In the end, the temptation to escape the Chalcedony Palace, to meet with a handsome stranger who had dared to flirt with her even upon learning she was a daughter of Somilius Deyn, was too much for Carala to resist. If she hadn't been promised to Denisius, she later reflected, she might never have gone. But since that meeting with her father and her mother and the Lord Marhollow (Denisius himself was not present, and she would later learn he had no idea what his father had negotiated until the matter was already finalized), she had come to feel a certain amount of dread regarding her impending wedding. Not because of her intended, but simply of the wedding itself and all it represented; of being shipped from the Chalcedony Palace to yet another beautiful gaol, even if it was a townhouse in the Palace District where she was free to come and go as she pleased, even if Denisius never forbade her any study or hobby she fancied at all. The princess thought she'd have felt the same dread no matter to whom her father promised her, whether it was the lowliest squire who could barely be considered noble or the Eternal Sultan of Q'Sivaris himself. So under cover of night, her telltale shock of midnight hair concealed beneath a heavy hood, she and Ralessa departed the Palace through a forgotten servant's entry beneath the Gloaming Wing, descending into the streets of Talinara, and slipping unnoticed into the Three Harts. Carala had never been so excited in her life.

The tavern -- or music hall -- or impromptu theatre -- for it was any or all of these things depending on the vigor of the evening's crowd -- was everything Ralessa had described and more. A troupe of musicians from Summervale occupied the little stage built into the corner furthest from the bar, filling the main hall to its timbers with a raucous, infectious music the likes of which Carala had never heard before. They had brought a pair of dancers with them, possibly husband and wife, the tavern's lamplight coruscating off their sleek dark skin, the chimes and jingling tokens on their garb adding a music all their own. Soldiers on leave from Fort Shale were hunkered down at one round table, playing a complex version of Whistling Jack that required three different decks of cards and a pair of dice to boot. The barman's harried daughters hustled to and fro, taking orders and serving tankards of drink and platters of food. Rich smells of pasties and puddings and stews and roasts filled the air, mingling with the sweet aroma of kossun smoke drifting from a semi-private room tucked through a door beside the great hearth, under the shadow of the triple set of hart horns. And on the other side of the hearth, Carala saw a group of workmen dressed as the ones at Madame Greythorne's estate had been clad, one of them quite familiar. Tacen looked up, surprised but obviously delighted when his eyes met hers under the shadow of her hood, and hailed both of them over to the table.

That night wasn't the first time in her life Carala had felt the effects of a little too much alcohol, but it was certainly the first time she went so far as to consider herself drunk. The Aznian spirits turned out to be fiery but compelling, and she had drunk far too much of them too quickly, leaning heavily against Tacen as the night wore on, rather liking the familiarity of his rough hand first on her shoulder, then grazing down her spine to circle his arm about her waist. Her cheek rested against his shoulder, a shivery pleasure blossoming in her as the strong scent of him filled her nostrils, reminding her a bit of how it smelled in the stables but somehow cleaner, indeed, more like the smell of the Imperial forest preserves her father seldom visited anymore. At some point -- it was hard to know when, because the tavern only seemed to grow more rambunctious as the night wore on, and Ralessa was no help since she had found herself the focus of the attention of no fewer than three of Tacen's coworkers -- Tacen murmured in her ear that he had a private room upstairs, and they might be able to chat a little more easily if they went there together.

She was tempted. Gods, she was tempted. Ralessa's brash advice concerning a woman's experience before marriage seemed to echo in her head, and Tacen was so strong and handsome, and would it be so wrong to experience something like that before she resigned herself to Denisius's soft and harmless body for the rest of her life? There was also the fact her nerves were stoked into a delicious heat by the effects of the Aznian spirits, and she could scarcely imagine what it would feel like for Tacen -- a commoner -- to touch her in this state.

In the end her good sense (and perhaps that practical paranoia any child of Somilius Deyn possessed) won out, and she declined. Tacen looked none too troubled by her refusal, merely smiling and kissing her on the cheek. But later that night, behind the tavern, while Ralessa handled their tavern bill, she and Tacen embraced tightly, bodies arching hungrily to each other, the princess savoring the first passionate kisses of her life, tasting the fire of the Aznian liquors on his breath, her fingers roaming his strong body as greedily as his roamed her own, waking other fires deep inside her, gasping for air when the kiss broke and feeling as if she were growing even drunker on his scent. Again he whispered in her ear that there was time to go up to his rooms -- that all she had to do was let Ralessa know, and the handmaiden would wait for her until she was done, the bill be damned -- and this time the refusal was even more difficult . . . not least because as he'd invited her he had cupped her left breast in one strong hand, kneading her flesh even as her heartbeat pounded against his fingers.

