I now understand why the other women returned looking thoroughly gutted. It’s all I can do to rejoin the luncheon table with grace and, when I reach it, Prince Emory is already escorting Nicoletta Graff away, their arms linked together. One by one, he returns only long enough to sweep the next woman away, until only I remain at the table. At first I hope it means the others have been dismissed, but when none return, I know it must be because he’s simply sending them on their way afterwards.

  It’s a pity she died birthing you. The words echo in my head and tear at some fragile piece left in my heart. Skies, I might not make it out of this intact.

  Sweat threats my brow as midday grows steadily into late afternoon without a cloud to spare me from its mounting heat. At least the pergola and its flowers offer some shade, but the clematis’s aroma has grown nauseatingly sweet. My stiff bodice itches, and the muscles in my back ache from sitting perfectly poised at the edge of my chair.

  Boots crunch up the steps.

  Emory appears from the terrace below and a rare breeze tosses his blonde hair. He’s removed his tailcoat and wears only his billowing, pleated white shirt and crimson waistcoat.

  I rise to face him, strangely relieved he isn’t like Abel. Better to hear him coming.

  “Lady Aubrey,” Prince Emory says, his voice a smooth tenor.

  “Your Highness.” I dip in a deep crusty, eyes downcast.

  He extends a hand, his smile warm. “Would you join me for a stroll?”

  “Of course.” I curve my lips into a demure smile. Though I slip my hand in his, I linger and wait for him to pull me to him. Men like to think they are the leaders, my stepmother has said so many times, that they hold the cards. You must give him the deck, he need never know it prearranged.

  He does just that and pulls me into the crook of his arm. We descend the terraced steps towards the gardens and hedge maze below. The light breeze tickles my exposed legs as every step parts my dress’s long side slits.

  At the next terraced landing, we pass a large lounger sofa with rumpled cushions—had he sat there with the other women?

  Prince Emory flashes me his charming, boyish smile and makes no move to lead me to it. Instead, we descend another set of steps to the next terrace and towards the maze. “You look stunning.”

  I force a bashful smile, as if I’m wowed by such flattery, and pretend I haven’t overheard him using that compliment for every other woman he’s plucked from the luncheon table. “You’re too kind.”

  His smile broadens. “I simply call it as I see it. How are you enjoying your afternoon?”

  “I’m enjoying it very much.” I’d only spent hours in the blazing sun and terrorized by his mother. It’s been a lovely day. Skies, I mentally shake myself for my terrible attitude. I can’t blame him for his scripted words. He has to choose the next queen.

  He pats my hand on his arm and flashes me another grin as we descend into the hedge maze.

  “The place and the grounds are magnificent,” I say, just loud enough for him to hear, but quiet enough to invite him closer. “How are you enjoying all of this… excitement?” I purposefully stumble over the last word to allow him room for interpretation.

  He pulls me closer against him, just like Clara said he would, and dips his head towards me with a confessing sigh. “Honestly, it’s more than I was expecting.”

  “How so?” A fly buzzes irritatingly near my ear and it’s all I can do to not swat it away.

  “I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be so much work—Not that spending time with you is work,” he stammers, “or with any of the women—” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. I suspect someone has advised him not to mention other women when he’s with one.

  I smile and gently squeeze his arm through his shirt’s silken fabric. I’ve been doing this work for the past eight years. “Please, Your Highness, I know what you mean. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to manage this with all your other duties. I’m sure it’s incredibly challenging.”

  “Nothing I can’t handle.” He sets his shoulders back and smirks over his cheekbones at me. As if he is of utmost importance. Not like Abel, who looked directly into my eyes as if I’m just as significant as he.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Skies, I cannot be thinking of that man at a time like this.

  “Do you remember when you lived here?” Prince Emory asks as we round a bend in the maze.

  Blooming tulips, daffodils, and the occasional iris intersperse the hedges and shrubbery. When we were children, we’d played games in this maze. Sometimes hide and seek. Sometimes we’d pretend it was a massive labyrinth we had to work together to escape. I drag my gaze up to his. “Do I remember hunting acres with stones and mud bombs? Of course I remember.”

  He laughs, a big open laugh full of youth. “Ah, yes, those dreadful ogres! I’ve forgotten about those brutes.”

  We round a turn into the expansive center of the maze and I can hear the trickle of a fountain—probably the same one I’d heard speaking with the Queen—but I dare not tear my gaze from him to admire it.

  Here he pauses and brushes a strand of hair back from my face, his fingertips grazing my temple and the patch of gold I know shimmers there. “I’m glad you remember.”

  I close my eyes against the chill his touch evokes. I’ve known this was coming. To be touched. To belong to someone else. Yet somehow I haven’t prepared myself for it to feel so very real. “How could I forget?”

