“Who is this?” my daughter asks with curiosity.
And Aldric does something I have never seen him do—He smiles. It is only a ghost of a smile, quick, there and gone, but it steals a breath from me all the same. It changes him; for a heartbeat he looks less like a statue and more like a man.
“My name is Aldric,” he says softly, and he holds out his hand. “I am the prince.”
Mira studies the offered hand as if it might sprout feathers. She takes it, her tiny fingers disappearing in his. “The prince? Like in fairytales?”
“Yes,” he answers, and the syllable gentles. “Like in fairytales.”
She tilts her head. Her eyes are greener in the lamplight; it hurts to see. “Then where is your princess?”
The room is suddenly a bell struck without sound. The Prince clears his throat, stands, and the smile folds away like a cloth after feast. “I will send a healer,” he says, voice returned to iron. He looks once more at Mira, a glance that is almost—almost—gentle. “Rest, little one.”
***
The palace no longer feels like a cage—nor a home. It is simply the air I breathe: perfumed, cold, necessary. The rhythm of its days beats through me until even my dreams hum with thread and silk. Each dawn begins with the hiss of irons, each night ends with my fingertips raw and bright as embers. And still I work.
Lady Seraphine sees to it that I never forget my place.
In the great hall, she floats past on clouds of perfume and spite, her laughter ringing too high, her jewels sharp enough to cut light. Beside her walks Prince Aldric, the picture of dutiful devotion—glove pressed to her fingers, a bow measured to perfection, a look that could pass for love to anyone less observant. To me, it looks like a battle fought in silence.
I anchor her bridal silks while they rehearse their charade. The fabric pools around my knees, white turning to pink where my blood touches it. I hide the stains, stitch over them, and swallow the urge to tear the whole gown apart.
“Mind your seam, Venn,” Aldric says as he passes, his tone colder than the marble underfoot.
Venn. I do not know when the name began—perhaps the day he tired of seamstress. Yet the sound of it from his lips settles under my skin like warmth mistaken for pain. I nod, bowing my head. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
He does not pause. His boots strike the floor in precise rhythm, leaving me in a storm of silence.
***
Weeks slide by. Routine softens everything it touches. Even kindness learns to wear disguise.
Rent arrives paid before I can ask. Coal appears in the hearth on nights when frost claws the windows. A palace physician happens to visit the servants’ quarters and insists on checking Mira’s pulse. Each gesture feels anonymous, yet unmistakably deliberate.
“Does the prince favor you now or something?” Ysabet asks one morning, her voice half-teasing, half-weary. She sits by Mira’s bed, spooning medicine between my daughter’s parted lips. Mira’s skin glows faintly, color returning where there was none.
“I don’t know,” I sigh, fastening my sleeves. “And it doesn’t matter. Hope is too expensive.”
“Hope costs nothing,” Ysabet murmurs.
“Then it costs truth,” I answer, and she lets the matter rest.
***
That night the summons comes: a fitting, midnight, for discretion. I read the note twice, though the handwriting is unmistakable—thin, deliberate strokes like someone carving command into paper.
The appointed room lies deep within the west wing, small and candle-lit. The air smells of cedar and wax. Rolls of silk wait upon a table, the color of storm clouds before rain. I stand ready, pins between my teeth, hands steady only by habit.
Aldric enters without herald. His cloak whispers against the floor; the air tilts around him. “You work quickly,” he says.
“I try, Your Majesty.”
He steps closer. “Try less. Do more.”
I glance up, and his mouth twitches—almost a smile, almost cruelty. “Hold still,” I whisper. “The seam falls wrong across your shoulder.”
“You correct princes now?”
“Only when they stand crooked.”
His brow arches. “Crooked?”
“Here.” I move before I think, guiding his arm, turning the cloth until it lies true. His breath catches—a small sound, quickly caged. Our hands brush once, brief as lightning.
“Why are you correcting me?” he asks, voice low.
“Because you didn’t stand right here.”
“But I am the prince.”
“That doesn’t change the fact you didn’t stand right here.” I pull the thread taut, trying not to notice how near he is, how his scent of clean steel and dusk pulls at something I buried long ago.
Silence stretches, fine and dangerous. The candle sputters, its flame bending toward him.
“You know,” he says at last, “you’ve grown arrogant.”
“Or maybe I’ve grown used,” I answer before caution can stop me.
He looks at me then. Not as prince to servant, but as man to woman who has shared a secret neither can name. The room contracts until there is only breath and heartbeat and the small, trembling space between them.
It happens without thought, as if the air itself tilts us together. His mouth finds mine—quick, fierce, wrong. For one heartbeat I taste warmth, cedar, and memory: the same spark that once set the world spinning.
Then he jerks back, eyes wide. I step away, hand to my lips, the ring at my throat burning cold against my skin.
“We can’t,” I rasp.
“No,” he agrees, though his voice sounds like it argues with itself.
The silence that follows is louder than any cry. Somewhere beyond the window a bell tolls midnight, heavy with promise and warning.
He straightens, the mask returning—ice over flame. “Seraphine waits,” he says, as if the words can rebuild the walls between us.
I nod. “Of course.”
He hesitates, then turns and leaves. The door shuts softly, the echo folding back into the dark.
I stand alone amid the silks, my pulse racing where his hands had been. The taste of the kiss lingers like the ghost of a forbidden song. I gather the fabric, fold it neatly, hide my shaking in the motion. Hunger can be contained; I have learned to stitch it into silence.
By dawn the room looks untouched, but the world has changed its thread.