Status Updates From The Courting of Bristol Keats

"This too," he said softly, "getting lost in your eyes, and never finding my way out again. This is what I wanted. I wanted you. I'm sorry I took so long to say it."
"And I'm sorry I didn't tell you that I imagined this very moment at least a hundred times."
"You can stop imagining," he whispered, then kissed her, his mouth tender, and she thought she might weep with the sweetness of it.

"Why tonight?" she finally asked. "Why dance with me now? Only because you're king and can do whatever you want?"
His hand slid lower on her back, tugging her closer. "Yes, because I am king," he answered. "And I'm trying to prove something-and I want them all to know it."

The crowd watched, breathless. "Here? Now?" she whispered. "I don't think-"
"The king of Danu wishes to dance," he answered, again, loud enough so that everyone heard. "With you. Here and now." He waited, his hand still extended.

He pressed her knuckles to his lips, then looked at the pointed blue moons on her naileds. She's definitely not mortalbound.
But what was she?

The season, he told himself repeatedly. But the season had never done this to him before.
There are a hundred women in court who would have you.
But he didn't want them.
He wanted Bristol. Only her. In every way, he wanted her.
It was as simple and as complicated as that.

They still are the enemy. Kierus is still a traitor facing a death sentence. Tell her that if we do find him, he faces the worst punishment Danu reserves for traitors like him? That we have a thousand archers waiting for a chance to put an arrow through Maire's heart? That it's not fucking trows she spent her whole life running from, but us? You think she'd help us then? We can't afford truth."