Asrar met her gaze, a question in his eyes. She sighed, knowing that he would never treat her like that. She looked away, chewing on her inner cheek. It was hard not to feel frustrated with this whole thing. Asrar had given up trying to tell her not to feel like this for him, but he still refused to accept her. Instead he merely ignored it, and acted as if nothing ever happened.

"Didst thou need something, my princess?" His voice was quiet, meant only for her. Her eyes snapped back to look into his own. They were like a forest glade filled with suns.h.i.+ne, brilliant and so filled with intelligence.

Hazel shook herself away from getting lost in his eyes, "It's nothing," She glanced down and stirred the food on her plate, feeling a trifle depressed. She wondered what it would be like between them if her nation did not have such heavy bans on magic. Would he be willing to actually entertain thoughts of her as a woman? Or would he fall in love with another woman?

"Princess?" There was a world of confusion in his voice. Why could he not call her by her name, why did he have to always use her t.i.tle?

As she ignored him, he seemed to grow a bit worried, "Thou needst to eat, or else thou will just wither away into nothing."

"What if I don't want to?" Her aggravated feelings seemed to be strangling her. How could she eat when she was feeling like this, as if she was slowly suffocating?

Suddenly her mouth was filled with food, "Eat, princess. Whatever is the matter, thou shouldst not neglect thine health."

Almost choking, she looked at his perfectly straight face. A blush came to her cheeks even though she was pretty sure that he had not even considered the way such an action could be construed. She took her fork back from him and focused on her food, trying to calm her racing heart down.

This was the way Asrar was, always concerned with her wellbeing. It was one of the reasons why she had found it easy to delude herself that he actually had the same feelings that she did. But that was not the case. She wondered what he actually viewed her as. It seemed different from a normal friends.h.i.+p, was definitely not just the role of servant. She found herself worried that he might view her similar to a sister, which she did not at all want.

She comforted herself with the fact that at least it was not just her, he was uninterested in romance as a whole. Which meant that maybe if she could manage to get him interested in that sort of thing, she might stand a chance.

She focused on what was going on with the rest of the table, pulling herself out of her melancholy thoughts. The king and queen were chuckling over Kaldrek and Zylvia's little exhibition of affection, they seemed really pleased about what was going on. Kaldrek had a surprisingly gentle expression on his face as he watched his wife happily eating off of his fork. Zylvia was blus.h.i.+ng and smiling as she accepted her husband's doting. It seemed so peaceful and Hazel could not help but feel like an outsider.

She suddenly found herself missing her brother, who she had not seen in what felt like forever. Heron was a rather wise young man, and she wished she could ask his advice. Of course, even if he was here how would she go about asking such a thing. It was not as if she could tell him that Asrar was a sorcerer, and that was a major part of the problem.

She wondered how her brother was doing. If he was healthy, well as healthy as he had ever been that is. She did not expect him to ever be perfectly healthy as his body had always been weak.

She could not believe that she had been sent away right before he had been going to come home. She wondered if he had changed any, because she knew she had after only being gone a few weeks.