We turned a corner into a hallway lined with portraits, each one grander than the last. Generations of Legrands stared down at us with varying degrees of severity, all bearing Alain’s distinctive features. Those ice-blue eyes, the strong jaw, the aristocratic nose that made me weak in the knees.
And then I saw her.
I stopped so abruptly that Alain nearly stumbled, my hand tightening on his arm as if I needed the support. The portrait before us was smaller than the others, featuring a young woman with blonde hair and a secretive smile. But it was her eyes that arrested me—amber, just like mine, burning with an inner light that no artist’s pigment could truly capture.
“Odette,” I whispered, the name emerging unbidden from some place I couldn’t identify.
Alain’s body went rigid beneath my touch. “Yes,” he said cautiously. “My sister. You... recognize her?”
I stared into those painted eyes, searching for why they seemed to call to me across time and canvas. Something about her was familiar in a way that defied explanation. Not just the shared eye color—plenty of people had unusual eyes—but something deeper. A connection that hummed like a plucked string.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, unable to look away. “I feel like I should know her. Like she’s someone I’ve met in a dream.”
“She disappeared eleven years ago, you would’ve been seven,” Alain said quietly, studying my face. “No trace was ever found. My mother has never given up hope, especially after...”
He trailed off, but I knew what he wasn’t saying. After finding me, with the same amber eyes, emerging from the same forest that had swallowed his sister. The coincidence was too perfect to be accident, yet I had no memory of Odette Legrand beyond the strange certainty that I should know her.
“I’m sorry,” I said, finally tearing my gaze from the portrait. “I wish I had answers for you.”
His expression softened, a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes curving his lips. “Perhaps they’ll come with time. For now, we should proceed before my mother sends out a search party.”
We continued down the hall, but I could feel Odette’s painted eyes following us, asking questions I couldn’t answer. The sense of wrongness—of pieces failing to align properly—lingered as we approached the grand dining hall, its doors thrown open to reveal a room that sparkled with candlelight and silver.
Three figures awaited us inside, their conversation halting as we crossed the threshold. The king and queen I recognized immediately. He with the same bearing as his son but grayer, sterner. She with the silver-streaked blonde hair and sharp gaze I’d encountered outside the infirmary. But the third figure was new to me, a man who could only be Alain’s older brother. Luckily, Brigida informed me of the first child. Alain didn’t talk about him much.
Prince Theron was taller than Alain, broader through the shoulders, with the same dark hair and blue eyes that marked all Legrand men. But where Alain’s gaze held warmth when he looked at me, Theron’s eyes swept over my body with the calculating assessment of a man pricing livestock.
I stiffened involuntarily, an old, ugly memory surfacing of another man who had looked at me that way, more than the others. Gaspard, standing in my father’s doorstep the day after the sacrifice, informing me that he’d be taking me in now that I was alone in the world.
Alain must have felt my tension. His arm tightened beneath my hand, his body shifting subtly to place himself between me and his brother’s gaze. The protective gesture made something in my chest ache with unexpected gratitude.
“Your Majesties,” I said, dropping into the deepest curtsy Brigida had hastily taught me that afternoon. “I am honored by your invitation.”
“Rise, child,” the queen said, her voice warmer than it had been in the hallway. “We are the ones who are honored. You saved a man dear to our family when our own physicians could not.”
I straightened, careful to keep my head at an angle that wouldn’t expose more of my shoulder. “I was happy to help after Prince Alain saved my life. It seemed a fair exchange.”
King Geraint laughed, the sound booming in the cavernous room. “She has spirit, Alain. No wonder you’ve been hiding her away.”
“I haven’t been hiding her, Father,” Alain said, a hint of irritation coloring his tone. “Isabeau has been recovering from severe malnourishment and imprisonment.”
“And yet she looks remarkably... healthy now,” Theron interjected, his gaze lingering on the swell of my breasts visible above the gown’s neckline. “One might even say blooming.”
Heat crawled up my neck that had nothing to do with flattery and everything to do with humiliation. My body wasn’t meant to be discussed like produce at a market. Before I could form a response that wouldn’t get me thrown in the dungeons forinsulting a crowned prince, Alain’s hand moved to the small of my back, steady and reassuring.
“Perhaps we should be seated,” he suggested, his voice tight with barely suppressed anger. “I’m sure Isabeau is still building her strength.”
The queen nodded, gesturing to the elaborately set table. “Of course. Isabeau, please sit here, beside me.”
I took the offered seat, relieved to find Alain placed on my other side, with Theron mercifully positioned across from us. The king sat at the head of the table, his presence commanding even in the simple act of unfolding his napkin.
Servants materialized from the shadows, pouring wine and setting down the first course. Some kind of delicate soup that smelled of saffron and cream. I watched the others, mimicking their movements with silverware I’d never encountered before, grateful for the small lessons in etiquette my father had insisted upon even in our humble cottage.
“Tell me, Isabeau,” the queen said after we’d begun eating, “where did you learn such skill with healing herbs? Thibaut says you knew exactly what to request, even in his dire state.”
I swallowed carefully, aware of how closely I needed to guard my words. “My mother was a healer in our village,” I explained. “She taught me which plants could save and which could harm. After she died, I continued her work, making tonics for those who needed them.”
“A family gift, then,” the queen said, something wistful crossing her features. “In another time, such knowledge might have been called something else.”
