Chapter 1
One
FOURTEEN YEARS LATER, ORLFEN was on the brink of extinction, and I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful day.
I stretched out in the sunlight, admiring the alpenrose blooming in their full spring arrogance.
It was the only thing that grew consistently anymore, pushing past the crumbled soil, choking out anything edible that could be foraged, its twisted beauty stark against the dried-out landscape.
Our glen was poisoned with it, and I loved every terrible petal.
I swallowed down a kernel of dread. Then excitement.
Then dread again. My mind kept wandering back to the conversation I’d had with our old housekeeper Johanna that morning, when she not-so-accidentally let slip that Yann had been at the house to visit Father.
I could only think of one reason why Yann would ever willingly visit Father.
After I’d smoothed down my hair for the millionth time, Yann finally appeared at the edge of the trees, a basket on his arm. His beaming grin had me momentarily overwhelmed.
‘Happy birthday, Clara,’ he said. He kissed me as he always did and settled in beside me. Inside the basket was a tiny cake, baked to perfection that morning. I could smell the sweetness the moment he opened the lid.
‘How did you …?’
‘I still had some sugar saved from Juri’s last trip.’
Every so often, Father would take a horse and cart to Triz – the city on the other side of the mountains – to barter for what little they could spare.
More often than not, he returned with nothing but a sack of flour, a crate of potatoes and a full purse.
Everywhere in Rostenburg, according to Father, was just as barren as the Orlfen Valley.
Triz was unaffected by the dam, but when the drought began, the rest of the region dried up too.
Then, when the emperor sent troops to stem the spread of revolution leaking out of France, what little food might have made its way into Rostenburg was rerouted to the front.
Our forgotten corner of the empire was left to starve.
Yann split the cake and handed me the larger slice. It might have been small, but it was perfectly moist, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten something so sweet. When we were finished, he laid me back upon the flowers and pressed his lips to mine.
You needn’t know the details of what happened next.
We were unwed, yes, but we had been courting through our adolescence during a famine that could have claimed our lives at any moment.
Orlfen was not Vienna – we didn’t care for aristocratic values.
And as far as God was concerned, I was fairly certain He’d abandoned us long ago.
The only man whose opinion I cared about was the one in my arms, and I guarantee staying pure hadn’t been on his mind for several years.
Father did mind. He had been putting money aside for my dowry ever since the midwife declared I would need one.
Long ago, he had lofty ambitions of arranging a match between me and a foreign noble.
Rumour had it the dowry he’d amassed was large enough to make me a contender for any Hapsburg cousin – if an unlikely one.
But not large enough for said cousin to overlook my repeated, indiscreet dalliances with the local baker.
Father was so furious when he found out, I had to spend a month hiding in my maiden aunt’s rundown cottage on the edge of town.
We shared a bed, and there was no glass on the windows to keep the night’s chill from her rattling lungs, but I would have stayed forever if it meant I could be with Yann.
I intended to, until the morning I woke up to find her cold beside me.
I never called for a doctor; I had seen bloodless bodies before.
I tried not to imagine what had happened while I slept. Tried not to picture death’s shadow falling upon the bed. Tried not to wonder what might have happened if I had only opened my eyes.
Father welcomed me home before the stench of burning hair could settle and said no more of Yann.
Turns out there were worse things that could haunt your daughter’s bed than an unwed baker.
He still wrote letter after letter to lords in regions I had never heard of, and Johanna whispered to me that he had doubled his offer. But no one ever replied.
Father never warmed to Yann, but on the day his sister died, he made me a promise.
If he couldn’t find me a better match before my twenty-fifth birthday, he would grant Yann his blessing.
And so I greeted spinsterhood with open arms, while Father turned a blind eye to our dalliances, which is how we managed to find these secluded snatches of time to further ruin my marriage prospects.
Afterwards we lay together, his fingers trailing the length of my arm. I nestled into him, waiting for him to speak, hoping I knew what he had to say.