  His fingers slide down to the gold under the angle of my jaw and over the delicate golden skin of my neck. “I saved you for last so that I can spend the most time with you.”

  I can barely breathe. I force my eyes open and gaze up at him. “You did?”

  His lids are heavy and his gaze settles low on my lips, my neck. “I would love to bring you here again sometime. This maze has an especially… beautiful quality at night.”

  Lilianna’s books are filled with romantic trysts in garden mazes and the connection sends a shudder through me. I’ve prepared my words and expressions. But… my body?

  His smile widens, and his fingertips glide down to the vulnerable golden skin of my collarbone. He steps closer, bringing with him a mix of lavender and tobacco, intermingled with the metallic tang of something else in the air I can’t quite place. “You are so beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper, struggling to keep the waver out of my voice. My body hums. Alive, itching to move—to jump away or move closer, I’m not sure. Another fly buzzes by my ear and I incompletely stifle an involuntary jerk.

  His mouth descends upon mine, hot and rough. He sucks in my bottom lip and a lance of pain makes me gasp. His tongue takes advantage of my parted lips and thrusts into my mouth as his hand descends from my collarbone, over my breast, and around my waist to pull me hard against him.

  My pulse explodes as my body twitches in a chaotic mix of nerves and heat. I feel three steps behind, unsure how to kiss someone like this. I’ve only ever kissed that servant boy from Venon’s land, a sweet and delicate thing that’d ended as soon as he caught sight of my gold and ran.

  Prince Emory sucks on my bottom lip again, only to rip away, eliciting another twang of pain. He drags his mouth, moist and biting, across my jaw and down my neck. His free hand fists in my hair to angle my head back.

  I glance around the maze. Someone might see. My nerves spark even more to find we’re alone. That little fly zips across my vision again, dragging my attention towards a fountain built against the mountain spire and half obscured by an ornamental shrub—was the water… crimson?

  “Your Highness,” I rasp, the bite of the Prince’s fingers into my hip suddenly distant.

  Above the fountain’s pool hangs a corpse, eyes bulging, face pale as if every ounce of blood has drained into that fountain. Though it hangs by a thick rope, a gash gapes open at the neck and dark stains run down its front.

  Plink… plink… plink… Red liquid drips off the man’s shoe into the water below.

  Blood.

  “Call me Emory,” he murmurs, his breath blazing hot on my neck.

  “Emory, there’s a body.” A body like the one I saw laid across the carriage on the side of the High Road. Nausea swirls in my gut. More carnage from the rebels Abel commands. Monsters.

  Just two nights ago, I sat beside one. I cannot forget they are monsters.

  Prince Emory jerks back and follows my gaze. His face blanches white. “Guards!”

  Beside the fountain, vines that clearly once covered the spire’s wall have been ripped away to exposed words painted in bloody streaks:

  Never forget the slaughtered innocent.

  The High Guard storms into the maze, followed by a half-dozen guards. He scans the scene and his brows knit together as his gaze fixes on the ground.

  More blood splatters across the pavers leading up to the fountain—no, more words. Names. Dozens, maybe hundreds of names cover the ground in jerky, bloody streaks. How did we not notice? I look down and, beneath my heeled slipper, one name glares up at me: William Gallant.

  My father.

  Something snaps in my chest, and my knees buckle.

  Prince Emory catches me and pulls my face against his chest. He turns me away from the scene, but the image remains burns into the backs of my eyes, no matter how tightly I squeeze them shut. Cold sweeps in one fluid wave down my body, tugging at the back of my skull and sending my head throbbing and spinning.

  A cool bite of metal chainmail catches my opposite elbow as a guard—no, the scarred High Guard—loops an arm around my waist. Rahiid Venon’s lips purse, his expression a mix of pity and determination. He says something, but everything is muffled and garbled.

  Together, he and the Prince pull me towards the maze’s exit. I try to make my legs move, but they only wobble numbly. My father. Why had they named my father? His death was my fault—are the rebels threatening me? Why not just kill me on the roof when Abel had ample opportunity?

  More guards flood past, joined by the Queen and King.

  “Damn them,” Queen Ophelia snarls. “How did they get in here?”

  I glance over my shoulder as I’m half guided—mostly carried—up the steps, just in time to see King Giraldus stop at the stone I stood at moments before. He stares down at my father’s name.

  “Ophelia,” the king says, his voice so low I can barely make it out. “Why would they put Will’s name on this stone?”

  “What are you talking about?” the Queen asks, spinning away from the corpse to face her husband. The color drains from her face.

  He stares at his wife. “Why is Will’s name on this damned stone?”

  And then I’m out of the maze, and I can hear nothing at all over the roar of guard boots rushing past us.