“I’m surprised you’re letting her take part. Aren’t you worried she might steal your best prospects? This is your last-and-best chance, isn’t it?”
I ignored the digs, both of them, and bitterly enjoyed the irony of Klara lecturing me on last chances when she was being so nonchalant about the Season. We both knew, despite her protests, that the captain—her mother—was going to make her pick someone to marry. This was how we sparred, though, cousins and friends but also often competitors. Captain Lind had the most annoying habit of praising me for my best traits whilst criticizing Klara for lacking them. And my father would, in turn, chastise me for not being as pretty, thin, and socially adept as my cousin. The reality was, we were both participating in the Season whether we liked it or not. And while neither of us seemed to like it much, we were each encouraging the other to chin up and try. How exhausting.
We fell into companionable silence, watching the revelry on the dance floor as we kept court on the side. Carina moved on to her seventh dance partner. And then there was a sound to my left, like someone clearing his throat. I turned to find those deep golden eyes wickedly glinting and the boy attached to them performing a slight bow.
“May I have the honor of a dance?” he asked. I made note of his British accent and his name tag. Daniel Turan, it read, and he was from the Empire. I looked to my left, to my right, and behind me. Surely he had meant to ask someone else? Finally, I looked across the way, catching a haughty brunette and a ginger boy smirking over at us, whispering to each other. Of course, a little prank—the model asking me to dance so that everyone could laugh at me when I said yes and he suddenly changed his mind. I wasn’t born yesterday.
“No, thank you,” I said. “But my cousin Klara would love to!” I shoved her at him before either could protest, and I scurried off in the opposite direction.
It was a shame, really, because I did love to dance. Well, screw it. I would dance by myself, far away from the end of the room where Klara was now awkwardly swaying with the British boy. They looked good together, though she towered over him in her heels.
I found my own spot on the dance floor and got into the zone. Much like the rococo ballroom built smack-dab in the middle of a chrome-and-steel spaceship, the music was decidedly anachronistic. I’d seen plenty of movies about royalty and balls, the music supplied by an orchestra, couples perfecting a crisp waltz. But this party was on the Scandinavian, and it honored its most recent musical roots with a DJ who spun layered electronic beats with catchy melodies sung on top. I mouthed familiar words as I made my way into the throng of dancers. I lost myself to the music, swaying my hips and bobbing my head in time to the beat, working up a light sweat.
“Princess Leonie!” a recognizable voice interrupted my trance-like focus. I had hoped a stonefaced expression and refusal to meet anyone’s eye would keep people from talking to me, but alas. I spun around to face him.
“Lukas,” I said through clenched teeth and a forced smile, “you know I hate that name.” I meant both the royal moniker and my full name. Most people called me Leo.
“Just showing my respect,” he simpered, grabbing my hand with clammy fingers and bowing into a kiss, which he planted across my knuckles. I tolerated it for a beat, then wrested my hand away. I wiped it surreptitiously on the back of my dress. “Will you dance with me?” he asked, unfazed. His eyes kept flicking between my face and my cleavage, so it wasn’t like he noticed the whereabouts of my hand, anyway.
I hesitated, catching my father’s attention from the sidelines. Eyes with calculating focus bored into mine, his message clear: Say yes. Lukas was only a baron, but his family had plenty of digicoin, thanks to some smart business ventures. With a resigned sigh, I nodded, allowing him into my personal dance bubble.
Then he grabbed me by the small of my back, pulling our bodies close, and I immediately regretted everything. I’d give him one song.
I made it to the bridge. That’s when I caught sight of Carina entering the ballroom—when had she left?—her eyes searching the crowd until they locked with mine. Furrowed concentration was replaced with her usual easy smile. At least four boys turned to stare, two taking steps to ask her to dance, but she breezed past them, heading for me like a rocket toward its destination.
“Leo, I need you!” she said breezily, throwing Lukas and his closeness to me a look before grabbing my arm and obligingly pulling me free. “The renters have arrived.”
“Can’t you see to them?” I asked. Carina shook her head.
“You’re the only one who knows how to use the bio-lock. I let the renters in but can’t figure it out.” My little sister batted her eyelashes at me, and, as always, I bent too easily. When my father acted like a child, I could fully resent him for it, but Carina’s age gave her an excuse for being clueless. Though, I reminded myself, at sixteen I’d been taking care of most of the family affairs for several years. Regardless, I was happy to take a break. We’d been here nearly three hours, and my feet hurt.
“You’re the best, Leo!” Carina kissed me on the cheek and moved back into the throng to find a dance partner. I saw her pointedly reject Lukas and chuckled to myself as I made my way toward the exit. At the door, I turned one last time to check that she’d settled well with someone who wasn’t a creep.
That’s when I saw him. My heart stuttered and stopped in my chest.
Square spectacles half obscuring soft grayish-blue eyes; strong, regal nose; mouth set in a firm line, rendering his expression carefully neutral. He was always neutral until he let a smile light up his face, telling me I was brilliant and that he loved me. I blinked hard, sure I was imagining him. And when I looked up again, he was gone.
I forced myself to take several deep breaths, then used the rhythmic click of my heels as I walked to reset my heart’s cadence to normal. Elliot wasn’t here. He wouldn’t come back. Would he?
The security personnel guarding the ballroom doors nodded silently as I passed from the royal quarters to the Scandinavian’s public decks, making my way aft and up to where our family ship, the Prinzessin Sofi, was docked. We’d been here for years, living off the generous hospitality of our cousins—large ships in the fleet charged private vessels like ours docking fees as a matter of course, but we were family, and thus Captain Lind reluctantly waived them. Otherwise we’d be destitute and would likely have to give up the Sofi, our home. We were struggling to keep her up in repairs as it was.
The Valg presented a unique opportunity to earn some extra digicoin. A week ago, I’d received a reply to my advertisement of a ship for rent from a Captain Orlov of the Saint Petersburg, traveling with his family and some friends. He hadn’t mentioned the Valg Season, and I didn’t pry for more details, happy for the money, though I was curious. If he had the title of captain, wasn’t he needed on his own ship?
As I rounded the last corner, clipping through the familiar frosted white corridor to our decidedly dingier chrome door, a warm voice boomed. “You must be Miss Kolburg. Maxim Orlov.” A large hand engulfed mine in a firm-gripped handshake, while mirthful, pale eyes leveled with mine. He seemed short for a Russian—he was my height, an even five foot eleven. I’d heard they were a ship of giants, not unlike those on the Scandinavian. I was one of the shorter ladies. I took in his companions. One was a pretty woman who looked about midtwenties, and the other was an equally handsome dark-haired man the same age as the captain—early thirties?