‘Wouldn’t it be so much nicer not to have to steal away like this?’ he said at last. ‘Imagine if we could lie like this in a proper bed, without caring if someone found us.’
I hummed. ‘You’d have to marry me for that.’
Yann stared at me a moment, then fell back into the weeds, covering his face with both hands. ‘Johanna told you.’ He groaned.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Should I pretend to be surprised?’
Yann picked himself back up. ‘No, that would be worse.’ He rummaged in the basket again and produced a small glinting object.
I recognised it immediately as the ring his mother used to wear.
She’d died not long after the prince took my own mother, with so little blood left in her that the holes in her throat were barely damp.
Unlike my father, who had shut his mouth and channelled his grief into keeping Orlfen alive, Yann’s had gathered a group of men to traipse up the hill to Castle Rostenburg and prove what we all suspected.
And perhaps, in a way, they did. When their bloodless bodies were found strung up in the town square the following morning, we all knew who was responsible.
‘Clara.’ Yann took both of my hands in his.
‘I had a speech prepared, but I can see from your face that you’re not going to let me say it all.
So let me say this much.’ He took a breath.
‘I have loved you for as long as I have known what it means to love, and you know I would have asked you this years ago if I could.’
I couldn’t stop smiling, though his face was blurred through my tears.
‘Marry me, Clara.’
‘Of course I will,’ I cried, throwing my arms around him. He held me while I sobbed into the crook of his neck, gently teasing me for my girlish emotions until I pushed him away and kissed him.
My fiancé.
My husband to be.
We lay in the glen for hours, dreaming of the future we would share.
Assuming Father conceded my dowry to Yann, we could use the money to buy a house in Salzburg.
Yann would find an apprenticeship with a proper patissier and we would eat nothing but cakes and sweetmeats until we were so fat we could barely stand. The thought left us giggling.
We knew there was no guarantee we would live long beyond the wedding – no guarantee we would survive until the wedding itself. I tried to push that thought away. The day belonged to us, not him. Even so, my eyes strayed to where Castle Rostenburg clung to the eastern peak.
Yann followed my gaze to the castle, then tilted my chin to face him once more. ‘There’s still plenty of time before nightfall.’
But the shadows were already growing long around us, and it wouldn’t be safe to linger in the woods much longer. There were worse things than wolves waiting in the dark.
Yann helped me to my feet. We trailed back to Orlfen along the dried riverbed, so slowly that the shadow of the western peak threatened to overtake us. My nerves had set in, and even when Yann squeezed my hand to draw me back to him, I couldn’t unfurl the knot in my stomach.
‘Have you spoken to anyone else about this?’ I had been so focused on reaching twenty-five unwed, I never stopped to think about the old traditions. As a child I’d seen lovers petition their neighbours for marriage, but weddings were few and far between these days.
‘Only Grandfather.’ Yann kicked at a pebble. It bounced hard through the dust, lodging itself in a nest of gnarled twigs that had once been a bush. ‘I thought we could ask everyone else tomorrow. Today is a day for celebration.’
‘What if somebody objects?’
‘Why would they?’
‘Because everyone loves you,’ I said. ‘And they all know Orlfen would be better off without me.’
‘You’re being ridiculous.’ He intertwined our fingers, then kissed mine softly. ‘No one thinks that.’
Yann could say what he wanted to placate me, but these weren’t baseless anxieties.
No one bothered to hush their voices when I entered the room.
Why should the mayor’s unskilled daughter get to eat when their children were dead?
I couldn’t hem a skirt or sow a field. Thanks to my mother’s library, the only real skill I had was that I could read in three languages, but Orlfen was yet to encounter a crisis that could be solved by translating English into German.
Every time someone failed to wake from starvation or blood loss or both, I knew it should have been me. I was Orlfen’s greatest burden.
Father was waiting for us when we finally reached my house. He stood stiffly by the door, surveying first me, then Yann for confirmation of what he dreaded.
‘I said yes,’ I told him.
