A trickle of heat lapped across my skin under the weight of his gaze, twisting with something dark and hungry and irreverently profane. He blew a long breath. “Question for a question?”
My eyes shifted over him. His shining brown curls, blowing around his temples in the gentle wind. His unbuttoned shirt, a dusting of dark hair underneath. The veins in his forearms, somehow quietly elegant.
I fit my jaw into my own hand. “If you follow the rules.”
He raised a brow. “What are the rules?”
“You can’t poke me.” A smile cracked my lips as he snorted. “And you can’t ask anything personal.” Kye had come too close for comfort when he’d asked how long I could hold my breath. Iwanted to know more about him, but I needed guidelines. A way to draw a line in the sand.
“Fine. You first.”
I pursed my lips, sending my hands to search idly for the canteen beside me as I thought of something to ask him. “If you weren’t born a prince, and you could do anything, what would you do?”
Golden-brown eyes squinted. “Veering on personal.”
“It’s not that personal.”
“Running a brothel might be fun.”
A dry laugh escaped my mouth. I corked the canteen and threw it at him. “I can’t kiss men, but you can run a brothel?”
He caught it with a neat hand, uncorking it for a sip. “I’d have to hire a matron, of course. Then I could run it from the shadows. A puppet master.”
I shook my head at him, amusement curving my lips. “What kind of whore house needs a puppet master?”
He looked at me as though I’d insulted him. “My pretend business is a fine establishment.”
“Lout,” I spat through a smile.
“The main floor would be a tavern, of course. And the top floor would house the ladies of the night.”
“Kye, I was being serious.”
He rolled a shoulder. “So am I.”
“If you could do anything, you’d open a brothel with a tavern on the main floor, hire a matron, and run it from the shadows?”
“You say that as though you don’t understand the appeal.”
I laughed, scrubbing a hand over my forehead. “Fine. Your turn.”
But Kye didn’t immediately ask me anything. He gazed at the sky, the corners of his eyes slightly crinkled as he chewed on the stalk of grass, sending the seed pod on the end up and down. “I think I’d go to Cressi.”
“Where your mother was born?”
He nodded, his fingers spinning the sapphire ring he no longer wore.
“Was she a lord’s daughter?”
“Yes. And no,” he said, fingers over his empty knuckles. “There are no lords in Cressi. There’s royalty, but the kingdom is small, and the government there is more code than law. It’s run by the black market. My mother was the granddaughter of the Prince of Thieves.”
“How did they meet?”
“My mother and King Emilius?”
Chin tucked into my hand, I nodded.
“It’s not romantic, if you’re wondering,” he sighed. “Her father sold her to mine. He was a wealthy man, and he had influence in the Cressian court, which was trying to lure more ships to their shores for trade. Their black market is so thick with thieves, there are hardly any Cressian ships. They don’t import or export themselves, but they’ll welcome any traders brave enough to come looking for business, and with the black market, many do. All the spices that come to Calder are grown in Cypria but smuggled into Cressi. Most silk and lace, the purest precious stones. Emilius’s father drew the trade routes from our shores to theirs. He sent a naval fleet to protect merchant ships while they docked there. They’re still there, too, sitting in Cressian harbors. Nine Calderian ships.”
