Dinner was an excuse to change the topic of the conversation. But first, I had to employ a segue to keep my intentions from becoming too obvious. 'Perhaps you should travel with my brother and I to Haelling Cove when I return.'

'When do you return?' Alum asked, and my heart skipped a beat merely from the prospect of him considering it. I wondered if he was actually attracted to me and I hadn't realised it. He had accepted my invitation to visit me in my own home, and now he considered travelling back to my hometown with me. I also considered the possibility that he asked as a discreet way of determining when I would come of marrigeable age.

'In just over a year,' I replied. My seventeenth birthday was mere weeks away.

'Perhaps,' Alum said, and his subsequent silence told me that that was all he would say on the matter. To be fair, it was still very early to commit to such a journey.

'What are your thoughts on the wine?' I asked him. I would normally have ended that question with a 'my prince', but I risked its omission in order to create an environment of informality.

'It is most excellent, my lady,' he said in response. There was not a word of chiding in his reference to my title, but I wondered if its employment served to remind me of his station.

'It is bloodberry wine, from the Reach. It is grown elsewhere, but not in great quantity. Most of it is sourced from the Reach,' I explained. I hoped that he would draw some sort of inference from it, that he would understand the corollary which I intended. That if he came to live in Haelling Cove – for whatever reason, though I had only one in mind – he would be able to enjoy bloodberry wine all the more.

'Very interesting. I shall have to make a sizable order,' he said, and I beamed that he had enjoyed my choice of wine. It was pure luck, as I knew nothing of wine, but it had worked. Some vineyard owner in Ebonreach would be grateful for my having introduced the Prince to the fruit. Then the Prince cocked his head and said something most unusual. 'Or not. The royal treasury is not what it used to be.'

'It isn't?' I asked. I hoped that the wine was having an effect on him. He had enjoyed two refills, and I only one. If he felt comfortable discussing personal troubles with me, then I could count on his return at some point in the future.

'It isn't,' he agreed, seeming to forget that he was the one who had mentioned it. Nevertheless, he continued. 'My mother drains it with her blasted herbs, and my father drains it with his blasted wars in the Borderlands. My brother drains it too, though I know not where he funnels the money.'

'Perhaps he spends it wisely, my prince,' I suggested, though I did not care to defend Prince Milos, only to see Alum's reaction. He scoffed, and I suppressed an evil grin.

'Or perhaps he throws it all at Alissia and her precious Vizonian Order,' he said. He was starting to slur his words a little. And he'd finished his glass again. Daegwin came out to refill it, and then retreated back into the kitchen. I made a mental note to reward her for her service this night. Sure, it was her job, but anything could have gone wrong and been terribly embarrassing.

'My Prince, you look tired,' I said. 'Surely the Vizonian Order cares only for the good of the realm, as you do.'

He snorted loudly. It was not an attractive gesture, but he could have retched on the table and I would not have been perturbed. 'The Vizonian Order. They hide their swords behind a cloak of penitence. I care not for them.'

I was strangely interested by this parallel between Alum and Father. Yet I saw an opportunity to get closer to the Prince than any woman had ever been. 'My Prince, perhaps you should retire before your lips say something your mind later regrets.'

'Or before they do something I later regret,' he said, looking me dead in the eye. I felt for certain that he was going to kiss me, but it was too soon, and he felt it too. Still, chills ran through my entire body as I realised the degree of success that I had achieved this night. There was yet one more thing I hoped for.

'Prince Alum, I bid you take my bed for the night. I think it would create much gossip if you were sighted leaving my house in such a state. I will sleep elsewhere,' I told him.

If he slept in my bedroom, he would have no choice but to feel intimately connected with me. I would have him in my grip, and would need only to keep him there until I came of age. Of course, there was still work to be done, but I could hardly have hoped for a better beginning.

'I should not,' he said. Then his eyes pressed more deeply into his skull as he considered his drunkenness. 'On second thought…'

He never finished his sentence. I stood and let him put his arm over my shoulder. Daegwin appeared, presumably to offer the same service to his other arm, but I silently shooed her away. This was my moment.

'Up the stairs, Alum,' I said, knowing he would not speak against my casual use of his given name.

'Aye,' he said, and I grinned at his informality. We trudged up the stairs, one by one, and I felt the girth of his upper arms and the solidity of his pectoral muscles. He was a warrior, and I shivered again when I considered the strength that he could bring to bear. Yet I helped him up the stairs, stabilising more than carrying him. We reached my bed, and I lay him in it as gently as a girl can lay a heavy man's body down.

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'I bid you join me, Saemara,' he said, and my eyes widened like dinner plates.

It was tempting, oh so tempting, yet I knew I must resist. Even aside from that I had met the Prince only on a handful of occasions, I knew that I was too young. It did not matter that it was what we both wanted, or that my body appeared to most as one of sufficient age to bear children, I knew that it would create too much controversy to be allowed to continue. I wondered that the Prince had little experience with either drink or women, such that he had allowed himself to utter such words without an immediate retraction. Perhaps he was not the stoic bachelor he appeared to be on the surface – though I had learnt that already this evening.

