CHAPTER 1
Axel
A
xel leaned against the back wall of the audience chamber with his hands stuffed in his pockets. Five years. It had taken five years for Father to relent, to allow his precious son to grace the Himmelsburg Theater with his presence once more.
Hammers rang through the space as he noted the blackened floor and walls.
On the far end, the stage was a burnt-out wreck, but the charred remains of chairs and curtains had been removed.
And since Father had finally consented to help with repairs, workers on tall ladders framed in the ceiling that had stood open to the sky a month ago.
Outside, a separate crew was installing the last of the wooden shingles.
Straightening, Axel made his way down the sloped floor toward the stage, dodging ladders and men as he went. A few of the workmen paused to bow to him, but he waved them off. If he had wanted obeisance, he would have worn something fancier than plain black trousers and a basic white shirt.
His eyes traced the skeleton ceiling. Was he really back?
Though his senses confirmed it, he felt disconnected.
He had so many pleasant memories of his time at the theater: a decade of voice lessons with Lotti, enjoying performances from the audience, singing from the stage under the name Gunther.
They didn’t fit with the lingering signs of the devastating fire.
The rebuilding process would remove the final traces in time, but he wasn’t sure it could free him from the sense of unease.
“Did you need something, Your Highness?”
Axel turned from his perusal of the backstage area.
The theater’s operations director, a short man with a squeaky voice, wrung his hands as he stepped up next to his prince.
Supervising extensive repairs was outside the man’s usual duties, but the reconstruction was progressing with the same efficiency as the theater’s productions had before the fire.
Shaking his head, Axel replied, “Just looking.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, hesitating before closing his mouth on the words that wanted to escape.
Five years had taught him to keep his worries mostly to himself.
Instead, he reminded himself once more of the director’s assurances after the fire.
“All members of the cast are safe, and the experts assured me that the fire was not hot enough to have burned away all signs of a body. If your friend was indeed in the building, she escaped with her life.”
Based on the evidence, Lotti must have survived, but he’d been searching for five years.
If she was still alive, shouldn’t he have found her by now?
“Do you mind if I wander about some more?” Axel finally asked. “Into the practice rooms and such?”
“Of course not!” the director squeaked, sweeping one arm to the side. The effect was diminished by his hunched shoulders, elbow clinging to his waist. “As always, my theater is open to you, my prince.”
After another nod, Axel wandered off to the other places where he had met with Lotti. He didn’t expect to find her, but it was possible that she’d been in the building the whole time while he had been stuck outside it.
If so, her shadows hid her too well. But if she was there, wouldn’t she have made herself known to him? She might hide from everyone else, but Lotti had no reason to hide from Axel.
The old grief for his tutor tried to pull him down, but he pressed a palm into the smooth wood of the last practice room, grounding himself with the solid feeling, and breathed the emotion out.
Then carefully forming his mouth into a pleasant smile, he smoothed out the furrow between his eyebrows and adjusted the lift to his shoulders before sauntering back toward the public areas of the theater.
His people didn’t need to know that he was mourning someone he wasn’t supposed to know.
The sound of the front door creaking open didn’t draw Bertram’s eyes from the slow stream of traffic on the nearby road. “Back to the castle, Your Highness?”
Axel took a moment to soak in the low rumble of a passing carriage and the chatter of pedestrians going about their lives. The rhythmic pounding of the roofers echoed over the streets, adding to the normal, peaceful atmosphere. He breathed it in, letting it settle his roiling emotions.
“Not yet,” he replied, trotting down the steps and turning in the opposite direction. He was free to explore the inside of the theater once again, but that didn’t mean he was finished searching. “I wish to enjoy a stroll through the neighborhood first.”
The head of his guard sighed but made no argument, simply taking up his position a half-pace behind and to the right of the prince.
Five years of wandering about the surrounding area had proven fruitless, but Lotti couldn’t have simply disappeared. And after all she’d done for him, never accepting payment, the least he could do was give her one more chance to reveal herself and request aid if she needed it.
Maybe she had decided to leave. But until he knew for sure, he would keep looking.
~
An hour and a dozen neighborhoods later, Axel surrendered to Bertram’s silent prods. Lotti might still be missing, but she’d been missing for five years, and he couldn’t avoid his work forever.
After waving to the guards at the front gate, he turned his attention to the sprawling stone building beyond them. Himmelsburg Castle was covered in strange little decorative projections that he was certain posed a security risk, and its many-paned casement windows still made him think of a prison.
Yet instead of dragging his feet as he once had, he hurried across the courtyard and up the front steps. The walls of its meeting rooms made him feel trapped, but a grin pulled at the corners of his mouth as he strolled down the halls.
How could he regret spending time in his stone cage when the most fascinating and lovely creature in the world lived there, too?
“How was your visit to the theater, Your Highness?”
Axel shook his head at the blonde-haired guard outside his study. “How many times must I tell you, Otto? Family doesn’t use titles.”
“Family seems like a stretch,” Otto replied with a wry grin. His blue eyes laughed back at the prince. “Regardless, I’m on duty. Formality is required.”
“Your wife accepts the family argument; why won’t you?”
Otto gave a nod to Bertram, stepping over to clear the doorway as Axel’s guard settled into position on the other side. “Only with Kat. Britta still won’t call you by name.”
“Ah, but Britta is married to Katy’s cousin, and I am married to your cousin.
Thus, the relationship between the two of us is the same as between the two of them.
