Chapter 4
My new bedroom was twice the size of the woodland cottage.
It was on the second floor of the palace, located in the south wing.
I had my own area for bathing and a section for getting dressed and prepared, but those parts of the room were small in comparison to the amount of space taken up by the bed.
It could easily have slept six of me, perhaps more if we snuggled together.
Winnie helped dress me down into a cream nightgown and pink robe impossibly soft to the touch, and then she was gone.
A subtle perfume lingered on the garments.
I inhaled it repeatedly, attempting to decipher its notes, but the smell was as unfamiliar and overwhelming as everything else within Castle Altaigne.
Too much information had come down on me in such a short span of time; all at once, I wanted to lie down and cry. I barely made it to the edge of the bed when the tears spilled over, and then a faint knock rattled the door.
Wiping my face, I found I couldn’t halt the procession just yet, no matter how I tried. Another knock, somewhat louder. I groaned and stomped over to answer it; it wasn’t like I hadn’t already made a fool of myself today. What was one more blunder?
The prince stood before me with a silver platter, the dome reflecting my sad face back at me.
“I thought you might be hungry, since…” he trailed off, lifting his focus from the covered plate to my tears. His brow furrowed. “My lady?”
I scowled, then looked down at the tray. The tears worsened as I stepped back.
Prince Nicolas battled his confusion for a moment, then came inside, leaving the door open behind him.
He sat at the marble-topped tea table, lifting the lid to show what food he’d snuck in.
There was a small assortment, as he had no way of knowing my preferences; I recognized only a few things regardless.
I sat across from him, again wiping my cheeks, and picked up a red apple. Giving him a brief look of appreciation, I took a bite, then rolled my head back as the day’s hunger returned in full.
“I wanted to apologize for the scene with my mother,” Prince Nicolas said, watching me eat in a way that made me highly conscious of my manners.
I knew to chew with my mouth shut, but were there other rules I wasn’t aware of?
“I also wanted to assure you that I’m serious.
After that commotion, you must think I’m using you as an act of rebellion against the Crown’s responsibilities. ” My head tilted.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was convenient to have met you now.
There has been a years-long struggle to pair me off with someone, and it’s only grown more intense since my last name day, but it didn’t feel quite right with any of them.
” His words were polite enough, but I noticed the hint of a sneer as he remembered.
“I met you, and…it was strange. Keep it between us—as if you’d be able to tell anyone, right?
—but when I first met you, I felt this instant…
attraction. I’ve never felt anything of the sort, really. It’s remarkable.”
I wasn’t sure how to react to his revelation, but he was watching me for a response.
Well, I’d already spoken with him once, what was one more time? I drew a quick breath, preparing myself to break that lifelong rule another time. “You said there were snakes in your court?”
The prince’s nails scratched the tabletop. His cheeks flushed as if I’d kissed him, but he quickly managed to compose himself. “Serpents, rats, and vultures surround me. Perhaps it’s not a safe place for you.”
“Sounds no different from the woods,” I half-joked, though I would have liked nothing more than to return home and knew I was doing nothing to help my cause. “But we also had bears and wild boars to contend with. Perhaps my plight was greater.”
“Then we have saved each other and can call it even,” Prince Nicolas joked back, but he hardly cracked a smile. “Your father said you couldn’t speak, yet you’ve a skilled enough tongue to amuse me.”
“Fathers will say anything to turn away a suitor,” I replied, thinking of my father back home. He’d have to break the news when Mother returned, and she was never a calm woman. The apple crunched as I took another bite.
Prince Nicolas scoffed, then reached for the ewer atop the table.
As he picked it up, he paused to gander at its remaining volume, then poured a share of wine for himself.
I blinked, surprised to see there was anything inside; had I known it contained alcohol, I’d certainly have helped myself after the disaster at supper.
The prince drank quickly and quietly, then poured himself another helping, as well as one for me. I took it and sipped, tempered by the rich, unanticipated sweetness. Meanwhile, Prince Nicolas grew more serious with each swallow.
He looked into his maroon reflection. “Not once in my life have I cared for such things as I desire from you.”
“No?” I replied, feigning cluelessness and bracing myself for him to lunge across the table like a beast in heat.
Prince Nicolas shivered. “Certainly not. And it’s not only that I want you. It’s that I want you with such strength. This burning inside of me—I know myself enough to know that this, whatever this is, is unnatural.”
My brow furrowed. He was rather self-observant. “Perhaps you haven’t met someone you fancied before. Some people never find that person.” I paused. “I’ve even read tales of people who don’t experience attraction at all.”
The prince reared back his head and laughed once, and then the amusement drained from his face. “You’re a witch.”
Before I could utter so much as a squeak of confused denial, Prince Nicolas held up a hand. His other hand palmed the knife atop the platter, and fear seized me. He lifted it, and I found myself empathizing with every rabbit I’d ever snared and killed.
“It matters not. I shall have you nonetheless, and you’ll suit my purposes equally well with a touch of magic.”
