The Prince’s Flowers
? Ivy ?
Nora’s question follows me back to the Luna room and keeps circling long after the door closes behind us.
Has anyone ever tested your rank properly?
I sit near the hearth with a blanket over my knees and my sleeve pulled low over the mark at my wrist.
The room is warm, the fire is steady, and somewhere beyond the walls, the fortress moves through the afternoon in boots, orders, and distant steel.
I should be thinking about missing supplies, the eastern post, Holt’s authorization mark, and the fact that someone inside Roman’s fortress may be stealing from wounded wolves.
That problem has ledgers, routes, and names.
It can be followed, compared, and proven.
My blood can’t be handled that way, which makes it worse.
Marissa had always refused testing, calling me mild and warning that questions about blood were better left quiet.
I press my bandaged hand into the blanket and force myself to breathe through the tightness in my chest.
The Brooks family always had a reason not to test me, not to ask questions, and not to let anyone else ask them either.
I’d accepted it because accepting things quietly was easier than making Marissa look at me like I’d become inconvenient.
A knock comes at the outer door, and I straighten before I can stop myself.
“Luna?” the guard calls. “A delivery has arrived from the capital.”
My body remembers how to become small before my mind catches up.
“What kind of delivery?”
There’s a pause, then the guard says, with the clear discomfort of someone who already knows this is a bad idea, “Flowers.”
For a moment, I think I misunderstood. Flowers, here in Roman’s fortress of black stone, smoke, iron, and wounded men.
My palm throbs beneath the bandage, and the mark gives one cold pulse under my sleeve, as if it already dislikes whatever waits on the other side.
“Bring them in,” I say.
The door opens, and a guard steps inside carrying a crystal vessel so polished it looks obscene in this room. White moon lilies spill over the rim, their petals pale as altar cloth, with silver ribbon curled around the stems and a black wax seal hanging from the front.
The scent reaches me before he crosses the room. It’s soft, sweet, and clean.
My fingers go numb, and for one breath, I’m beneath the silver arch again with white lilies in my hands and pearls digging into my scalp while Jace tells a room full of witnesses that he won’t choose me.
The guard sets the vessel on the table. His expression remains carefully blank, which tells me everyone between the gate and this room has already seen the prince’s seal.
“It has Jace Maddox’s mark,” he says.
Of course it does. Jace doesn’t send anything quietly.
“Set them there.”
The guard bows once and leaves too fast.
I stare at the lilies. They’re beautiful, which makes them worse. The crystal catches the firelight and throws it across the dark table, making the flowers look too soft for the room and too much like the bride I was supposed to be.
A folded card rests among the stems. I should call Roman. I should call Nora. I should throw the whole arrangement into the hearth and let Jace’s expensive apology blacken petal by petal.
Instead, I pick up the card.
The paper is thick, cream-colored, and smooth beneath my thumb. Lady Ivy,
I hope the north has offered you peace after the difficult events of the vow ceremony. I trust my uncle has provided every courtesy required by your unexpected position.
My unexpected position, as though I tripped into Roman’s life instead of being pushed there by Jace’s public refusal.
May these lilies remind you that the crown bears no ill will and that all things done beneath the moon may yet be understood with grace. Jace Maddox.
It isn’t an apology. It’s a polished hand smoothing the shape of his own story.
Something pale blue is tucked beneath the silver ribbon. I know who wrote it before I pull it free.
Sloane’s handwriting is smooth and pretty, every line carefully shaped.
I hope you’re settling, Ivy. Truly. The north seems harsh for someone so gentle, but perhaps Roman enjoys rescuing delicate things.
Try not to mistake attention for devotion.
There’s no signature. She doesn’t need one.
For a second, the room shrinks around me. Jace has chosen the trap carefully. Keep the flowers, and he looks gracious. Refuse them publicly, and I become bitter. Display them, and he gets to stand in my room without ever crossing the threshold.
Another knock sounds, and this time I feel Roman before the guard speaks. A cold thread turns beneath my sleeve, pulling toward the hall.
“Lord Roman is outside, Luna.”
I close both notes and set them on the table. “Come in.”
Roman enters with Dane behind him, then stops when he sees the lilies. Dane mutters something too low for me to catch, but his expression says enough.