” Axel patted him on the shoulder, then walked backward through the door so he could keep arguing.
“Therefore, if Britta is able to address Katy informally, you ought to do the same with me.”
“Not when on duty,” the guard calmly stated. Next to him, Bertram lifted his eyes to the ceiling and released a long exhale through his nose.
Axel grinned to himself as he closed the door. Otto did treat him like family in private, and the queen herself had requested formality on duty, but Axel still enjoyed their periodic disputes over it.
Five years ago, the only close friend he’d had was the crown prince of another kingdom. It was wonderful to now have two in his own castle.
He walked up behind the other one and leaned over to wrap his arms around her shoulders. “How I have missed you, my love!” He planted a kiss on her cheek. “The sun shines brighter through the simple fact of your nearness.”
Instead of smiling, Katy jumped at his touch, shoving a piece of paper into her ledger before slamming it closed. “Axel! I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You must have been quite engrossed in your work to miss my entrance.” He chuckled as he nuzzled her dark, curly hair. “My discussion with your cousin was not the faintest of whispers. What are you working on with such focus?”
“Just reviewing reports on the wool trade.”
A slight quiver in her voice caused him to pull back, concerned. “Katy? Are you all right?”
“Why do you ask?” she replied, her attempts to even out her voice failing miserably.
Shifting his left hand to the armrest, he leaned forward to see her eyes.
“Because you aren’t looking at me.” He reached his other hand up to play with a loose curl next to her face.
Her eyes flicked to his for a moment before dropping to her lap.
“I’ve lived with you long enough to know your tells, my love. What’s bothering you?”
Eyes darting to the ledger, she pressed a hand against her lower abdomen. “It’s—it’s nothing.”
Another weight of grief pressed into his shoulders. “Has my mother taken to sending you notes now?” He let his forehead drop against hers as he sighed out his exasperation. When would Mother realize that she wasn’t helping? “I apologize for her insensitivity.”
Katy shook her head against his. “It’s not your mother.”
“Lady Ilse, then? Did she try to corner you again?” he asked, puzzling through the likely candidates.
Finally, one side of Katy’s mouth curled up in a tiny smile. “I think Lady Ilse learned her lesson the last time she tried that. I don’t believe she’ll be in a hurry to repeat the experience.”
Axel’s lip curved up in an answering smile. Katy’s temper was difficult to leash, and she didn’t mince words even when she was calm. Axel found it entertaining to watch her set his nobles straight, but he knew from experience that it was unpleasant to be on the receiving end.
She didn’t often lose her temper with him. But when she did, it was memorable.
Placing a hand over hers, he kissed her and said softly, “I wish you didn’t have to deal with the pressure. You know that I love you regardless, don’t you?”
“But you need—” she began hesitantly.
“What I need is you,” he interrupted, giving her a smile to hide his internal cringe. “The next little prince or princess will come along in his or her own time, and I won’t love you less just because it doesn’t match my parents’ schedule.”
He meant every word, but Katy was right. Axel was the king’s only living child. At twenty-eight, he wasn’t old yet, but when married princes were still childless five years after the wedding, it made courtiers nervous.
If his wife hadn’t become pregnant in that amount of time, who was to say she ever would?
Reaching up, Katy ran her fingers through the hair at the back of his head. “I know.” Her lips trembled a little as she kissed him. “And I know I don’t deserve it.”
His heart ached for her. Otto had only been married four years, but he and his wife already had one little girl and another on the way.
And when Axel watched Katy greet little Greta and play with her, saw her pleasure…
Even if he wasn’t under pressure from his parents and nobles, he would have done anything to give that happiness to her.
And she thought that because she didn’t have it, she was unworthy.
“Nonsense,” he gently chided. “I love you because you’re Katy. I love you because you’re worth loving, and nothing will ever change that.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder.
He ran his hands over the red silk at her trim waist. Holding her never grew old; he could stay here forever.
But to his disappointment, after a minute of squeezing like she meant to break him in two, she loosened her grip and leaned back to look at him, a sad smile on her lips.
“While I appreciate the attention, don’t you have work you should be doing? ”
Pesky miller’s daughter. Axel dropped his forehead to her shoulder with a groan. “I think my father likes you because you insist on keeping me on task.”
“Is that why he gave me to you? A nanny seems like a less permanent solution than marrying you to a peasant,” Katy teased. To his relief, her voice sounded normal again, the soprano tones light instead of thick with emotion.
Lifting his head, he pecked her lips and laughed, “Ah, but if I went around kissing all my nannies, it would cause a terrible scandal.”
“Why would you be kissing them?” she asked with an arched eyebrow.
He pressed his lips to hers again, a little longer this time as he savored the moment. “Because you are the only person who’s ever managed to keep me focused, and you’re also the only one I’ve ever kissed. There must be a correlation in there someplace.”
“You, sir, are ridiculous,” she pronounced with a grin, giving his shoulders a light shove. “Now go read that report that has been sitting on your desk all day. Otherwise, your father might fire me.”
“You would have to be an employee first. And even if he hired you, he wouldn’t be able to get rid of you.
” Axel leaned in again, but he only kissed the tip of her nose this time before standing up.
He took a moment to examine her face, reassuring himself that the weight of their childless state had been banished.
“However, to ease your unfounded worries, I shall do as you command.”
He couldn’t resist dropping one last kiss at the edge of her delightful curls, but then he took the two steps to his own chair and settled in to be responsible.