I look up sharply, my hand freezing over a grape. “That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not,” Daciana insists, her voice carrying the certainty of someone who has access to all the best palace rumors. “I have it on good authority that Seth has been completely single. All the women who’ve approached him have been gently turned away.”
My stomach does something uncomfortable, like all the fruit I just ate is trying to stage a revolt. “Maybe you heard wrong. You know his reputation.”
“The soldiers in the army are betting that he has someone he likes,” Daciana continues, warming to her topic with obvious relish. “Someone he’s keeping secret. From what I’ve heard, it started around the same time we arrived here.”
The grape I’m holding slips from my fingers and rolls across my plate. My mind reels, tryi