But she had refused. It had been with immense regret, but she had managed it, stumbling back to the Chalcedony Palace leaning heavily on Ralessa, who, being far more experienced with tavern drinks, was not half so drunk as her mistress. Her regret had been so thick she had found herself weeping a time or two on the foggy walk back to her apartments. Upon reflection the next morning (what reflection she was capable of while suffering a terrific hangover, that is), she thought the tears had almost entirely been a result of inebriation.

The memory of that night lingered in her thoughts, not just the liberties she had taken with Tacen (mild liberties, she reminded herself; no doubt all of her brothers and even Denisius had done far more with the girls of various brothels) but all of it: the burn of the Aznian liquors; the open and laughing smiles of the card-playing soldiers, so different from the grim faces she normally saw under the visors of their helms; the thrilling music from Summervale and the beauty of those married dancers. Part of her regretted that she had gone there to meet Tacen rather than just go to enjoy herself -- the Summervale dancers in particular persisted in her memory, and she found herself imagining interrupting their dance to learn the steps, to join in with them, to laugh and blush as the crowd cheered and tossed coppers at their feet.

But that other part of her remembered the strong hand caressing her waist, and the fierce kisses behind the tavern, and she knew given a choice she wouldn't have turned them down to experience the rest of it. Fortunately for her propriety, it seemed unlikely she would ever see Tacen again.

Two weeks after the night at the Three Harts, as Carala fumed and agonized over the portrait that was developing at a tortuously slow pace, her handmaiden Elana (who had never missed the dress Carala borrowed and returned before dawn) escorted a courier into her apartments. "For you alone, your Imperial highness," the courier said with a stiff bow, a sealed missive clutched in one extended hand.

Elana had no idea what it was all about, and Carala dismissed her before opening it. Tacen was the furthest thing from her mind; she thought instead of Silenio, who was three days overdue from an official visit to Gallowsport, where one of the Prefect's sons had died of a sudden fever. Why her brother would contact her in an emergency she couldn't fathom. But the seal didn't bear the crest of the House of Deyn or any noble house: only the simple crossed quills of a public messenger company. Frowning, Carala broke the seal, trying to imagine who would be so foolish as to contact a member of the Imperial court via a service any layabout looking for easy coin might spy upon. But there was no message scratched within, or at least there were no words. Rather there was a rough sketch of three pairs of hart horns, above the number 11 and a question mark.

After a moment she understood, and her heart jumped into her throat. The taste of Aznian liquor seemed to fill her mouth; all she could see was a pair of warm brown eyes; she felt a ghostly hand caressing her lower back. The dinner hour had just passed. She could easily be at the Three Harts by 11 o'clock . . . or even earlier if she liked.

And so she went again. And this time she and Tacen danced together to the vibrant music of a minstrel group from Cavis Cove, brassy and loud and full of vigor. And again she kissed him, now in the secluded room where more intimate groups of people than could be found in the main hall sat together trading tales and smoking sticks and pipes of kossun, and now Tacen let his hands wander her body freely as she did his, his strong rough hands taking time to stroke the long lustrous locks of her midnight hair, seeming to revere it as one might a priceless treasure. And again he whispered into her ear that she should come up to his rooms, and without a handmaiden to mind her this time she very nearly did. At some point she had moved from sitting beside him to nestling in his lap, and she could feel the thick hot insistent shape of his arousal pressing to her backside, teasing her horribly as his hips gyrated in a slow circle against her, and in that circumstance saying no to him felt nearly impossible.

Somehow she did. And thwarting all expectations she had of commoner men and their lusts, he simply smiled again and kissed her on the cheek. "No one can tell a princess what to do, I suppose," he laughed in her ear. And at that she nearly changed her mind.

But she held her own, even though she found herself in a state of aching need upon her return to her apartments, and it was nearly dawn before she found sleep, exhausted and smoothly naked above her sheets, her dreams dancing to Summervale music with Tacen beside her, neither of them wearing a stitch, his wonderful forest scent filling her, their lips meeting and he drinking her in with those fathomless brown eyes, those eyes that, as she had gazed into them more and more, proved to have intriguing flecks of gold amid the brown. That day passed in a haze, and although she was not hungover as she had been after that first night (she had learned her lessons about Aznian liquors) she had been even more distracted.