Chapter 3 Amarissa #2
Alfred had been angling for royal favor since we were children, his ambition as transparent as the windows overlooking the gardens. His attention had nothing to do with me and everything to do with my title.
“I’m afraid I’ve promised the next set to Lord Dannet’s son,” I said.
His smile faltered. “Perhaps later, then.”
“Perhaps.”
As he withdrew, I heard him mutter to a companion, “Cold as ever. I bet she’s the same in bed.”
Others would not agree, but he’d never find out. Picky, I only slept with those who wouldn’t talk.
It wasn’t that I disliked attention. I just wanted something real. Something beyond calculated flattery from men who saw only my crown, not the woman underneath it.
I thought about the man from the village square, the one with golden eyes who’d dared to challenge me. Who was he and where had he come from? Would I ever see him again?
There had been nothing calculated in his fury, nothing diplomatic in his condemnation. His arrogance had blazed on his face. Danger swirled around him. He was real in a way that made everyone in this ballroom look like painted puppets.
I could still feel his touch on my arm, could still hear his rich voice. Flames pooled low in my belly, treacherous heat that had no place in a princess’s thoughts.
While every lord in this ballroom looked at me and saw a crown, he’d looked at me and seen a woman, one worth challenging. Worth condemning. Worth risking his life to confront.
The thought made me feel more alive than I had in years.
I shook my head, shoving aside the image. He was a rebel. I shouldn’t think about him with anything but contempt.
Needing air, I strode toward the balcony doors.
That’s when I saw him, a shadow within the darkness, leaning against the stone railing three stories above the gardens. The same sharp jawline, the same black hair swept back from his brow. Golden eyes reflecting the torchlight like a predator’s.
I froze. He didn’t move, didn’t try to hide. Simply watched me with that same intensity from the village square.
My heart thundered against my ribs. I had to be imagining him. He wouldn’t be bold enough to come to the ball uninvited.
I hurried toward the balcony doors. The moment I moved, he straightened, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
Every rational thought screamed at me to call the guards or pretend I hadn’t seen him. Instead, I found myself rushing toward the temptation I should be fleeing from.
He watched me approach with the stillness of a hunter who knew his prey was walking willingly into his trap.
When our eyes met through the glass, something electric passed between us.
Recognition. Challenge. And a heat that had nothing to do with the wine warming my blood.
He tilted his head, his devastating half-smile promised things a princess should never want.
Fates help me, I wanted them anyway.
Maybe it was grief making me reckless. Maybe I just needed to feel something that wasn’t loss or pain or fear.
The world narrowed to us. Him, silhouetted against the stars like a god of vengeance. Me, trapped like a bird in a gilded cage.
He gave me a nod before turning and vaulting over the balcony rail.
“No.” The word slammed up my throat, drawing startled looks from lords and ladies nearby.
I rushed outside and gripped the cold stone rail, leaning over to search the gardens below.
The drop was easily forty feet. No one could survive such a fall.
But the manicured lawn beneath the balcony remained empty.
No body, no footprints in the dew-kissed grass, and no sign that anyone had been there at all.
“Princess?” A guard appeared at my side. “Is everything alright?”
I stared into the forest surrounding the back part of the castle, the night air chilling my overheated skin.
“I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
A figment of my imagination, conjured from wine and wishful thinking.
But as I turned to re-enter the ballroom, a single feather drifted down from above, landing on my shoulder.
Cinderhawk.
It lay on my exposed skin like an accusation.
Or an invitation.
I lifted it, studying the way the light caught its silvery surface. It was still warm, as if it carried the heat of the man who’d commanded the bird that it had belonged to.
I tucked it into my bodice before re-entering the ballroom, my heart still thudding too fast. The music and laughter felt hollow, a backdrop that couldn’t mask the tension rippling beneath the surface.
Father stood across the room, surrounded by a group of advisors, their heads bent close in conversation. One looked my way and gave me a slick smile. Discussing who I should marry? Absolutely not. I hurried over to them, arriving in time to catch fragments.
