Chapter 14
PRINCESS ALICE
“Princess Alice! There you are. You’re late for the ball!”
Alice beamed at Princess Brylie, who, along with their other three dearest friends swept toward her across the ballroom.
Princess Luna spun beside Brylie in happy pirouettes while the knight Benoit bowed low and took Alice’s hand.
Prince Nox lingered behind them, leaning against a wall with his usual smirk and refusing to dance as always.
Not because he couldn’t. He simply reserved dancing for ladies of the court and whichever unfortunate soul he decided to entertain for the evening.
“We smuggled this past Lord Jaime’s nose.” Luna held up a gorgeous green bottle, declaring in an off-key singsong voice, “Your favorite!”
One would be positively flabbergasted to learn she was the daughter of Queen Scarlett herself, the most beautiful singer in all the Orleanian Kingdom.
Alice laughed and scrunched her nose. “Absinthe? What on earth are we celebrating to drink such a thing?”
“Luna’s coronation, obviously.” Princess Brylie took a swig of the drink, wafting its licorice scent in the air. “She’s leaving Orleania for the blue-green mountains of legend to become a queen in her own right. Just as you will one day, future Queen of Hearts.”
Sir Benoit flourished dramatically toward the ballroom. “So come! Let us drink and dance, for the night is young and so are we.”
“And life is fleeting for you three…” The low, ominous voice echoed through the ballroom, and Alice stumbled to a stop, pulling from Benoit’s grasp.
Her gaze darted toward her friends, but their attention was on Nox, who twirled his fingers to spin a cello into existence on its needle and pulled a bow from beneath his sleeve. Luna, Brylie, and Benoit clapped, and Nox grinned, then drew long, haunting notes from the strings.
“Dance, Alice!” Luna called, beginning to do the same. “Dance with us!”
Luna was always the life of every ball, and no one ever denied her anything. Yet Alice found herself shaking her head, her heartbeat stuttering into a strange, uneven rhythm as the voice echoed once more through the room.
“So I, the King, now do decree, Troisgarde marry the Furys three, or dead, I fear, we soon shall be.”
“Did you hear that?” Alice was unable to keep the edge from her voice.
“Hear what?” Brylie asked as she spun gracefully past.
Alice frowned and searched beyond her friends, but darkness swallowed the ballroom’s walls.
“N-Nothing. Nothing, I suppose.” Her chest tightened. “Where is everyone?”
“There are only three others in attendance tonight,” Brylie answered.
She arabesqued into the void and emerged in the arms of a tall young man with black hair and a gold masquerade mask. Two more appeared beside him, nearly identical except for masks of blue and black.
Luna squealed in delight and leapt straight into the arms of the black-masked prince, who caught her, sweeping her into a romantic waltz.
Then Alice blinked and found the blue-masked prince bowing before her. His deep voice vibrated straight down her spine as he held out his hand.
“May I have this dance, Princess?”
Something warm unfurled low in Alice’s belly at his confident smile—though we shan’t discuss that any further since someone in the audience gets terribly judgmental about romance, right Chessy?—and she smiled as she slipped her hand into his.
“I would love to dance with you, Prince…?”
He shook his head once. “That is a story for another time.”
“What?” Alice laughed as he drew her close, one hand clasping hers while the other settled carefully against her waist. “Why won’t you tell me your name?”
“Oh, Princess, the man behind this mask is hardly worth knowing.” He twirled her effortlessly across the ballroom and gave her a curious sad smile.
“Well, that’s simply untrue,” Alice insisted. “Hiding behind a mask is no way to live.”
Around them, the other couples danced within their own little worlds while Benoit clapped along from the sidelines and Nox played happily upon the cello.
The prince’s lips brushed against the sensitive shell of her ear, blooming desire through her.
“Isn’t that precisely what you do, Princess Alice? Hide behind a mask?”
That heat curdled, turning sour, and she faltered in her step.
“I do not hide behind anything,” she argued. “I am the bravest girl in the land.”
The prince’s gaze softened into something—the foreign sensation slithered over her mind—forlorn.
“That was not always the case. You became brave again because of your friends.” His fingers flexed against her back. “But to save them, you must test that bravery once more. You must run away to save them.”
“Run away?” Alice gasped. “Never! That is a coward’s answer.”
“No.” The prince shook his head. “It is the only answer. The bravest answer. And the path you once wished you’d taken.”
Alice’s heartbeat fluttered unpleasantly now. “What do you mean, good sir?”