Even without considerations of age, it was a bad idea. We needed to make our relationship public first, and even then we should restrain for a number of months. Such measures were important to prove the legitimacy of any child that may have been the product of such a union. If I were to fall pregnant without our relationship being known, people would say that I had fallen pregnant to another. I had to resist, though every muscle in my body longed to act, and my every inch of skin longed to feel his touch.

'I'm sorry, Alum, but you will thank me for declining in the morning,' I said as gracefully as I could manage. I reassessed, and was suddenly concerned that it might take some effort to keep the Prince interested. He was unlikely to get drunk during all of our visits, though I hoped that his drunkenness brought forward emotions he felt when sobre, rather than creating them.

'Of course,' he said. His eyes were closed, and I'm not even sure he comprehended my words fully.

'Good night,' I told him, blowing out the torches and closing the door as I vacated the room. Daegwin ascended the stairs atop which I was standing and I spoke to her. 'I'm going to sleep in your bed tonight. Will you be sleeping on the floor?'

Daegwin stiffened. I knew that I could have asked more kindly, as even though I was her master I had no right to her possessions, but there was a Prince in my bed so I felt I wasn't asking too much of her. 'I can stay at Duke Wilbern's, I have made friends with his servants,' Daegwin eventually responded with an even tone.

'That is acceptable, Daegwin,' I told her gratefully, though perhaps not as kindly as I should have. I didn't wait for her to gather her things, I was too tired for that. I immediately trudged into her room and collapsed onto her bed. Though I had drunk scarcely a third of the Prince's intake, I was less capable of resisting the wine's effects. I found myself asleep before Daegwin had finished closing the door.

My eyes fought tooth and nail against my forcing them open, but I bent them to my will. My muscles were as weak as frayed ropes, but I commanded them as iron chains. I could scarcely think, for an earthquake was splintering my skull, but I welded the bone in place with the fire of intention. I clung onto that intention through the pain of my inaugural hangover, grasping it as my lifeline, driven by its simplicity.

I had to see the Alum before he left.

I feared that things between us would become very awkward if he had already departed my bedroom. I needed to show him - before he went back to his life - that I was fine with everything that had happened, and that we could still get along despite his earlier advances.

It was for this reason that I stumbled to my feet, straightened the blouse that I was still wearing, and knocked on the door to my bedroom. There was no answer.

The butterflies in my stomach began to race. I hadn't even noticed their presence earlier, but I now realised that I was still anxious about seeing the Prince. My planning had paid off last night but he was still famous, of exceptionally high title, and very charming. I swallowed the butterflies and pushed the door open.

Prince Alum was sitting up in my bed. I recognised his hangover due the dehydrated look I shared, though I had no doubt that his was worse. I had drunk little wine, though my inexperience had no doubt contributed to its effect.

He turned to me and I smiled at him, hoping to ease him into feeling comfortable. Yet he did not reciprocate my expression, and instead his jaw locked and his eyes widened. I started to panic, and tried to consider how I could make him relax. If he lost his composure, I was not sure that I'd be able to make him see me again. It was imperative, in my mind at least, that we part on amiable terms.

The Prince stood abruptly, but swayed and grabbed one of the posts of my bed to steady himself. After a few seconds, he blinked and stepped towards the doorway in which I stood.

'Good morning, Prince,' I said to him, attempting to start conversation.

'Uh-uhm…' his tongue stumbled. 'Morning, ah, Countess,' he eventually managed, though without eye contact. He reached the door, and I was deliberately slow to let him pass.

'I trust you enjoyed last night,' I tried, following closely behind him as he descended the staircase to the bedroom.

'Last night?!' he exclaimed suddenly, as if my prompting had reminded him of something both heinous and shocking. Possibly he thought that we had slept together and he couldn't remember it, but the more recent memory of me appearing in the doorway in the previous night's clothes set his mental record straight fairly quickly. 'Oh, of course. Last night. Yes, I had a lovely dinner,' he said. He put a lot of emphasis on the word 'dinner,' as if to say that if anything had occurred after dinner it had been thoroughly unenjoyable.

This was deeply concerning. He was clearly frantic and concerned. I had underestimated his lapse in self-control last night. He was a Prince of the realm, and he had asked me – a sixteen year old girl no less than third in line to the rulership of a minor border county – to bed with him. It seemed unbelievable to me, and I’d been planning it for two weeks in advance. To him, it must have been fantastical at best.

I didn't know what to say as he donned his coat and reached for the front door, so I quickly spluttered, 'see you soon?'

It sounded pathetic, like I was begging him to come back. For the first time that morning he turned his inscrutable gaze upon me.

'Maybe,' he said in a tone that meant 'probably not.'

My own eyes hit the floor, and by the time I lifted them he was gone.

I was alone.