldn't waste their time and effort in getting rid of me. My mother died when I was young, so ultimately that left me without protection."
Kiera was stunned by this revelation and wondered if even Jade knew this about the Solomon royalty. That they fought over the throne like dogs would fight over a bone. They'd even go as far as killing one another for the chance to become king.
Kiera studied the prince closely. She couldn't imagine a younger version of him fearing for his life while living inside the grandiose main palace. He was telling her all of this without an ounce of sadness on his handsome face.
Prince Sam noticed her expression and released a soft chuckle.
"That was a long time ago now Kiera. As you can see, I'm very much grown now." He motioned to himself in a way that made Kiera's eyes follow his hand as it traveled over his body.
"What was your mother like?" She abruptly changed the subject.
"I think you would have liked her as she was a scholar. Her favorite pastime was reading books on different kinds of plants. She was also a stunning beauty." He closed his eyes as if trying to conjure up the image of his late mother behind his eyelids. "She had a heart shaped face and a small, upturned nose. Her eyes were the color of melted chocolate and her hair was the color of fallen leaves."
His description was so detailed that Kiera could almost paint a picture of the prince's mother. She imagined his mother smiling like his son, and all of a sudden, Kiera felt like the prince really did conjure up his late mother.
Then the prince opened up his green glowing orbs and resumed smiling at her.
"What else would you like to know about me? For you, I'm an open book."
"Why me?"
He tilted his head to one side, being coy.
"Do you know how truly beautiful you are in my eyes? You must know, because you walk with such confidence, that it's hard to tear my eyes away from you." She felt a heat rise up to her cheeks but forced her face to remain devoid of her feelings. Or at the very least, to hide her rising embarrassment.
"It's not too much of a stretch to say that I fell in love at first sight."
Upon hearing those words, she scoffed.
"You don't know me enough to say that."
He only laughed at her instant rebuttal of him.
"Too soon? I apologize. Kepler did tell me to not get too ahead of myself." He ruffled the front of his hair as if chastising himself.
She then rose up from her seat.
"It seems I've taken too much of your time today your Highness. I'll excuse myself and take my leave."
Prince Sam seemed disappointed that she was already leaving, but he still bid her farewell. He rose from his own seat and stood in front of her.
"May you have a wonderful rest of your evening Kiera." Her hand was taken by the prince, and before she could utter a word of discouragement, his lips brushed the top of her knuckles. His eyes peered up at her behind his long soft eyelashes, the very sight sending chills down her body and into her toes.