A shadow crossed his face, and he stopped their dance entirely. For the first time, Alice noticed the tiny pale scars scattered along his strong jaw, barely visible except beneath the brightest lights.
“I am hardly good, sweet Alice,” he whispered. “Not like you.”
The backs of his fingers caressed her cheek with an unbearable gentleness. Despite his frustrating words, Alice leaned into the touch, growing irritated at her sign of weakness when he continued.
“Which is why I hate having to tell you the truth.”
“And what is the truth?” she asked, for Alice was brave and curious too. Hiding from the truth was never an option.
The prince swallowed hard.
“Tonight is the last night of laughter you’ll ever share with all of your friends.”
Alice jolted backward, but his arm only tightened around her waist.
“You lie.” And yet, the flicker of knowing when someone lied never came.
Her hand flew to her suddenly aching chest. “Why do I feel this way? This pain…” Her fingers dug into her heart, but the stabbing sensation wasn’t something she could touch or stop herself. “It’s horrible! Foreign and unwelcome.”
The strange prince’s expression shadowed, as though he felt the wound his words carved into her.
“If I could spare you this pain, I would, sweet Alice.” His voice grew rough. “But alas, I cannot, for I am trapped too. Only our kiss can set us free.”
“A kiss?” Alice frowned. “What are you trying to tell me? Speak plainly, Prince!”
“I am.” He took her face gently between his hands, and the dark blue depths of his eyes held such terrible sorrow that Alice gasped.
Agony.
That was the word for the feeling bleeding inside her.
“Kiss me, Alice,” he pleaded. “Only then can I tell you the truth.”
“No. How can a kiss possibly tell me anything? I want to know what is happening this instant.”
Alice tried to pull away, but the prince only cupped her cheeks more carefully still, his words turning desperate.
“Lucy, kiss me. It’s the only way to save us all.”
“L-Lucy?” Alice’s mouth went dry at the taste of the name on her tongue. “Who is—”
A single tear slid underneath his mask and down the prince’s cheek. One final word shattered her resolve.
“Please.”
Alice, brave Alice, could never bear to watch someone suffer. So she nodded and gave herself over to the prince.
When he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, Alice wasn’t afraid. She welcomed the warmth blooming low in her core. The softness of his mouth against hers. The heat curling through her body like golden honey in warm tea.
Then a different voice, vile and bitter, deafened her as it burned like poison, leaching through the shield around memories she hadn’t realized she’d long since locked away.
“Dance for me, Lucy girl.”
And suddenly she was a child again, stolen away by a wicked man. Her beloved cat had been taken first, used against her to lure her from her castle, and was the only creature brave enough to fight for her. The monster killed her before Alice’s very eyes, throwing her against the dungeon wall.
“No, no, no!”
The words screamed inside Alice, locked behind lips that still kissed the strange prince, while memories she fought so desperately to bury clawed their way back to life.
Just like his voice, the wicked man poisoned her body and forced her to dance for him day after day. The Sheherazade of dance. His own king was using her as a pawn, but her captor threatened to keep her forever and steal her friends too, even after her mother and father did as they wanted.
It was for his king’s revenge, he’d said. Her parents were meant to destroy the kingdom they’d built. Turn loved ones against one another. Betray their friends.
And when Alice and the other daughters grew older? They would be forced to do far worse than dance.
Alice had begged to be saved. Screamed into the night and inside her poisoned mind.
But eventually… she understood. No one was coming.
So Alice became brave in the most terrible way of all.
For the wicked man poisoned himself too, and Alice learned his ways. Whenever he pricked Alice with the needle, administering the bane, he used a fraction on her, just enough to drive her to the brink of madness. Then he used the rest on himself.
One day, Alice saw her chance.
Fighting the toxin as it burned up her arm, Alice grabbed the dripping dagger and drove it into the monster’s neck. He convulsed and screamed, until he died with an awful gurgling sound. His black eyes stared beyond her, forever looking into a realm she no longer had to escape herself.
Alice had been too sick afterward to flee. She simply curled in the corner while the dead man watched her from his chair with his wide frozen gaze until finally, finally the poison bled its way out of her body.
Then she ran.
She ran and ran and ran, only stopping when she reached the land of bright lights and desert skies once more.
Her parents cried and held her. They called her brave. They called her strong. Smart. Cunning. They said she saved herself. She saved all of them.
But Alice, sweet Alice, did not feel brave.
She couldn’t stop seeing the foam dripping from the wicked man’s mouth. She couldn’t stop seeing his bulging eyes.