During my late-midday meal break, I found him in the palace gardens, bent over a bunch of wilting lavender, exacerbating his severe back hunch while working his weakened plant magic through arthritic fingers.
After shoving one of the meat pies I’d pilfered from the princess’s untouched tray into his hand, I’d happily handled the spell myself.
Afterward, as we ate our meat pies together, I’d been so excited to make him promises about what would happen when I took over his job the next morn.
“I’ve been reading about medicinal herbs,” I told him. “I’ve already talked to the palace healer, and he’s agreed to let me plant a garden behind his cottage. There’s a plant calledmellurathat can be turned into a paste we can rub on your hands to help with the pain.”
My father, who’d never learned to read, let out a proud chuckle at my ideas. “What I must have done right in my past lifetimes for Sylvos to bless me with a daughter like you.”
“Faster, Princess. Let’s not keep the king waiting!” the brown goat’s voice dissipates the memory.
But not the responsibility. I have to get back to Aralysse!
But how…?
I scan my surroundings, searching for anything—anything—that might serve as a weapon as we move down a hallway lit only by the occasional torch jutting from uneven sconces. But the space is so vast, so echoing and endless, it feels less like a hallway and more like a hall.
Having visited a few other castles in the Stone Realm as Princess Seraphyne’s handmaiden, I suspect it doubles as a place for balls and other events.
Like rituals that involve slitting your new bride’s throat.
I gulp when I spot a raised dais, which appears to be an altar to the Moon God Eryx, sitting smack in the middle of the space. The structure is carved from dark stone so smooth it almost reflects the orange flicker of the torch. Etchings crawl across its surface in deep, jagged lines, like veins or old scars, all converging on a basin at its center. It’s shallow but large enough to fit a dead human body.
This is definitely the kind of place you’d choose to marry someone whose throat you were planning on slicing open right after.
My skin prickles, and my stomach turns at the thought of my short 25 years on this planet ending like that.
And before I can stop myself, I grab one of the burning torches off the wall. Then I whirl on the goats, swinging it in awide arc. Not to hurt them—moons, no. I just need them tothinkI might.
“Ho!” the older brown goat says, rearing back along with his fellow escort. “What do you think you’re doing with that, Princess?”
No idea!My sudden move is fueled by pure desperation and not much else.
But I cut around the goats and start putting together a skeleton of a getaway plan as I make a run back toward the still-open entrance.
Maybe I can hide in the shadows outside. In a bright-white dress. Wait until sunsrise and make my way down the mountain. And across the vast wasteland. In the soft shoes all Aralysse servants are required to wear so as not to scuff the palace floors.
Whatever!
My panicking brain doesn’t care about reason. Only about getting out of this scary, horrible, fake-princess-killing nightmare and back to my widowed father, who needs me.
But just as I reach the entrance, the massive doors slam shut with a thunderous clap.
“I suppose we will have to do this the hard way," a voice says from somewhere above. It’s strange and dark.
Behind me, both of the goats bray in a way that no longer sounds amused. “Apologies, Sovereign. We didn’t mean to disturb you!”
Sovereign? Who is he speaking to?
In front of me, shadows twist and writhe, coalescing into a monstrous form.
My heart gives out in an instant, my legs weakening beneath me.
And then?—
BLACK.
Who knows how much time later, I’m waking up again with a parched throat and another terrible headache.
