I sank down onto the window seat, my legs still too weak to support me for long periods, my eyes finding the stars as I entered the memories. It only made my chest hurt more, but I was too tired to deny him tonight. On this, at least.
“Her name was Isabeau Dubois,” I said softly, speaking of myself as if she were someone else entirely. In many ways, she was. “She lived in a village called Thorndale, along the edge of your kingdom’s reach, but still guarded well.”
I turned and watched his face as I began my story, looking for the moment when polite interest would become dismissal. Men like Prince Alain—men born to wealth and power—rarely cared about the lives of peasant girls once the novelty wore off.
“Thorndale,” he repeated, leaning against the wall by the door. “I know it. Small place, almost forgotten at the kingdom’s border. We sent supplies there last winter.”
I nodded, surprised he knew of it at all. “It’s not much. A collection of cottages that huddle together like old women gossiping after church. But it was home.”
My gaze drifted back to the window, to the stars that were the same ones that had watched over my childhood. “My father was the village inventor. He built things to make people’s lives easier. Mills that ground grain with half the effort, looms that could be operated by one person instead of two. Nothing magical,” I added quickly, “just clever. Everyone respected him for his mind. He’d often tell me why work harder when one simply had to work smarter.”
I smiled, a hum on my lips.
“And your mother?” Alain asked when I fell silent.
“She died when I was fourteen,” I said, the old grief muted by time and newer sorrows. “Fever took her during a harsh winter. Before that, she tended an herb garden and made tonics for the sick. She was...” I searched for words that could capture her essence. “She was kindness in human form. She saw beauty in everything, even death. Especially death. She said nature was our truest ally, never betraying a soul needing it.”
I remembered her final days, how she’d marveled at the frost patterns on the window as if they were the most precious art. How she’d said that dying was just another journey, one she’d make alone but wouldn’t fear. I’d hated her serenity then. Now I understood it better.
“After she died, I kept up her garden. Expanded it, actually. Learned which plants could heal and which could harm. I wanted to become an apothecary, to carry on her work, if the laws changed for a woman to own.” I smiled faintly at the memory of my younger self’s ambitions. “Papa encouraged me. Said I had my mother’s green thumb and her compassion, too.”
Alain had moved slightly closer while I spoke, drawn in by the story or perhaps just trying to hear my softly spoken words better. “You made medicines?”
“Tonics, mostly. For coughs and fevers and women’s monthly pains. Common poisons. Nothing fancy. We didn’t have access to exotic ingredients in Thorndale.” I twisted a lock of hair around my finger, a habit from childhood that resurfaced in moments of vulnerability. “I never charged for them. Mama always said a life was worth saving, not holding against their loved ones for riches.”
“A rare philosophy,” the prince commented, and I couldn’t tell if he meant it as praise or criticism.
“It served us well enough. People paid in other ways when they could. Eggs, fresh bread, and others mending Papa’s clothes when they tore.” I shrugged. “We weren’t rich, but we never went hungry.”
The memory of those simple exchanges—healing given freely, gratitude returned in kind—made my heart ache for the uncomplicated life I’d once had. Before sacrifice and curse and princes in beast form had rewritten my story.
“I had a friend,” I continued, the words flowing more easily now. “Colette. We grew up side by side, shared everything. Secrets, dreams, fears.” I laughed softly, the sound strange in the quiet room. “We used to take walks to the edge of the village and talk about which of the local boys might make tolerable husbands someday.”
I fell silent then, the mention of potential husbands suddenly striking too close to the heart of everything that had changed. To the claiming mark on my shoulder and the three princes who had placed it there.
Alain noticed my abrupt pause. “And did you find any of them tolerable?” he asked, a strange edge to his voice.
“No,” I admitted. “They all seemed... lacking somehow. Too simple. Too predictable. Too focused on my...” I gestured vaguely at my face and body. “Well, people always noticed my looks first. I was declared the beauty of the village, but none cared for anything else about me. My mind was secondary, if they bothered to notice it at all.”
“Beauty can be its own curse,” Alain murmured, and for a moment, I wondered if he actually understood from his own.
“It’s a currency you didn’t ask to trade in,” I agreed. “One that others value more than you do yourself.”
Something passed between us then, a moment of genuine connection that caught us both by surprise. I looked away first, unsettled by how easily he had slipped past my guard.
“How did you end up where I found you?” he asked, bringing us back to the question I’d been avoiding.
I took a deep breath, steadying myself for the part of my story that still had the power to wound. “My father was taken as the Harvest Moon sacrifice to the forest.”
The words hung in the air between us, heavy with implications I knew the prince would understand. In a world where women couldn’t inherit property or trade without male permission, a father’s absence left his daughter with painfully few options.
“The sacrifice is a town draw of family crests. Once the family is drawn, they must choose amongst them who will die.”
“So your father sent himself.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t come of age until the next day. By law, I could not be chosen.”
“And you were left alone, barely of age,” Alain said quietly.
