When Gayoo brought the dress to Hyora’s room the next day, Hyora nearly fell out of her bed. “Good grief, what was Mother thinking?”

“To send you adequately prepared and properly dressed to meet your fiancé, obviously.”

“But that must have cost a fortune! Did she seriously just commission that the day before yesterday?”

“Yes, milady. Let me help you put it on.”

It took some time, but eventually Hyora got the dress settled on her frame, and she stood in front of the mirror to inspect the results.

It appeared as if the entire dress was made out of some sort of silk, and the threads used were silver and gold, winking underneath the light. The bodice was split into two sections, one that began below her collarbones and ended underneath her bust, the other that started under her chest and fell to her waist. The top portion was tighter, for obvious reasons, and navy blue with a vertical ridged sort of pattern. The bottom portion was a lighter shade, more like sapphire. The skirt of the dress ended at her ankles, and it was so pale a blue that it was almost white, but not quite.

There were sleeves to the dress, short ones that barely covered her shoulders, which matched the top of the bodice in color, and then extensions of those sleeves, which were translucent and uneven, the front hem ending just above her elbows, the back trailing to almost her knees. A length of gauzy cloth connected to the bodice at the two points where her sleeves began, secured by sapphires set in silver, running loosely behind her neck and falling against her back. Surprisingly, the sleeves weren’t itchy.

“Milady, you look lovely,” Gayoo said, walking around Hyora to admire her from several different angles.

“I think the dress did all of the work,” Hyora joked. But she had to admit that she looked pretty good.

“Now for your hair.” The maid sat Hyora down in a chair in front of her dresser and began to work with her long black hair.

When she was finished, Hyora’s black locks were secured in a loose knot at the back of her head, with a few stray bundles of hair hanging free in a way that looked purposeful rather than messy. “Thank you, Gayoo.”

“It was my pleasure, milady.”

At that moment, the door swung open and her mother swept into the room.

“Hyora, you had better hurry. He’s waiting in the downstairs lounge.”

“Already?” She had to try very hard to keep the groan out of her voice. Her mother took her by the hand and half-dragged her to the door.

“Yes. It is not good to keep guests waiting. Now off you go.”

Hyora took a few steps toward the door, then paused. “You’re not coming with me? Or Gayoo?” Neither of the two were making a move to follow her.

“I already had a brief word with him, and I figured that I should leave the two of you alone to get to know each other.”

Well, this could be a disaster…

As she descended the stairs to the lounge, she caught a glimpse of him. He was standing with his back to her. He, too, was dressed in blue. She wondered if her mother and his had coordinated this. It didn’t seem entirely far-fetched, knowing how her mother operated.

Nearing the bottom of the stairs, she nearly tripped. Hyora let out a small yelp, and this caused him to turn around.

Thankfully she managed to regain her composure before he looked, but she had to try very hard not to curse out loud. 

In that moment, their eyes met.

He really was strikingly handsome, with angular features, a prominent nose, full lips, and deep dark eyes, but she didn’t feel like she was going to faint at his beauty. As expected, some girls were overreacting. That or the stories had gotten exaggerated. Or both.

At present, his expression was unreadable, and not once did his eyes leave her face when he leaned down to kiss her hand. “Good morning, Lady Hyora.” Although his lips weren’t physically cold, she felt an odd chill at the contact.
Hyora had fully expected his voice to be husky and deep, but in fact it had a nasally and reedy quality to it.

“Good morning, Lord Myungsoo,” she replied, dropping a curtsy her mother would have been proud of. She made sure to keep her face impassive. Two could play at this game.

He motioned subtly for her to sit down, so she took the seat on the couch opposite him. The table between served as a convenient buffer. Two cups of tea sat on it, already prepared and still warm, from the looks of the wispy steam rising from them.

Hyora picked her cup of tea off of the table and sipped from it, watching the boy across from her. He, on the other hand, made no move to touch his tea and was instead staring intently at some point to the left of her head.

Less than a minute, and already it was exceedingly awkward. Lovely. In a feeble attempt to get a conversation started, Hyora blurted, “What exactly are you thinking so deeply about? You look like you have diabolical schemes to take over the kingdom or seduce some poor innocent maiden.”

Well played, her mind jibed. Where had that come from? Perhaps it was Gayoo’s use of the word ‘spell’ and her own connotation of demons and evil. She wasn’t making any sense.

She expected another extremely piercing stare, but instead, she got the reply, “Nothing in particular. Mostly thinking about how incredibly hungry I am.” He said this so casually that she wasn’t sure if there was any sarcasm in his voice.

“Oh. Pardon me for a moment.” She rose, perhaps a little too quickly, but thankfully she didn’t knock anything over. Then she hurried off to fetch something. When she returned, she found her fiancé standing, his fist pressed to his mouth, his expression thoughtful.

“Here, have some of these.” She a tin at him, and he accepted it, shooting her an odd look. When he opened it up, he found miniature cakes, frosted and topped with cherries.

“Thank you,” he said, looking at her. “Why did you give these to me?”

“You said you were hungry. Usually when your guests complain of hunger, it is polite to feed them something.” Lord, she was sounding like her mother now.

“That works.” He reached into the container and plucked out one of the cakes. It was a bite-sized treat, so he popped it into his mouth, his finger delicately. A smile of satisfaction broke across his face. “These are really good.” When he smiled, the corners turned up in a feline way that Hyora found quite amusing. The ice prince wasn’t an ice prince at all, but a cat.

“Why are you grinning stupidly at me?” he demanded.

Well, he had a cat’s temper, too. “I can’t take you seriously seeing you like that.” If her mother were here, she would be screaming bloody murder. Hyora could care less what her mother thought, though. “We both know this is just an arranged marriage, so I’m not going to pretend to like you if I don’t. One of those giggly girls can have you.”

She wasn’t sure how she was expecting him to react to this declaration, but his reply surprised her. “That’s the most honest anyone has been with me in a while. Thank you.”

In fact, virtually nothing about this entire encounter was going in a way she had predicted, and perhaps that was what emboldened Hyora to do what she did next. She walked over to him, looked him in the eye, and asked, “Could I interest you in joining a conspiracy?”