Chapter 223: Chapter 223: Away from noise

Natalie finished talking to an old viscountess whose diamonds looked old enough to hold grudges. She then turned slightly toward Gabriel, as if to acknowledge something in the godparent cluster, and used the motion to move one step to the side of the main flow.

Arik did the same thing from the other side, stopping a baron before he could change direction and answer any question that had been meant for her with calm, princely efficiency.

Ten seconds later they were no longer in the center.

Twenty seconds later they were in the edge current of the room, where guests still saw them but did not feel entitled to stop them.

Thirty seconds later Natalie slipped through the side arch and into the half-lit corridor leading toward the winter gallery.

Her laugh was still echoing softly in the warded corridor when Arik reached the arch.

The ballroom behind them remained bright and alive, music pouring through the carved opening in a rich, formal swell; the sound softened as soon as it struck the corridor stone.

Natalie had one hand over her mouth by the time he reached her, too late to hide the fact that she was laughing.

Arik stopped a few steps away and looked at her with that infuriatingly calm expression, which only made the entire thing worse.

"You ran," he said.

"I relocated quickly."

"That is not a dignified defense."

"It is a precise one."

He came closer then, still unhurried, one hand settling briefly at the cuff of his sleeve as he adjusted it back into place with unconscious elegance. No one looking at him now would have guessed he had just helped her execute a perfectly polite escape from half the nobility in the Empire. Or perhaps they would. The problem with Arik was that even when he behaved like a normal young man, he still looked like someone who had planned three exits, two contingencies, and a diplomatic apology in case of fallout.

Natalie lowered her hand at last, her smile still loose at the edges. "Lady Nibia was about to tell me I’d bloomed."

Arik’s mouth moved. "A terrible threat."

"You say that like you were not equally in danger."

"I was intercepted by Baron Estrel."

"That is unfortunate."

"He congratulated me on my escort posture."

That made her laugh again, brighter this time, the sound bouncing lightly down the corridor and returning to them in softened fragments. "No."

"Yes."

"That is the saddest sentence I’ve heard tonight."

"It was worse; he asked me when we were going to marry. Not if... but when." He said with a wicked grin.

Natalie stared at him for one suspended second.

Then the laugh that broke out of her was entirely unfit for a well-raised noblewoman at her own gala.

It hit her all at once - sharp, bright, and helpless - and the sound went skipping down the corridor in scandalized echoes, warm against stone and warded glass. She turned halfway away from him, one hand catching at the side of her gown as if dignity might still be recovered through posture alone.

"No," she said, laughing. "No, he did not."

Arik, traitorously composed despite the grin now pulling openly at his mouth, leaned one shoulder against the wall and looked far too pleased with himself. "He did."

"That is catastrophic."

"He seemed very confident."

"Of course he was confident," Natalie said, still trying and failing to stop smiling. "Men like that are always confident when they are being ridiculous."

"He congratulated me first," Arik said, with the patience of a man recounting battlefield conditions. "Then he lowered his voice as if granting me a military secret and asked when the formal announcement would be."

Natalie pressed her fingers to her lips, as though that might contain the next laugh. It did not. "I refuse to believe this happened."

"It happened."

"What exactly did you say?"

Arik’s grin sharpened by a fraction. "I told him he was displaying dangerous optimism for a man standing under three separate surveillance wards."

That made her laugh again, bright enough this time that she had to tilt her head back for a second.

The winter gallery lights outside the glass caught her throat and made the diamonds there shine. When she looked back at him, tears of laughter threatened to fall from the corners of her eyes, which only made Arik’s face soften in that annoying way he sometimes did when he forgot to be princely for half a breath.

"Let’s find something to eat before other nobles are trying to marry us." He said, extending his right hand, golden eyes soft.

Natalie looked at his hand, then at his face, and decided that this, too, was apparently how disasters began.

"A strategy I can support," she said.

She placed her hand in his.

Arik closed his fingers around hers with a firm grip and led her back toward the side current of the gala before anyone could decide to intercept them again with congratulations they had not earned. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

The corridor gave way to the softer noise of the reception wing, music folding around conversation, ether-light warming the marble, wards breathing faintly in the glass and archwork. Important people still filled the halls in silk and tailored black and military silver, drifting between floral arrangements and illuminated terraces with the elegant appetite of people who believed all beautiful things existed to be observed.

Natalie, at the moment, wanted a canapé and several meters of distance.

They found both near the edge of the winter gallery entrance, where a pair of servants were circulating with ether-cooled champagne and trays of delicate starters clearly designed by someone who believed finger food should require a briefing.

Arik, with the quiet authority of a prince who had been fed at too many state functions to be intimidated by decorative cuisine, took two glasses and selected three things from the tray with insulting ease.

Natalie looked at the arrangement in his hand. "You know what all of those are."

"Yes."

"That is suspicious."

"It’s smoked river trout."

She accepted one of the small silver-backed bites from him. "No, not the food. You."

"That seems ungrateful for a man bringing you dinner."

"This is not dinner. This is survival rations for people dressed expensively."

Arik handed her a champagne flute and took one for himself. "Then we should survive somewhere quieter."

Natalie raised her glass slightly. "Lead on, Your Highness."

"That title sounds dangerous in your mouth."

"It should."

He took them not back through the main floor but along the side of the winter gallery where the glass walls curved into a narrower balcony tucked half behind a line of climbing winter roses and a carved stone support.

It was not hidden exactly, but it offered enough distance from the ballroom that approaching them would require obvious intention and a mild willingness to interrupt something that looked, from the outside, far too beautiful to disturb.

Which, Natalie suspected as soon as they stepped out onto the sheltered balcony, was precisely why Arik had chosen it.

Cold air kissed the edges of the climate wards, enough to sharpen the atmosphere without biting through it.

Beyond the balustrade, the palace gardens stretched in silver and ether light, paths glowing faintly under lamps and wards shimmering pale over the sleeping beds and bare winter branches. The balcony itself was warmed subtly through the stone beneath their feet, a low current running through hidden lines to keep frost from settling where guests might stand.

Natalie took one look at the arrangement and laughed softly. "You’ve done this before."