“—third noble family attacked this month—”
“—supplies stolen from the southern garrison—”
“—growing bolder by the day—”
Father looked up, his smile not reaching his eyes. “Amarissa. Done greeting our guests?”
“Yes. What happened?”
Lord Baswick, the oldest of Father’s advisors, cleared his throat. “We were discussing the southern rebels, Your Highness. Their attacks are growing more frequent.”
“They’ve been targeting our people on the southern main roads,” Lord Erradorn said, his face creased with concern.
“Committing murder,” another hissed.
“And raiding villages for supplies,” Erradorn said.
I studied their faces, searching for what they weren’t saying. “Who leads the rebels?”
Silence fell over the group. The advisors exchanged glances, their expressions now bland and unreadable.
“We have strong evidence,” Lord Baswick finally said, “that they’re led by the son of a former rival court.”
“You mean Syllavar?” Syllavar Court ruled the land on our southern border, though much of it had turned to wasteland over the past fifteen years or so. No one knew why.
Father’s scowl deepened. “This is hardly relevant to tonight’s festivities, Amarissa.”
“It seems quite relevant if our people are being murdered.” I met his steely gaze with my own.
His smile stretched too long, the muscles around his eyes tightening in warning.
Pain arched across the slashes on my back. He hadn’t broken the skin, but I could still feel them.
And that was the point.
“You shouldn’t concern yourself with matters like this,” he said. “We’ll handle it.”
Lord Merkis, a broad-shouldered man who wore a permanent expression of distaste, leaned forward. “The appropriate response is force, Your Majesty. These rebels only understand violence.”
“I agree,” Lord Erradorn said. “We should burn their camps and make an example of their king.”
“King?” Lord Merkis scoffed. “Can someone actually rule a desolate land made up of swamps and uncivilized people?”
“What about the children taken from the reformatory?” I asked.
Father’s hand landed on my back. To anyone watching, it would look like a kind gesture.
I bit back the pain roaring up my spine.
“You should dance, Amarissa,” he said. “Lord Alfred seems quite eager for your attention.”
“I’d rather understand the threat we’re facing.” Shifting out from beneath his touch, I kept my voice low enough only he could hear.
“And I’d rather you remember your place. The security of the realm isn’t your concern.” He turned back to his advisors. “Gentlemen, shall we continue this discussion privately?”
They moved as one toward an adjoining chamber, the heavy wooden doors swinging closed behind them with a heavy thud. I stood alone, excluded again from decisions that would shape my future as much as it would theirs.
The music swelled, couples spinning across the polished floor.
I hated it here. Hated this ball, the Day of Mercy, and, let’s face it, everything about my life.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that I moved through the room, smiling behind my mask while plotting small rebellions.
I was the dutiful princess by day, the secret rebel by night.
I sometimes wondered if the real me still existed somewhere between these versions, or if I’d played both parts so long I’d forgotten who Isi truly was.
Only while helping someone escape, training with Thorne, or laughing with Addie did a tiny part of who I truly was break through the princess facade Father had crafted for me.
If Addie was here, she’d whisper in my ear, inventing outrageous stories about the lords and ladies around us.
“Look at Lord Merkis,” she’d say. “I bet he sleeps with his ledger books under his pillow and dreams of decimal points.”
Or she’d be gathering gossip, discovering which lord would be secretly meeting whom in the garden later. We’d laugh, our heads bent close, and the endless social niceties wouldn’t feel as suffocating.
She would’ve smoothed healing cream across my back.
The main ballroom doors slammed open with so much force that the music came to a stuttering halt.
I reeled around, facing that direction.
A massive bird soared through the opening, its wingspan wider than a man is tall, its feathers the deep blue-black of a moonless night. Its eyes gleamed with unnatural intelligence.
The bird clutched a large cloth bag in its talons, the surface dark with spreading stains.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Nervous laughter bubbled up from some, quickly dying as the bird circled overhead.
“Tainted,” someone hissed nearby. “Only the rebels can use magic to command such creatures.”
The bird released its burden directly above the center of the ballroom. The big bag dropped and fell, hitting with a sickening thud. Red splattered across the polished stone, droplets speckling the clothing of nearby guests who scrambled backward with cries of disgust.