He steeled himself, then hugged me. ‘I hope he makes you happy,’ he whispered. Then, to my great surprise, he shook Yann’s hand. ‘You’ll stay for dinner.’
Yann shifted. I knew he would rather spend the evening at Castle Rostenburg than with my father. ‘I would love to,’ he said, ‘but Grandfather will be waiting for news.’ He cast a glance at the fading light. ‘And I ought to be home before dark.’
Father didn’t try to hide his relief. ‘I’ll wait inside,’ he said to me. He tipped his head to Yann and left us a final moment of privacy.
‘You’ll have to get used to Father eventually,’ I said as the door swung shut.
‘Trust me – I want nothing more than to celebrate with you, but Grandfather has a cough and I …’ He didn’t need to finish.
The prince never took anyone strong enough to fight back.
Though Klaus might have had nothing more than a cold, Yann wouldn’t sleep tonight.
I couldn’t risk making him stay if we could prevent another death.
I rose to my toes and kissed his rough cheek. ‘I understand.’
Yann gathered my hands in his. ‘Try to convince your father to set the date as early as possible. Tell him the sooner we marry, the sooner he can have his first grandson.’ I tried to look delighted by the prospect, but the thought made my stomach clench.
My courses hadn’t come in over a year and even if they did return one day, I didn’t know how I could ever bring a child into this world.
There was a reason why there were very few children in Orlfen these days.
I didn’t say this to Yann, though. The last thing I wanted was for our engagement to be called off over this. I didn’t want him to think I was broken.
‘Or a granddaughter,’ I said instead, because it felt like the right thing to say.
Yann gave a patronising headshake that suggested it had been. Oh, women and their silly beliefs that daughters are as valuable as sons. Never mind the fact that any child would have been a miracle at this stage in our lives.
With one final kiss, Yann released me and went on his way.
Halfway down the path he turned around, saw me still watching him from the front step, and gave a giddy, playful bow.
Laughing, I curtseyed back and waved in a mock dismissal.
I knew I’d see him tomorrow, yet I desperately didn’t want him to go.
Maybe part of me already knew what was to come.
Father was already seated in the dining room when I entered alone.
He had arranged us a treat for dinner. ‘To celebrate the engagement,’ he said through a forced smile.
Johanna had pulled together a proper soup and served it with a loaf of soft white bread Yann had baked earlier, which, by the taste of it, was made entirely with real flour, not a trace of sawdust or alum to be found.
‘I have some flour stored away for special occasions,’ Father explained when he saw my bewildered expression. ‘We’ll use the rest for your wedding feast.’
A wedding feast. The thought felt sour. I pictured the day as nothing more than a formality. To save enough food for a feast while our neighbours were dying was no celebration at all.
We remained at the table until well after dark, then retired to the lounge together, talking deeply as we hadn’t in years.
Finally formalising my relationship with Yann seemed to have dislodged whatever was wedged between Father and me.
I felt like a little girl again, curled on the sofa with my legs tucked under me as I told Father all about the dreams Yann and I shared.
Despite all our fears, despite everything we’d been through, that night we believed in the future more than anything.
As I stood to bid my father goodnight, Johanna knocked on the door and entered without waiting for a response. She stood pale in the candlelight, wringing her apron in her spindly hands. ‘You’ve a visitor, sir.’
‘At this time? Tell him I’ve already gone to bed.’
Johanna glanced off to the side, trembling. ‘It— it’s too late for that, sir. He insisted on coming in.’
‘Oh, very well.’ Father fell back in his seat. ‘Who is it? Is it Klaus? Tell him we can make plans in the morning.’
‘It’s not Klaus,’ said a low voice from around the corner. Two long-fingered hands snaked their way onto Johanna’s shoulders. She looked like she was about to faint. The newcomer smiled widely, revealing two rows of perfectly white, straight teeth.
‘It’s been too long, Juri.’
And for the first time in fourteen years, I found myself face to face with Prince Raleigh of Rostenburg.