Page 6 of The Poison Princess and the Lord of Misrule

She sits in a throne slightly smaller than his, slightly lower—and she is nothing like what I expected, either.

I’d heard the rumors around town of her, of her dark dominion and its wicked dealings. In an effort to describe her, the men at the tavern had used the wordbeautiful. They’d also saidsad. Neither word is adequate. Neither word even belongs in the same language as the deity I’m staring at.

The Princess Seravyn is pale and dark-haired and still, carved from something as ethereal as moonlight and misery. She wears a black gown, as if she’s in mourning, as if she arrived in this kingdom grieving a loss. A delicate crown ofdark silver and amethyst sits in her silky hair, and her hands are folded in her lap, calm, motionless—the echo of a girl who’s stopped living.

I stop breathing, the sight of her unmaking me where I stand.

It’s like she’s trying to make herself small enough, quiet enough, where the world might forget her.

Impossible.

Because her eyes… Angels above.

Her eyes are dark and deep and devastating, lined with something smoky that makes them look bruised, and they’re staring straight through me. Down to my gods-damned rotten marrow. So utterly haunted, as though she left herself somewhere far away.

I swallow thickly.

I stop before the base of the dais, the opportunity to pocket the knife lost. I’ve stopped moving. Stopped breathing. The court is watching me. The king is watching me. The steward coughs, a nudge that screamsperform, fool.

I should do something. A joke, a tumble, a cartwheel—anything. I should buy myself enough time to execute a real plan…

Instead, I bow.

It’s not practiced or graceful in the least. Deep and clumsy, one hand pressed over my chest, the bells on my hat jingling in sad little protest. But I’m not bowing to him.

I know somewhere in the trench of mysternum that if this princess ordered me to kneel right now, I’d fall to my knees.

I straighten up and grab my hat before it falls, once again meeting those dark, impossible eyes. Focused for the first time since I entered the room on me. Her expression registers that strange melancholy the flyer claimed always surrounds her.

And I suddenly want nothing more than to banish it, to make her smile.

I truly am a fool, standing here before her in a dead man’s motley with mud on my boots, staring at her like she’s the first breath to enter my lungs in days. The first real thing I’ve seen in ages.

Which, divines help me, she is.

“Well?” the king says, his deep voice thick with wine and amusement. “Get on with it, fool.”

My jaw clenches tight.

The silence stretches. A courtier laughs. Then another. I feel the heat crawl up the back of my neck, and somewhere in the far reaches of my mind, the part still capable of rational thought is screaming at me to make this his very last obeyed order andget on with it.

“I…uh—” I clear my throat. “I had something prepared. It was—” I gesture vaguely, as though I can summon the words from the air. “It was going to be funny.”

More laughter from the court. Notwithme. At me.

“The truth is,” I hear myself say, and my voice has a too raw quality for this gilded room, “I’m not actually a jester.”

The laughter dies out. The king raises one dark eyebrow.

“I bought this motley two days ago with the last coin I had. The bells sound awful. The hat smells like something died in it—and I have reason to believe something, or someone, did.” I tug at the collar, which is fraying. “I can’t juggle. I can’t tumble. I once tried to tell a joke at a tavern and a man threw a potato at my head. Hit me right here.” I point to my temple. “Drew blood. The potato, I mean. Not the joke. The joke just died a lame death.”

No one laughs.

But she—the princess—her lips twitch. Just barely. A flicker at the corner of her pouty mouth, so small I might have imagined it.

And something ignites in my chest. Something reckless.

The court remains silent, glassy eyes staring at me. A ferret-faced man in fine motley near the dais watches with narrowed, beady eyes. The king’s expression has shifted from one of amusement to a hard edge of annoyance. As if he’s trying to decide whether I’m clever or simply—in fact—just a fool.