As their song concluded, another stranger entered the hall, this one dressed in a whimsical costume of green and gold. His horned cap had two points accentuated by little bells that matched those on the tips of his pointed shoes, and it took one silly word from his stupid, painted mouth for me to recognize that, at long last, the prince’s promise of a jester had arrived. He went around the room, effectively breaking the ice that had frozen over the dining hall throughout the season, but I prayed he wouldn’t come near me. I watched him dance in front of Winnie, saw the forced smile of amusement from her, and my stomach turned.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I whispered.
Nicolas turned his head.
“Forgive me.” I touched his thigh to appease him, then turned to Queen Adelaide, acknowledging her. “I must take my leave; I think perhaps the stew disagrees with me this evening.”
“The stew?” asked Nicolas.
“Yes, but don’t kill the cooks.”
I got up, making a swift exit for my bedroom. The solitude was enough to calm the torrent of my gut, and as my handmaidens did not anticipate my arrival, I was alone enough to undress by my own hand.
I’d grown clumsy with time. Another set of hands would have hastened the process of removing piece after piece from the complex ensemble. Just as I undressed into my shift, the chamber’s lock turned. I expected to see Winnie, or perhaps Florence, but my heart leapt when neither woman poked their head in.
Nicolas entered with his eyes to the floor, then leaned back against the door so that it shut. When he lifted his gaze, he flinched at the sight of me, dropping his jaw with horror before he turned away.
“I-I did not realize you would be—” he started.
I went for my nightgown, tying it around myself as fire ignited in my veins. “Are we married already?! Is that why you feel comfortable entering my private quarters without so much as a knock?!”
Nicolas was so red he glowed. “That makes one more action I shall have to apologize for.”
Snapping my hand to my hip, I raised a brow and waited. Nicolas eventually managed to look at me again, relieved by that one extra layer of cloth, and pushed from the door.
“I’ve noticed your distance since I had Shaun and Elisa Balden executed.” He’d taken care to name them both, to not smooth over that wrinkle of history. In his stress, he took his hair down from its short ponytail, massaging the place where the bulk of it had been pulled back. “I didn’t heed your request or lend you an ear, and for that, I am sorry. You are my betrothed, and I should at least honor that by hearing you out when you need to speak. Your words are precious few as it is.”
I frowned. It wasn’t an apology for his actions; he was only sorry for upsetting me, and I wasn’t sure if that amended it in the slightest or only scalded the wound.
“What you said at supper about ‘invisible threats’ was…astute,” he continued. He began his characteristic pacing, folding his hands behind his back. His shadow stretched and shrank across my floor with each turn. “It’s been a problem for me since childhood. Even before my uncle, I knew that some people wished me dead. Some tried to act on those wishes. I couldn’t…I couldn’t take the chance again.”
I might’ve dismissed him, if not for the way his fingers trembled against one another and the look that flashed in his eyes. His cruelty was undeniable, but now I saw that it came from a place other than malice. This was a bone-deep fear, a paranoia brought on by the prince’s own curse: his birthright.
I might have been a captive to the prince, but he was in a cage of his own. The castle was a cell we shared.
I’d killed too. For fear, for survival.
For him.
Perhaps I couldn’t forgive the prince; that was Winnie’s role to fulfill, and to Nicolas, she was no more than a mere servant, no one to seek the forgiveness of. But I could understand where he was coming from, at least to some small extent.
“Please,” Nicolas whispered. “I’ve grown used to resentment, expectant of it, but not from you, Alana.”
His hand reached to touch me, but stopped short by a visible fear of my rejection.
“I cannot bear to be hated by you,” he admitted.
“I don’t hate you.”
Nicolas took a step closer, but his hand returned to his thigh. “I can’t go back to a life before you. The world before was dark, blighted. I’d be lost without you.”
I could dismiss him now or walk away, maintaining that wall I’d built between us that protected what little was left of my autonomy. But when I looked at him, I saw another prisoner of circumstances beyond our control.
Perhaps that was enough common ground to build something real upon, even if it had begun with his enchantment.
Knowing what my next words would spark, I swallowed. My hands clammed up at my sides, clenching at my robes with anticipation. “I was a shadow before I met you.”
“Yet you are my light.” Nicolas erased the valley between us. His hands cradled my face and drew me to him with devastating urgency. There were no plots here—only a base need, a condensing of many frustrated weeks spent apart.
