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There are a hundred times and a hundred ways for him to fall in love with her. For her, there is only ever one.
He falls in love with her the first time she beats him in a game, though it is only of boards and pegs, not of countries and men. He falls in love with her the day she tames her wild, shining hair with braids and combs and pins, and he sees the Queen she will be inside the softness of a Princess. He falls in love with her when he learns about the second, secret smile she has--not the smooth practiced doll’s smile she presents to the world, but the smothered laugh, the head ducked aside, when true pleasure finds her. He falls in love with her for the glide of her fingertips across the harp strings and for the whiteness of her knuckles as she grips a rapier hilt. He falls in love with her on green fields strewn with flowers, and he falls in love with her in dreams where the desert is everything, and she is the goddess of his desolation.
The only moment when she ever falls in love with him is the moment when the executioner’s blade gleams like a ruby. His eyes are always on her, and in that moment, she always knows.