He plunged the knife into the chair’s wooden armrest. I couldn’t hold back my flinch, or the sudden choke as the apple went down the wrong pipe. I set the fruit down.
“A witch can kill a man without a trace of evidence. You’ll help me identify my enemies, and together, we’ll rebuild my court. In exchange, you’ll not only be spared, but revered as Queen Alana Callan of Antier.”
Clearing my windpipe, I tried to keep up with his madness. It wasn’t enough that the man took me prisoner, but now it sounded like he was asking me to commit murder and use forbidden magic to do so.
“Why all this plotting?” I asked, hoping to pull more information out of him before I let him know the truth. “You’re the prince. Can you not have your political enemies dealt with as you would handle any treason?”
The prince scoffed again and rolled his eyes.
“I won’t go down in history as Nicolas the Terrible.
Making a show of killing my enemies would ruin my reputation.
Not only that…” He leaned forward, steepling his fingers and bracing his chin atop them.
“Antier is a religious and superstitious land, particularly Gallae. Gallaeans treat magic as an inherently dark force, a corruption of the gods’ natural order.
If my enemies die by execution, I appear tyrannical, but if they die by curses and sudden turns of misfortune, the superstitious will attribute it to divine intervention. ”
I was familiar with how irrational people could be; my mother shared wives’ tales that Father would deride, the pair of them sharing a laugh over whatever village talk was especially preposterous…but I knew absolutely nothing of witchcraft, which was sure to put a damper on the prince’s plans.
“Your Highness,” I tried, hoping I’d used the correct form of address. “I’m not a witch.”
“Yet you have bewitched me,” Prince Nicolas disagreed, waving a hand in dismissal. “Call yourself what you like. I shall let you know when I have need of your abilities, but for now, there are pressing matters that must be attended to. Your lady-in-waiting, for instance.”
“My what?” I asked, too confused to press the issue.
The prince’s lips flattened with borderline impatience. “You need a personal attendant, one who can teach you a thing or two about court life. Watching you flounder about at supper was entertaining, but if it continues, I shall grow embarrassed.”
I took the apple once again and tore into it. Flecks of juice sprayed out, and I hoped a drop might land in the prince’s eye.
“How about Winnie Balden?”
“The servant?”
“Why not? She did a fine job earlier.” That, and the poor girl had asked to be remembered. It was better not to indebt myself straightaway to any of these monsters.
“Very well then,” the prince agreed. He finished his wine and stood. “In the coming days I will assign you a retinue of additional handmaidens to see that you are prepared for your role. You will need to learn proper etiquette, royal protocol, how to read—”
“I can read,” I said through gritted teeth.
“—We need to turn Alana of the Woods into a princess.”
“Chastain,” I corrected again. “Alana Chastain. My family hails from Finn’s Hollow; my parents were respected apothecaries.”
The prince smacked his forehead. “I wish you’d told me that sooner. I’m afraid you’ll have to contend with of the Woods.”
My gaze briefly shifted to the knife wedged into the armrest.
He went to the entrance and bowed, moving with such a flourish that it almost looked sarcastic. The door shut behind him, and I could breathe again…somewhat. My head swam with thoughts, but my hunger overruled my capacity for reflection.
I ate the rest of the food with a slow distrust, unsure of what I was eating and incapable of naming the various flavors and aromatics.
The cheese here was different from what I’d been exposed to; it was colorful, pungent, and possibly moldy.
Then there was a quail stuffed with crumbly bread, herbs foreign and familiar, and an assortment of dried berries, and that was rather good.
Shortly after finishing it off I tried another dish—a jiggling white mass reminiscent of a white mushroom cap—and gagged on the overbearing sweetness.
Only the accompanying syrup made from blackcurrant was edible.
The wealthy had quite a preference for sweetness, as a matter of fact.
I noted the assortment of candied, imported fruits, sugared petals from violets and roses, and pastries of fig and nuts.
All of this in combination with a sweet wine was enough to give a man sugar sickness.
It was a wonder that any of the noble class lived to see forty.
I removed the outer robe of my nightwear and placed it on the back of my chair before shuffling to the oversized bed.
My hand sank into it first, testing its firmness, and then I took the dive and felt my whole body go weightless.
The silken sheets were impossibly soft to the touch, scented in the same manner as my clothes had been. It was a far cry from hides and hay.
As I pulled the blanket over myself, I was surprised by the heat retention in the lightweight material. My head fell onto a perfectly firm pillow, like reclining on my mother’s stomach, and if I closed my eyes I could imagine the sensation of fingernails raking through my hair.
But the bed was too big.
All my life I’d slept in the same room as my parents, and only in recent years had I been given a bed of my own.
Now it was too quiet. No snores from my family, no chittering insects or wind blowing through the leaves.
It was bright, not from hearth’s fire but from the light of the moon shining through a large window.
I could see the courtyard through it, barely catching the sounds of distant chatter vibrating through the stone walls.
If I drew the curtains, it would be too dark, but leaving them open was just as bad, so I lay still and tried not to think about the light and the smell and the soft warmth all around.