For one sharp second, I think Roman will order them burned. Part of me wants him to. It’d be easier to let someone else decide what happens to Jace’s gift. Instead, Roman looks at me.
“What do you want done with them?”
The question hits harder than an order.
I look back at the lilies, at the white petals and silver ribbon, at Jace’s false grace and Sloane’s warning. My hands are cold, but my mind begins moving around the shape of the trap.
“What are moon lilies used for?” I ask.
Dane blinks. Roman’s gaze sharpens. “Used for?”
“Nora said the infirmary is short on medicine.” I touch one cool petal with the tip of my finger. “Can she use them?”
Dane’s expression changes first. Roman looks toward the door. “Send for Nora.” Dane goes at once.
Roman remains near the hearth. “Keep what you want. Burn the rest.”
“I’m not keeping them.”
His eyes return to mine. I lift Jace’s card. “If I burn them, he can call me bitter. If I display them, he gets to stand in this room without entering it. If Jace wants the north to see his flowers, then let them see what I make of them.”
My voice holds more steadily than I expect. Roman’s jaw tightens, but he only nods once.
Nora arrives with Dane a moment later, sleeves rolled and irritation already waiting on her face.
“I heard the capital sent something useless.”
“Moon lilies,” Dane says.
Nora stops. Her eyes move over the bouquet. “Fresh?”
“Mostly.”
“Perfumed?”
I lean closer and inhale carefully. “No. Just lilies.”
Nora steps to the table and examines the stems. “Then yes. Sedatives, pain tincture, and fever wash if they’re prepared properly.”
“Take them,” I say.
Nora looks at me over the flowers. “All of them?”
“All of them.”
Her mouth curves faintly. “Good.” Dane reaches for the crystal vessel, but the silver ribbon catches on my sleeve as I shift back. The fabric pulls tight near my wrist, close enough to the mark that I inhale sharply.
Roman moves before I can think, then stops with his hand hovering near mine.
“May I?”
The room narrows to those two words. Dane looks away. Nora doesn’t, because Nora misses nothing. I nod. “Yes.”
Roman’s fingers close around the caught fabric with careful precision. He loosens the silver ribbon from my sleeve one slow thread at a time, and his knuckles brush the inside of my wrist. The mark pulses.
It isn’t cold this time. Heat follows the brush of his knuckles, bright beneath my skin, and Roman’s hand stills when he feels it too.
His eyes lift to mine. For one brief second, the restraint that usually holds him together is gone. Then he lets go first.
Nora clears her throat. “The infirmary,” she says briskly to Dane.
Dane lifts the vessel with both hands. White lilies spill over his wrists as he carries it toward the door, and Nora follows him out without looking back.
Roman remains by the hearth. For a moment, I think he’ll leave too. Instead, he bends and picks up Sloane’s note from where it slipped near the edge of the table.
I look down at my sleeve. The fabric is free, but the mark still burns beneath it.
Roman places Sloane’s note beside Jace’s card, careful not to touch the flowers again.
“You should keep these.”
“Evidence?”
“Yes.”
The word shouldn’t make me feel warm, but it does. He doesn’t call them memories. He doesn’t call them messages, apologies, or anything soft enough to bruise me later. He names them for what they are: proof that the capital is already trying to shape the story.
I fold Jace’s card and Sloane’s note together and set them aside.
A soft sound comes from near the edge of the table. One lily bud has fallen from the arrangement. It rests against the dark wood, bruised from travel, half-closed and bent at the stem.
I pick it up without thinking.
The petals are cool and limp against my thumb. It’s only a flower, sent to make Jace look graceful. Still, it looks tired.
My thumb brushes the edge of a petal, and the mark at my wrist gives one slow pulse. The bud moves.
I freeze as one pale layer loosens, then another. The bruised petals unfold quietly against my palm until the flower is open, white and fragile, turned toward the sleeve hiding my wrist.
Roman’s shoulders lock beside the hearth.
The door opens again before I can speak. Nora steps inside, likely to retrieve something she forgot, and stops with one hand on the latch. Her eyes move from the flower to my wrist, then to my face.
She sets the forgotten tool on the table without looking away from me.
“Sit down, Ivy,” she says quietly. “And don’t touch anything else until I know what just happened.”