"So," Kira said, swinging their joined hands lightly between them. "Did you enjoy it?"

Now they were walking away from the noodles stall, hand in hand, moving down a quieter path where the market noise had softened behind them.

The bowls were enormous, the broth was deep and rich and slightly spicy, and Derek had eaten every last drop without once admitting that he was enjoying it.

He kept his eyes ahead. "It was... adequate. It was just there."

Kira turned to look at him with a knowing expression, squinting at him. "Just there."

"Yes."

"You ate everything."

"I was hungry."

"You asked him for extra broth, Derek."

"The bowl had too many noodles and not enough liquid. I was correcting the ratio."

Kira pressed her lips together to hold the smile back, which was a completely losing battle. "Right. So if I suggested we go back sometime, you would say?"

He was quiet for a moment and then shrugged. "I didn’t say it was inedible."

"High praise from the King."

"I said what I said."

She was openly grinning now, nudging him with her shoulder. "Admit it. You liked it. Three words. That is all I need."

Derek exhaled through his nose. "I would," he said eventually, "eat it a second time."

Kira threw her head back and laughed. "I knew it! I absolutely knew it!"

"Don’t make it a thing."

"It is already a thing. It is the most wonderful thing."

He shook his head, but the corner of his mouth had betrayed him slightly.

They walked on, and Kira launched into a story about university. Jessica, apparently, had once convinced her to enter a poetry slam competition under a fake name after two glasses of wine, and Kira had won, and then had to collect the prize while pretending to be someone called Marguerite Jones from the literature department.

"You performed under a false name," Derek said.

"In my defence, it was Jessica’s idea."

"That defence does not hold."

"I won, though." She held up a finger. "I’d like that on the record. Marguerite won first place."

"Marguerite," he repeated.

"She was a very talented poet."

"You are a deeply strange woman."

"Thank you."

He actually smiled at that.

Inside his head, something quiet was happening. Derek could not pinpoint when this evening had become what it was. He had come outside planning to drive her somewhere reasonable and return at a sensible hour.

He had ended up in a photo booth wearing a headband with stars on it. He had shot carnival targets with military precision and watched his wife distribute oversized stuffed animals to crying children.

He had run through a market laughing. He had stood in a hidden alley with her face inches from his and felt the world go completely still.

He could not remember when he had last felt this. This particular lightness. Something that had no name in the vocabulary he had built for himself over the years, because his vocabulary had never needed a word for it.

He was still turning the thought over when he heard music somewhere ahead, it was faint but distinct, a melody with a strong beat underneath it, and voices, many of them, rising and falling in the way crowds did when they were watching something that had their full attention.

Kira’s head came up immediately.

"Oh," she said, and her face did something that made Derek brace himself. "Oh, I completely forgot this was this weekend."

"What is?" he asked, already suspicious.

"The fertility festival." She was already walking faster, pulling him gently by the hand. "It’s an old human tradition they do every year. Dancing competitions, street performers, and food. Couples who win the partner dance get a double prize." She glanced at him. "Come on, let’s just go and watch."

He went, because stopping her when her face looked like that was a project he did not have the energy for.

The venue opened up at the end of the path, a wide cobblestone square strung with lights and packed with people standing in a loose ring around a performance space in the centre.

A group of young women were dancing, moving in confident formations to a drumbeat that carried across the whole square.

Kira immediately weaved through the crowd, pulling Derek behind her with the determination of a very small tugboat, until they were standing at the front.

Derek positioned himself directly behind her, arms folded, watching the crowd with automatic vigilance.

Kira was already clapping.

She cheered the dancers with genuine, full-throated enthusiasm, throwing small handfuls of confetti from a nearby basket, her voice rising with the crowd at every impressive turn.

When the winner was announced, a young woman who had done something technically extraordinary with her footwork in the final section, the square erupted, and Kira erupted with it.

Derek clapped twice, which for him was practically a standing ovation.

Then the announcer called for couples.

"No," Derek said immediately.

"We’re a couple," Kira said, turning to face him.

"Kira."

"A legally married couple, in fact. Very official."

"No."

"Derek, are you afraid I’ll outshine you on the dance floor?"

He looked down at her, his competitive streak flaring to life by her smug expression. "I would destroy you on a dance floor."

Her eyes lit up. "Prove it."

"A King cannot be seen dancing at a human street festival."

She scrunched her nose. "You are wearing a cap and a tee. No one has recognised you all evening. Stop making excuses."

He opened his mouth, but the music started. Kira grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, and Derek, muttering something under his breath that he would not repeat in polite company, followed her onto the cobblestones, telling himself it was only for one night, only because she would be unbearable about it otherwise.

Then the beat found its footing and something in him simply responded to it, the way it always had since he was a boy. He began to move.

Kira had expected to carry them both. She had been prepared to compensate for him, to drag him through the basic steps and call it good. What she was not prepared for was Derek catching the rhythm in the first four counts and then doing something with his body that made her lose her own footing for a full second.

He was effortless. The way he moved was quiet and confident, the same way he did everything, with no performance and no wasted effort, but there was a looseness in it that she had never seen in him before.

He caught her waist, turned her out, pulled her back in. He moved his shoulders with a rhythm that rolled through him naturally, and when he caught her hand and spun her outward, the crowd around them went up in an uproar.

Kira recovered and threw herself into it, matching him, grinning so hard her cheeks hurt, and what had started as her pulling him onto the floor became something that belonged to both of them equally.

When it ended, they were both breathing faster, and the announcer was already reaching for his microphone.

"Our winners, ladies and gentlemen!"

The square cheered as someone pressed a small envelope of prize money and two ribbons into Kira’s hands, and she held them up with delight.

Then the tempo of the music changed. The fast beat folded into something slower.

Couples drifted into the centre of the square, drawing close, finding each other’s hands.

Derek and Kira looked at each other. He held out his hand and she took it.

She stepped into him, his hand settling at her back, and they began to move in the slow, easy way the music asked for, turning gently in the small space they had claimed between other couples.

"Where did you learn to dance like that?" she asked, tilting her head back to look at his face.

"Dancing class," he said. "I was about nine. My mother enrolled me."

"Did you like it?"

He was quiet for a moment. "I used to dance whenever I was struggling with something. It was easier than talking."

She did not push further. She just filed it away quietly, that piece of him, offered without being asked for.

They spoke about small things after that. Inconsequential, easy things that had no weight to them, the kind of conversation that existed just to fill a warm space between two people.

In that moment, as Kira twirled in his arms, she knew her heart was beginning to betray her. She was beginning to fall for him. Not the enemy king that had terrorised most of her childhood, but the man behind that kingly armour, the one whose laughter lit up his entire face, and made the night beautiful.

For the boy who had shrunk into a shell after losing everything he loved.

"Derek, I know my father was the traitor who orchestrated your people’s massacre," she finally whispered.

His body tensed a fraction.

"I know how hurt you are, but I also want to know the truth, Derek. Why did you marry me?"

Derek’s hand didn’t loosen on her. "Why do you want to know that, Kira?"

"I just want to know," she whispered.

He shook his head. "I don’t even know anymore. Maybe I made a mistake. But I wanted to take away something that Rolf cherished so much."

She stared quietly at him. There was no coldness in his eyes, only a warmth that caught her off guard. Something she had not seen before.

Then, she chuckled. "It’s funny. You wanted to take away Rolf’s most cherished thing and ended up with his most hated daughter."

He smiled slowly. "Fate has a twisted sense of humour, doesn’t it?"

Kira smiled. "It does."

His hand moved up of its own accord, curling around her jaw, and turning her face towards his.

And without thinking, he leaned down and captured her lips with his.