And so she told them. Not everything at once—she couldn’t. But enough. She told them about her parents: her father’s warmth, her mother’s cold beauty. She spoke of her father’s death, how they never found the killer, and of her mother’s protection that felt more like a cage. Her voice grew flatter as she reached the next part.
Their reactions were not as shocked as she had expected. She was sure by now they suspected she was not being truthful about her past, but she thought the revelation that she was a princess might cause more of a stir.
She told them about the ball that never was for her—the corset laces drawn tighter and tighter until blackness took her. The gift of a comb, encrusted with gems from their mines, too pretty to be trusted. The sting and the plunge into sleep. She hesitated, then went on. She spoke of waking in the forest with a knife at her throat and Hunter’s breath hot on her ear. Of the way he’d called her Liora in the dark. She didn’t give them details. She didn’t need to. The way her hand unconsciously went to her ribs, the way her mouth trembled on the word “virginity,” painted enough.
“I escaped,” she said. “I ran. I rode until I thought Grimm’s legs would give out, and then I rode some more. I thought we’d die out there. Instead…” She spread her hands toward them. “Instead, I found you.” She looked at each of them in turn. “You fed me,” she said. “You taught me to cook, sew, and clean, to care for myself and for others, to feel safe, to feel loved.” I was afraid if I said my real name, you’d be wary of me. You’d send me away before the queen’s guard could come and for you. I’m not just a runaway stable girl,” Shay said. “I’m a fugitive princess with a mother who would poison her own daughter. If she ever findsout I’m alive…” She shrugged, trying to make it seem lighter than it felt.
Dax’s face had gone very still. “You think she might?” he said.
Shay started, “I trusted Hunter. I’ve known him my whole life. He’s like a brother or an uncle to me. But his loyalty has always been to her. If she pries the truth out of him, she’ll know. And if she knows, she’ll come.”
A muscle jumped in Gage’s jaw. “Let her,” he muttered.
The table was quiet. Then Harry reached across and took her hand. “We wouldn’t have sent you away,” he said simply. “Not then. Not now.”
“Even knowing what this means?” she asked. “What this brings down on you? The danger you could be in?”
Bennett’s fingers curled around hers on the table. “You’re not a burden,” he said. “You’re… the best thing that’s happened to this place.”
Silas shrugged. “I’m glad you kept the truth from us,” he said. “Too much excitement for me.”
Dax exhaled slowly. “We won’t pretend this isn’t serious. If she comes, she won’t come alone. And we’re miners, not trained soldiers with horses and swords. But we’re strong, we know how to fight, and we know these woods.”
“We’ll do more than that,” Gage said darkly. “If she tries to take you, she’ll have to go through all of us. And Grimm.”
“Yea and he bites,” Harry added. They laughed, the tension easing a fraction.
“Still,” Dax said. “Until then, we’re not going to make it easy for her. Or anyone.” He looked at Shay. “From now on, when we’re at the mine, you stay close to the cottage or the stream. No wandering or riding off. If someone you don’t know comes near, you run to us.”
Shay nodded. “I understand.”
“And Snow—I mean, Shay—don’t talk to strangers,” Harry added.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not a child.”
“Queens don’t tend orchards themselves,” Dax said. “But they do send others to do their dirty work.”
The reminder sent a thin bolt of dread through her, quickly smothered by the warmth of their concern.
She felt… lighter, having told them. Saying “Shay” at the table, saying “princess,” and “queen,” and “murder,” aloud had been like putting down a weight she’d been carrying alone. Her relief, she realized, was not just in rebuilding herself. It was in letting others see the cracks and choosing who helped her hold them together.
Faraway,inthewoods, a farmer’s cart creaked along a narrow path. Liora’s disguise was simple but effective: a shapeless dress that hid her curves, a scarf tied low to shadow her face, and her hands stained with a little dirt from the produce basket. No one looking at her would see a queen. Under the straw, wrapped in cloth, nestled the weapon she’d crafted. The corset had merely stolen her breath for a while, just buying time, keeping her out of sight until she could craft a poison. But she must have gotten it wrong, the elixir. The comb’s poison was too weak. It had only put her to sleep for a short time. This time, it won’t be a nap. This time, there won’t be room for doubt. No reliance on a man to do a woman’s work. A sleep that lasts forever. She had consulted apothecaries and hedge-witches in secret, trading fine jewels for knowledge. She’d tested tinctureson mice, then on condemned prisoners in the dark of the dungeons.
She’d settled on the apple. An innocuous thing. Symbol of health, of harvest, of simple peasant life. She’d coated a single fruit—shiny, red, perfect—with a distillation of everything she’d learned. A poison designed not to stop a heart outright, but to sink into the veins and send the victim to a lifetime slumber. If Snow White slept forever, she could not surpass her. A sleeping girl doesn’t threaten one’s power. “Sleep,” Liora muttered, reins in one hand, the other resting briefly on the basket. “If I can’t erase you, I will freeze you in time.”
She hadn’t wanted to bring Hunter. She didn’t need him, she’d decided that. But habit was a stubborn thing, and she wanted eyes in the woods besides her own. She had banished him from her presence. She was finished with him. But she had not forbidden him from following. She knew him well enough to know he would.
Behind her, just out of sight, a brown horse moved through the trees as quietly as a man of Hunter’s size could manage. He watched her back, jaw set. He told himself he followed to protect her. From wolves. From bandits. From herself. The truth lay somewhere harder: he didn’t know who he was without her. Hunter’s heart pounded as he followed Liora into the dark woods, hidden just behind the furthest tree, waiting for a moment he could redeem himself.
Chapter twenty-one
Take A Bite
Themorningbeganlikeany other. The men rose before dawn, the cottage a blur of half-awake grumbles and the soft thud of boots hitting the floor. Shay moved among them by habit, pressing mugs of thin coffee into hands, slapping bread onto plates, nudging Silas when he threatened to fall asleep upright. “Eat,” she told him.
“Bossy,” he muttered, but he took the crust she held out.
Dax checked the straps on his belt, the shine on his lamp, the state of his gloves. Silas tossed a heavy coil of climbing rope toward Gage to carry. Gage caught it instinctively, but then his hands froze on the rough hemp. He stared at the fibers for a long, sickened heartbeat before shoving the coil violently to the bottom of his pack, as if the mere thought of what he did burned him. Harry hummed a tune under his breath, trying to lift the lingering weight in the room after Shay’s confession a few days before. Gage paced near the door, restless as ever, like a big dog itching to get loose. Shay leaned back against the table for a moment, watching them. They felt closer now. Knowing they knew who she was—whatshe was—and had chosen to let herstay had settled something in her bones. The bonds between them felt stronger, less like tethers, more like a net.
