“Silence!” Headmistress Leveau’s voice cracks like a whip across the Assembly Hall. The massive chamber falls dead quiet, hundreds of perfectly groomed students snapping to attention in their immaculate uniforms.
I huddle in the back corner, my cursed clothing pulling and pinching with every breath. The stained glass windows throw fractured rainbows across the marble floor, each beam of light illuminating another face that would rather I disappear entirely.
“Today marks the commencement of our most sacred tradition,” the Headmistress declares, her voice echoing off cathedral ceilings. “The Royal Showcase—where select students shall perform before the Crown, the nobility, and the press of three kingdoms!”
Excited whispers ripple through the assembly like wind through wheat. I press myself deeper into my seat, praying for invisibility.
“This year’s production shall be ‘The Pact of Roses’—a tale of forbidden love between a fallen noblewoman and her knight protector. A romance that nearly toppled kingdoms!”
My blood turns to ice. A fallen woman. Of course.
“The lead roles have been selected by special committee,” Leveau continues, her eyes scanning the crowd like a predator selecting prey. “Playing the disgraced Lady Rosalind…”
The pause stretches like a blade across my throat.
“Lady Helena Ashbourne.”
The hall explodes. Gasps of shock morph into barely contained laughter. I feel every eye in the room swivel toward me like arrows finding their target.
“NO!” The word tears from my throat before I can stop it. I surge to my feet, my chair scraping against stone. “I refuse! I will not—”
“And her knight protector,” Leveau’s voice cuts through my protest like steel, “His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Henry of Ildareth.”
If the hall was chaos before, now it becomes pandemonium. Students twist in their seats, craning their necks between Henry and me like spectators at a gladiatorial match.
Henry rises slowly from his front-row seat, his face a mask of barely controlled fury. “Headmistress,” his voice carries the authority of birthright, “I must formally object to this casting.”
“Objection noted and dismissed,” Leveau replies with arctic calm. “The selections are final.”
“You cannot be serious!” I shout, my voice cracking with desperation. “This is madness! I am no actress, and certainly not—”
“Certainly not what, Lady Helena?” Calla’s voice cuts through the din like poisoned honey. She stands gracefully, her perfect figure outlined against the morning light. “Certainly not worthy of sharing a stage with royalty?”
The hall erupts in cruel laughter. Behind Calla, Mirelle sits frozen, her knuckles white as bone against her dark skirt.
“I am not a performer!” I cry, my composure shattering completely. “I am a scholar! I came here to study, not to be your dancing bear!”
“Oh, but you are already performing,” Henry’s voice cuts through my protests like a blade. He turns to face me fully, his perfect features twisted with disdain. “Every day you lumber through these halls, you perform the role of the outcast. The victim. The tragic heroine of your own pathetic story.”
His words hit me like physical blows. Around us, the assembly watches in rapt fascination, drinking in my humiliation like fine wine.
“At least now,” he continues, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carries throughout the silent hall, “your performance will serve a purpose.”
“What purpose?” I whisper, my voice barely audible above the thundering of my own heart.
His smile is sharp as winter frost. “Entertainment.”
The instructor’s office feels like a tomb. Miss Hartwell slides a thick folder across her mahogany desk, her smile cold as marble.
“Your rehearsal schedule,” she announces with false cheer. “Daily practices begin at dawn. Costume fittings this afternoon. Opening night in precisely three weeks.”
“I cannot do this,” I whisper, staring at the damning papers. “Please, there must be someone else—”
“There is no one else,” Hartwell cuts me off sharply. “The committee has spoken. Unless, of course, you wish to forfeit your scholarship?”
The threat hangs in the air like a sword over my head. My scholarship—my only chance at a life beyond the suffocating walls of my family’s declining estate.
“You orchestrated this,” I breathe, understanding flooding through me like poison. “You and Calla and—”
“I orchestrated nothing,” Hartwell replies smoothly. “I merely recognized an opportunity to… showcase your particular talents.”
“My talents?”
“Comedy, my dear. You have such a gift for making people laugh.”
I flee toward the Veriton common room, my vision blurred with unshed tears. In the corridor, I nearly collide with Mirelle, who stands wringing her hands like a guilty child.
“Helena, you must listen to me—”
“Must I?” I whirl on her, my careful composure finally cracking. “Must I listen to more lies? More betrayals?”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this!” she cries, tears streaming down her perfect cheeks. “Calla said it would be a small part, something minor—”
“You knew?” The words come out as a strangled whisper. “You knew they planned this?”
“I tried to stop it! I swear I tried, but Calla said—”
“Calla said what?” My voice rises to a shout. “That the fat girl needed to be put in her place? That I needed to be reminded of exactly how little I matter?”
“Helena, please—”
“No!” I shove past her, my shoulder connecting with hers hard enough to send her stumbling. “You made your choice, Mirelle. Live with it.”
The Veriton common room feels like a courtroom as I enter. Henry sits by the massive fireplace, his uniform perfectly pressed despite the day’s chaos. He doesn’t look up as I approach.
“Well,” he says finally, his voice carrying that maddening calm that makes me want to scream. “It seems we are to be… intimate colleagues.”
“This is your doing,” I accuse, my hands trembling with rage. “You orchestrated this whole charade!”
“Did I?” He finally looks up, his eyes glittering with something that might be amusement. “And here I thought it was your charming personality that earned you the role.”
“Mock me all you wish,” I spit, surprised by my own venom. “But we both know this is torture, not theater.”
“Torture?” Henry rises with fluid grace, moving closer until I can smell his cologne—cedar and something darker. “My dear Helena, you wound me. I am considered quite the accomplished performer.”
“You know what I mean!”
“Do I?” His voice drops to a whisper, but it carries the weight of a threat. “Enlighten me. What exactly do you think this is?”
I stare into his impossible eyes, searching for some flicker of humanity, some sign that beneath the cruelty lies a man capable of mercy.
Instead, I find only ice.
“It’s a public execution,” I whisper. “And you’re the executioner.”
Henry’s smile could cut glass. “Finally,” he murmurs, “you begin to understand your role.”
He moves past me toward the door, pausing only to deliver his parting shot: “Rehearsals begin tomorrow at dawn, Lady Rosalind. Do try not to disappoint your audience.”
***