“Again!” Director Pembroke’s voice cracks like a whip across the rose garden. “Lady Rosalind, you speak those lines as if they bore you to tears!”
I stand rigid on the makeshift stage, my script trembling in my hands. Across from me, Henry delivers his lines with theatrical perfection, his voice rich with false emotion.
“My honor is yours, my lady,” he declares, his eyes never leaving mine. “My sword, my heart, my very soul—all pledged to your protection.”
The watching students titter with barely contained laughter. I see Calla covering her mouth with her fan, her shoulders shaking with mirth.
“Your response, Lady Helena!” Pembroke barks.
I force the words through my constricted throat: “Sir knight, I am beyond redemption. Your honor deserves better than—”
“Stop!” Henry’s voice cuts through my recitation like a blade. “This is intolerable. She speaks like she’s reading a grocery list.”
Heat floods my cheeks. “Perhaps if you delivered your lines with less obvious mockery—”
“Mockery?” His eyebrows arch with theatrical surprise. “I assure you, I am the very soul of sincerity.”
“Break!” Pembroke calls, shaking his head in disgust. “Fifteen minutes to collect yourselves!”
I flee behind the hedge wall, desperate for air that doesn’t taste of humiliation. The garden maze provides blessed solitude, its towering walls of green blocking out the watching eyes. I sink onto a stone bench, my hands shaking as I try to compose myself.
Then voices drift through the hedge—low, urgent, familiar.
“She’s not part of the original plan.” Henry’s voice, stripped of its usual theatrical flourish.
My blood turns to ice. I press myself against the hedge, hardly daring to breathe.
“The committee selected her specifically,” comes another voice—deeper, authoritative. The Headmistress herself.
“The committee did nothing!” Henry snaps. “This is Calla’s handiwork, and we both know it. She’s using the girl as a weapon.”
“A weapon against whom?”
“Against me, obviously. Every moment I’m forced to stand beside that… creature, my reputation suffers. The nobility will think I’ve lost my standards entirely.”
My chest constricts. Each word lands like a physical blow.
“You’ll adapt,” the Headmistress replies calmly. “You always do.”
“I don’t want her involved in this,” Henry’s voice turns deadly serious. “She complicates everything. Find a way to remove her.”
“And how do you suggest we accomplish that?”
“I don’t care. Stage an accident. Claim illness. Invent a family emergency. Just get her out of my sight before she destroys everything we’ve worked for.”
The footsteps fade as they move away, leaving me frozen in the shadow of their conspiracy.
That evening, I seek refuge in the library’s darkest corner, my journal open before me. But the words won’t come. My hands shake too violently to write.
“Troubled by your performance today?”
I slam the journal shut as Henry materializes from the shadows like some dark specter. “What do you want?”
“Merely to check on my leading lady.” He moves closer, his presence filling the small space between the stacks. “You seemed… distressed during rehearsal.”
“Did I?” I rise to face him, my spine straight as steel. “Or perhaps you’re simply unused to working with someone who doesn’t worship the ground you walk on.”
His smile is sharp as a blade. “Worship? Is that what you think this is about?”
“I think you’re a spoiled prince who can’t bear sharing the stage with someone beneath your station.”
“Beneath my station?” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Helena, you’re not even in the same realm as my station.”
“Then why not simply demand my removal? Surely your royal word carries weight with the faculty.”
Something flickers in his eyes—surprise, perhaps, that I’ve called his bluff so directly.
“Perhaps I enjoy the challenge,” he says finally.
“Or perhaps you’re not as powerful as you pretend to be.”
The words hang between us like a gauntlet thrown down. Henry’s jaw tightens, his mask of amused condescension finally slipping.
“You know nothing about power,” he says, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
“I know you’re afraid of me.”
“Afraid?” The word comes out as a growl. “Of you?”
“Yes.” I step closer, my heart hammering but my voice steady. “You’re afraid that standing beside me will expose you for what you really are. Not a prince. Not a hero. Just a cruel boy who’s never been challenged.”
His hand slams against the bookshelf beside my head, trapping me between his arm and the ancient volumes. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” My voice remains steady despite the electricity crackling between us. “Then prove me wrong. Show me this legendary charm that’s supposed to destroy girls’ reputations.”
His eyes search my face, and for a moment I see something raw and unguarded flicker in their depths.
“You don’t want that,” he whispers.
“Why? Because I’m not pretty enough? Not delicate enough? Not worthy of your particular brand of destruction?”
“Because,” his voice turns rough, almost vulnerable, “you’re the only person in this godforsaken place who looks at me like I’m still human.”
The confession hangs between us like a live wire. I stare into his eyes, seeing past the cruelty for the first time to something desperate and broken underneath.
“Then stop acting like a monster,” I whisper.
His thumb traces my cheek—so gentle it steals my breath. “What if that’s all I know how to be?”
“Then learn something new.”
For a heartbeat, I think he might kiss me. His eyes drop to my lips, his body leaning closer until I can feel the heat radiating from his skin.
Then he jerks back as if burned, his mask slamming back into place.
“You’re more dangerous than I thought,” he says, his voice cold.
***