Chapter 1
Chapter one
Aemastia—Present Day
“Iam Prince Damon.”
The silence that followed could have killed me, and I almost wondered if I was already among corpses. No one moved, breathed, or even blinked. The weight of my horrid secret may have lifted off my shoulders, but now it was breaking theirs.
I was prepared for them to scream at me, to fight me, or to at the very least meet me with anger.
But the silence was excruciating. The sound of my pounding heart was the only thing that assured me that time was still moving forward.
It must have only been a minute, but it felt like hours before Atlas finally broke the silence.
“Prince Damon is…a woman?” he asked quietly, his own voice seeming to surprise him after the extended quiet.
“No.” Cedric stepped forward, sounding far steadier after having more time to accept the truth. “She’s a princess.”
Princess… The title felt foreign to me, even though I knew it was correct. I had always been a prince or a princess-to-be, but I’d never had the opportunity to claim anything else.
Lochlan was still lost in the silence, but his face said it all. The anger I had expected to receive was written all over him. His fists clenched by his sides, and his gritted teeth had to wrench themselves apart to finally speak.
“She’s no princess,” he spat, stepping away from the scene like he was already eager to wash his hands of it. “Princesses have kingdoms.”
With that, he turned to leave. My blood raced as he cleaved himself from the moment, rushing panic through my bones as my worst fears played out.
I’m dead. But I expected as much.
“Hold on, Lochlan!” Cedric rushed after him, grabbing him by the shoulder, only for Lochlan to swat him away. “Where are you going?”
“To put an end to this mess,” Lochlan growled, not turning back as he continued out of the room.
He had every right to be angry, every reason to rat me out to the king. I was supposed to have died months ago; escaping my fate for this long had been nothing short of a miracle. Death was coming for me, but I still wasn’t ready to submit.
“Lochlan, wait!” I pushed past Atlas and Cedric, my legs moving on their own as I raced to his side. My hand found his wrist and I held it tightly, pleading with him for one more moment. “Please, if you tell the king—”
“Release me,” he snapped, flicking me a piercing glare that made me obey. He continued forward, leaving me in his shadow until even that faded away.
I couldn’t bring myself to chase after him. My body was tired and my heart was too weak to continue fighting. I’d been fighting since I was born to keep my life intact. Was this when it finally became too much?
“What do we do now?” Cedric asked the question we were all thinking but too stunned to ask. I turned back to face the two remaining princes, unsure of how to view them.
Were we enemies? Were we courting? Were we allies?
I didn’t know what made the most sense anymore. We likely only had a few minutes at most before Lochlan made it out of the hidden halls and told the king the truth about me. I was afraid to think of what that would lead him to do next.
I couldn’t imagine that it would end with me still breathing.
Atlas’s silence drew me in, my heart tightening as I found his eyes searching mine. He looked angry, but not in the same way Lochlan had. I wasn’t sure what was fueling his fire, but I was shocked by what he did next.
He crossed the room with two long strides, grabbing me by the wrist with a firm grasp. “Come on,” he seethed, dragging me down the opposite hallway from the one Lochlan had taken. “We can’t stay here.”
There was no time for me to process what was happening or ask any questions. Atlas dragged me through the halls in the same way Lochlan had done only minutes earlier, although this time I didn’t know if we were running from the guards or looking for them.
Cedric followed behind us, looking just as lost as I felt as we moved through the inner workings of the palace. Atlas stopped at a door that appeared to lead back into the main hall but paused when he heard voices outside.
“Keep looking—they’re here somewhere!” a gruff voice shouted.
Atlas turned back around, squeezing past Cedric and pulling me in a different direction entirely. So we were running from the guards…
“You’re… You’re helping me?” I asked, my voice barely audible over our rushing steps.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” His grip on my wrist tightened, sending a ripple up my arm. “But I’m not letting Lochlan be the one to decide what happens to you. If he’s out to kill you, he’ll send the guards into these halls.”
I bit my lip. I knew all too well the confusion he was going through. To keep me or to kill me. I felt a similar conflict when I’d first became Diaspro. To keep her or to cling to Damon.
The anger Atlas had shown seemed to be directed more at Lochlan than at me, and that was far preferable to being angry at me.
Only time would tell what they decided I was worth in the end.
No one had ever known the truth of my upbringing except for my own mother and a deceased servant who’d witnessed my birth.
Releasing the secret made me feel more exposed than I ever could have imagined.
We stopped at another exit, and Atlas paused to listen once more. It only took a second to hear the thud of the guards’ boots and the shouts of their search. This spot was just as dangerous as the last.
“Blast it,” Atlas swore under his breath. “They’re swarming the place. How are we going to get her out of here?”
“Don’t these tunnels let out in the library?” Cedric asked. “Why don’t we try there? It seems like an odd place for the guards to check, plus there are plenty of entry and exit points around the shelves.”
Atlas didn’t waste his breath responding, instead taking off down another route at full speed. I struggled to keep up with him, but I knew this wasn’t the time to give in to exhaustion. We were about to make another turn when a new voice cut through the halls, this one much clearer than the last.
“Spread out! Search every corner!” a guard called out, sounding dangerously close.
Atlas swore again, pulling me back around a corner and pressing me against a wall only moments before a guard zipped past the path we’d nearly taken. Cedric stood back, his breath held until the coast was clear. He slipped past us, peering around the corner to inspect the halls.
“They’re gone, but I hear more coming,” he said. “We can’t make it to the library—the only way out is to the main hall.”
“We can’t; there are guards there too,” Atlas growled.
“Then we better think of something else fast,” Cedric said, his hand starting to fidget. “If the guards see us protecting Diaspro, we’ll all face the king’s wrath.”
He was right. I hadn’t considered what protecting me meant for them.
I looked up at Atlas, memorizing the determination on his face. He always saved his best tricks for when he was cornered, but at this moment he didn’t seem to have anything left. I’d already lost Lochlan; could I stand to lose Cedric and Atlas too?
There was no guarantee that they would protect me past today, but I needed to grasp at any hope I had left.
I’ll keep fighting, Mother. As long as I draw breath.
“I’ll surrender,” I said firmly, stunning both princes. “Hurry back into the main hall. I’ll tell the guards that Lochlan dragged me away after the fight, and I narrowly escaped his attempt to finish me off.”
Atlas shook his head, still not releasing my arm. “They’ll never believe that. Especially if Lochlan spins a different tale.”
“They might believe it if you two witnessed the same thing,” I said. “As of now, I haven’t done anything wrong on my own. Lochlan was the one who pulled me out of the arena. The further I run from him, the deeper I dig my grave. Let me face the king with my story while it’s still plausible.”
I pulled my wrist free, turning to follow the sound of the guards only half a step before he pulled me back by the shoulder.
“And what if Lochlan gets to him first?” he asked, his voice cold.
It was a valid question. I couldn’t argue against the truth once Lochlan had already shared the full story, but that was something I couldn’t avoid. There was no escaping these halls or my fate. I could only enter the battle with as much armor as I could gather now.
“I’ve survived worse,” I said, my heart heavy as I pulled away once more. He let me go, the separation of our touch abrasive and quick, like the rip of a blood-stained bandage.
I didn’t look back as I walked straight out of one enemy’s grasp and into the next.