Not for you.
For him.
Still, he couldn’t stop his thoughts from shifting and his frown from deepening as his eyes landed on the ivory-draped princess on the other side of the ballroom, her clothes so bright in the firelight they may as well have been a beacon, her laughter so loud he could hardly hear the girl next to him. Three of the princes surrounded the dove as she held court, asking question after question, smile growing wider as she continued sipping on hummingbird nectar. His fingers balled into fists when he watched her reach out and squeeze the arms of the smug purple-winged jerk who kept flashing his dimples as though they were some sort of prized possession.
“Do you read much?”
“Huh?” Rafe mumbled, snapping his attention to the princess standing right by his side and away from the one on the other side of the room. His companion was one of the few princesses who had bothered trying to know him, the raven prince. For Xander’s sake, he needed to get this right. All through dinner he’d been doing the math—there were five crown princes and four second daughters, which meant one crown prince would be left unmated. A simple numbers game. And he couldn’t fail his people. He couldn’t leave Xander without a queen. He couldn’t fail his brother. “Oh, yes, I love to read.”
At least, if he were truly Xander, that would be his response.
The princess lit up. “Oh, what sort of topics are your favorites?”
Coralee was her name. Coralee. He fought to keep that at the forefront of his thoughts, because a girl like this would be perfect for his brother. The Princess of the House of Wisdom was kind and sophisticated. Like all the owls, she’d spent her life tending to the books in the great libraries of legend, studying politics and history. She was someone Xander would speak to for hours on end. Yet here he was, sounding like a blithering idiot, unable to recall a single title of any of the books he’d been forced to read as a child.
Rafe gritted his teeth as the chiming laughter of another princess filled the ballroom once more. Coralee waited patiently.
“Um,” he grunted. “Everything. Anything. How about you?”
Before she could answer, a strain of music made the room fall silent. The next dance was about to begin. Coralee eyed him hopefully, but Rafe just wasn’t sure he could bear another round. He’d danced with her once, and with the other two princesses he’d considered possible matches for his brother—Iris, the Princess of the House of Paradise, who had put his moves to shame as she twirled around him in graceful circles, turning his already grumpy mood even more sour; and Elodie, the Princess of the House of Song, about whom he could regrettably recall nothing, because Ana had been dancing with Damien, the arrogant hummingbird Rafe already loathed with a fiery passion. His mind had instead dwelt on the two of them for the entire time.
“Excuse me, I’m a bit thirsty,” Rafe muttered quickly, watching Coralee's face fall slightly as he stepped away. Before he even moved a few feet, one of the other princes who had been by Ana’s side swooped in with a bow, offering her his hand.
Not Ana, he chastised as he walked toward the banquet table at the back of the room and grabbed a drink. Lyana. Princess Lyana. Princess Liar, more like it.
“What are you doing?” Queen Mariam asked under her breath, making Rafe start.
His instinct to flee only grew as he turned to meet her raging violet eyes. “What do you mean? I’m getting a drink, and I’m mingling.”
“First the stunt with the dove, and now you’re turning your back on a princess who clearly wanted to dance with you?” she whispered over the edge of her glass, her voice a silent arrow striking him right in the heart. A smile, sharp as ever, graced her lips. To the outside observer, it probably looked affectionate. “Need I remind you that you are representing my son right now? A true crown prince, who can evoke the respect and admiration that should go along with that title?”
“No, you don’t,” Rafe shot back with a grin to match hers. Xander had more charm in his pinky finger than Rafe had in his whole body, which was why Rafe had never wanted this job in the first place. But they couldn’t risk Xander’s handicap being discovered, not now that the ruse was set, so the queen was stuck with him, whether she liked it or not. Rafe rolled his shoulders, stretching neck muscles that had grown uncomfortably tight beneath her scrutiny. “I needed a quick break.”
“Playing the heir means you don’t have the privilege of a break,” she seethed. “When this dance is done, go ask the Princess of the House of Peace to dance. You’ve been ignoring her all evening for no reason that I can understand when she is the best catch of them all. Do what you came here to do—”
“She wouldn’t be a good mate for Xander,” Rafe cut in, scanning the room to make sure they weren’t receiving any unwarranted attention.
“I don’t care what you think. She’s the daughter of Aethios. Your opinion is irrelevant.”
“The owl princess is sweet and scholarly. She—”
“You think I don’t know that?” The queen reached out and took the drink from his hand, eyes harder than rocks as she glared at him. “I’ve studied all of my son’s potential matches. I know who would suit him and who wouldn’t. And I think as the queen of a loving people, I know better than you, a raven barely tolerated in his own house, how to play the game of politics. The doves will never pick us, their princess will never pick you, but if you can make the other houses believe it’s a possibility, you will become far more desirable. Right now, we are the forgotten house, and if there’s one crown prince left standing alone at the end of this, in their eyes that ought to be you. But we have to change that opinion, for Lysander. So be charming, for once in your godforsaken life. Be charming the way my son would have been if he weren't determined to use you like the crutch you are.”
Biting back a response, Rafe turned on his heels and left Queen Mariam, clutching his hands behind his back as he retreated to the other side of the room, for once not aware of the princess but of his queen, of needing to stand as far away from her as possible—because she was right, and the truth of her words made her blows even harder to take.
Xander should have been there. He would have charmed the crowd, would have had them so wrapped up in his words they would have never even noticed his hand, never cared that he couldn’t release an arrow from a bow or wield a sword well—not when he could make them laugh until they cried, when he could discuss theory until dawn, when he was intellectually and emotionally superior to every arrogant prince in this room.
Xander was using Rafe as a crutch.
And Rafe let him.
He didn’t know how to say no to his brother—not when his brother was the only reason Rafe was alive, the only reason he had a place to call home.
This is for Xander.
For Xander.
Rafe repeated the words over and over as he scanned the room, searching for the source of that musical laughter, finding her in the center of the dance floor, gown fluttering in some unknown source of wind that seemed to be following her around as the hummingbird prince with the grating smile twirled with her.
For Xander, he thought again, taking a deep breath.
Then he stepped onto the dance floor and cut his way through the crowd, marching straight to her.