Free A Royal Birthday by Eilis O'Neal Page B

possible, of course. If there was a nice way to tell someone you didn’t feel
that way
about them. But not today, not when he had a mere six hours to find a present to outshine the horriblestatue. What he needed was a diversion, to start a conversation with someone grand enough that Celine wouldn’t be able to interrupt it.
    What he needed was Nalia.
    A set of heavy carved doors loomed ahead, and Kiernan eyed them with a mixture of hope and trepidation. There was a chance that Nalia had escaped the preparations for her feast and taken refuge in her favorite place in the palace: the library. Of course, if he was wrong, he would be trapped in a room with only one exit—unable to escape Celine and her batting eyelashes.
    He wavered for a moment, then grabbed hold of one of the doors and pulled it open.
    Hushed and quiet, the palace library had an atmosphere all its own where the chaos in the hall might as well not exist. It smelled of paper, ink, and dust, smells Kiernan knew Nalia loved but always made him feel vaguely as though he was going to sneeze. Ducking his head down to avoid the glares of librarians—for he had let the door thud shut in his haste to get inside—Kiernan took the fastest route to the corner that Nalia favored, the one with the table set where the light from a window would shine on it for easy reading. He held his breath as he came around a tall shelf of books, praying that she would be there.
    She sat at the table, bent over a scroll that looked to be at least two hundred years old, twisting a strand of brown hair around and around her finger as she read. Kiernan couldn’t help his smile as he noticed that the finger in question had a liberal amount of ink on it, and that she was completely heedless of the wiry mess she was making of her hair. He also couldn’t help thetiny flip in his stomach, a feeling that was becoming more and more common whenever he saw his best friend.
    He wiped away the smile as he approached, however, and replaced it with a wide-eyed plea. “You have to save me!” he said dramatically, setting both palms on the table and breathing hard.
    Jerking in surprise, Nalia looked up, her eyes caught between worry and suspicion. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
    “I’m being pursued by the most dangerous of creatures,” he said with a glance over his shoulder. “I must beg for my liege’s protection.”
    Nalia raised her eyebrows at him, understanding lighting the eyes beneath. “You
still
haven’t told Celine?”
    Kiernan bared his teeth in a half-grin, half-snarl. “No, my ever-wise and tolerant princess, I haven’t. And I don’t have the time at present, so when she comes around that shelf I need you to pretend that I’ve just said the most witty, clever thing you’ve ever heard.” Now he gave his most charming grin. “It shouldn’t be that hard.”
    At that, Nalia snorted. But as they heard the light approaching footsteps, she tilted her head up at him, rolled her eyes, and let out a small chuckle. It wasn’t quite the all-consuming laugh he had asked for, but then he hadn’t really expected that. Nalia rarely let herself laugh that way when anyone but he was around, and certainly not in the library.
    Behind him, he heard the sounds of someone taking a step forward, and then a step back, and finally deciding not to come any closer. A moment later, he hazarded a glance behind him and saw that Celine had left the library.
    With a sigh of relief, he hooked a chair with his ankle, pulled it close, then let himself flop into it. “You have my undying thanks,” he said.
    Nalia treated him to a small scowl. “You really do need to tell her that you don’t intend to kiss her anymore,” she said. “It’s not fair to make her think otherwise.”
    “I haven’t
been
making her think otherwise, except for the once,” he protested. When she narrowed her eyes even farther, though, he held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. She was right, of course, as she