A sharp pop followed, and the bird vanished, leaving only a few scattered feathers drifting down like blue-black snow.
Silence filled the ballroom, broken only by the sound of my footsteps as I strode closer to the bag.
“Princess, stay back.” A guard stepped into my path, his hand on the hilt of his sword.
I tried to get around him, but another blocked my way. “Please, Your Highness. It could be dangerous.”
Commander Thorne came to my side, his expression grim. “Stay behind me, Princess, please.” The guards parted and Thorne approached the bag, extending his sword to prod the bloodied fabric. At his touch, the bag’s knot unraveled, the material gaping wide.
Something dark and matted with blood lay inside, a thick, tangled mass that glistened in the torchlight. Part of something bigger still covered with stained fabric.
Dark hair, nearly black, with a hint of curls despite the blood soaking it.
Like Addie’s hair.
No.
My mind refused to make the connection, even as my eyes caught the familiar curves of the pendant that had slipped from the bundle.
A crescent moon shape with pearl inlay, encircled with small stones the exact same color as her—and my—eyes.
It had been our mother’s, and Father gave it to Addie on her eighteenth birthday.
She never took it off, not even to sleep.
Blood smeared its surface, obscuring the inscription that had been etched into the back. “To my fierce star. Shine bright.”
This…horrifying thing could not be my little sister’s body. But the dark curls. The pendant. The rebels attacking carriages along the southern border. No message from my sister saying she’d safely arrived.
Murdered.
My knees buckled as realization slammed into me. The room tilted sideways. Sound echoed, a distant roar.
I staggered forward, falling to my knees beside the bundle, barely feeling the pain scorching across my back from the movement.
I reached for the pendant but stopped short of touching it, as if distance could help me hold onto denial.
One of the pale blue stones the size of a pinky nail was missing.
“Addie,” I whispered, the name catching in my throat.
My father’s voice cut through the shocked silence, raw with an emotion I hadn’t heard from him since he dropped to his knees beside my dead mother at the base of the staircase she’d just fallen down. “Everyone out. Now.”
Guards moved the stunned guests toward the doors, but I remained frozen, staring at what had become of my sister—my fierce, clever sister who’d played dice games on her bedroom floor and urged me to rebel, even a little.
Father stood over the bloodied bundle to my right, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Tears streamed down his face.
His voice cracked, the words torn from somewhere deep inside his chest. “They think this will break us.” His shoulders shook with rising rage.
“Those damn rebels and their king think that murdering my daughter will make me cower, will make me weak.” He lifted his head, and the fury in his eyes made his advisors step backward. “They’re wrong.”
Lord Baswick’s face had paled. “Your Majesty, we’ll mobilize—”
“Every regiment,” Father snarled, his grief turning sharp.
“Every sword, every soldier. We will hunt them down like the animals they are. We will burn their camps, salt their soil, and leave nothing but ashes behind.” His voice rose to a roar that echoed off the marble walls.
“Does their king truly want to see what wrath looks like? He’ll have it. ”
Commander Thorne stood nearby, his jaw tight with his own barely contained emotion. He’d indulged Addie like a second daughter. I’d seen him give her small toys when she was little, and combs for her hair or a pretty stone he’d found as she got older.
The other advisors muttered agreement, their faces shouting fury and determination that matched my father’s.
Father knelt beside me, his face drained of all color. He reached out and stroked a bit of Addie’s hair off what had once been her face, swallowing hard, now just a father looking at what remained of his youngest daughter.
Grief twisted into something dark and biting inside me. The magic I’d spent a lifetime suppressing surged through my blood, desperate for release. I clenched my fists until my nails cut my palms, using the physical pain to hold myself together.
For one dizzy, impossible second, I imagined Addie standing in the doorway, releasing that fearless laugh of hers, scolding me for crying at a party.
But she wasn’t coming back.
If mercy couldn’t save her, what good was it at all?
I needed to stop trying to save people one at a time and tear down the whole system.
I’d start with the rebels who’d taken Mae’s son.
The rebels who’d murdered my sister.
The rebel king who would pay for it all.