The day was too lovely to spend inside the castle. Instead, the princess and her two handmaidens found themselves strolling through the royal gardens. They had already made three rounds along paths of white gravel that cut through the colorful flowers and lush greens, so when they once again came upon the glorious fountain in the shape of a mermaid in the center, the three took a seat on the bench facing it.

The princess sat in the middle in her simple white dress, each of her handmaidens flanking her in their matching royal blue ones. Plaited hair cascaded down all three backs, though the princess’s ash blond braid was the longest. The princess nearly always wore white. Just as her handmaidens always wore blue. And, as the latter always stood or sat on either side of the princess, the trio always depicted a perfect representation of the three striped flag of Wassalia.

Prim listened as her companions dished about Bristol’s new love interest, a stable boy they’d all known for years. Bristol flattened her blue skirts down, tucking the layered fabric under her knees as if just speaking about him threatened to vanish her clothes. She hadn’t been able to explain what had changed--how they’d gone from sharing passing smiles and head nods to stealing away in an unmarked supply room in the stables yesterday while the princess was in her private lessons, the only few hours during the day when the princess and the handmaidens were separated.

“I wouldn’t have pegged Baird for a good lover,” the princess admitted slyly, teasingly, sharing a knowing look with the other handmaiden.

Bristol flattened her skirts again, wrinkling her nose. “And why’s that?”

The other two women shared a look before answering.

“Too scrawny. Too…submissive,” Prim said, Kallia nodding her agreement. “You made the first move, didn’t you?”

Bristol smirked. “That’s the secret. You don’t need a big, strong man who can heft you over his shoulders. It’s the scrawny, quiet ones who feel they have something to prove, and what Baird lacks in size he makes up for in effort. And because I did make the first move, I could tell him exactly what I wanted, and he was more than happy to oblige.”

Prim didn’t voice her disagreement, though she didn’t think size or demeanor played much of a role in lovemaking. She’d had strong partners who worshiped her, and she’d had scrawny partners who were only interested in their own release. But if Bristol wanted a man who she could throw over her shoulder, that was her business. And Baird was one lucky bastard for it. Prim had always considered Bristol to be the loveliest of their trio.

“Speaking of,” Bristol drawled to the princess, “isn’t it time for your lessons?” Her rosy cheeks and mischievous smile gave away where she would be spending her free hours.

The trio kissed one another’s cheeks as they departed in separate directions. The handmaidens had no need to walk the princess to her private lessons; there were guards stationed throughout the garden, courtyard, castle—the entire complex—that always kept an eye on her, on everything.

So Prim padded away from the garden alone, aiming for the staircase that would lead her to her mentor, Helena. As the white gravel path turned into wide stone slabs under her feet, and the blue sky was replaced by the grey of the castle archway, a second set of footsteps joined her.

Prim looked sidelong at her new companion, a red-haired man wearing the navy uniform of the royal guard. “You’re back,” she said in greeting.

The guard didn’t offer any greeting of his own. “Her Majesty requests your presence in her chambers.”

Prim didn’t slow her pace or change her direction, and the guard kept close, the sword across his back glinting in the sunlight streaming in through the open arches lining the hallway they now strode down. “I’m on my way to--”

“She wants you now, Prim.”

Prim stopped at the authority in his tone. It had stirred something inside her; or perhaps it was just that he was the first person she saw after Bristol’s conversation had got her thinking about how long it’d been since she had spent time in an unmarked supply room. Or perhaps she’d just missed him.

Roan had been one of the big, strong men she’d been with who certainly had put forth effort. He stilled with her, and she found herself studying his handsome face, his feline eyes with marbled green irises so big no white showed. Shifters always retained their animal eyes, even in their humanoid form.

It’d been two years since she offered herself to the leopard shifter and they’d spent a fun week sneaking around together. That’s how all the castle romances went: a quick, spontaneous start and a quick, spontaneous end. At least, that’s how those of the princess and her handmaidens went. That’s how they ensured nobody found out about them. Whatever partners they chose, the trio of women were certain to make sure the need for discretion was understood. And since Roan had played this game with her before, he already knew the rules.

She allowed her eyes to rake over him and when she once again directed her attention to his face, she saw the side of his mouth had ticked up at the caress of her gaze. “Now can be subjective,” she purred. “Perhaps it took you a while to find me. Perhaps you scoured the castle for an hour before finding me in my chamber?”

“I would no longer have a job if she thought it took me an hour to find you,” Roan said, his voice full of amusement.

Of course that was true. And of course the queen knew exactly what time it was, knew exactly where Prim would be heading, and knew Roan and the other guards knew it, too. There would be no acceptable excuse for delaying the trek to the royal chambers.

“Will you tell Helena? She’ll have words for me tomorrow if I let her wait around all afternoon without showing.”

“I already did,” the leopard shifter said, flashing Prim a dazzling smile with slightly elongated canines. For most shifters, the eyes were the only tell that they were mith and not human. Roan, however, was such a powerful shifter, his canines never quite flattened out. All the mith--shifters and fae--in the royal employ were powerfully gifted. All the humans, too.

Prim dragged her fingers down the stiff fabric covering the guard’s arm. “Thank you.” She batted her eyelashes at him before turning around to find the passageway that led to the west wing of the castle. To the queen’s chambers. The scuff of boots behind her told Prim that Roan was following. “How was Tichua?”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Both Prim and Roan kept their eyes forward as they walked the hallways of the castle, passing several guards and various servants. “You know what I was doing there, so I’m sure you can imagine.”

Prim could imagine. Tichua wasn’t a pleasant city to visit even for leisure, and it certainly wouldn’t have been any more enjoyable for Roan as his party of guards hunted down the man who murdered a lord’s son last year. Despite never having set foot in Hogard, the victim had been a distant cousin of the king, and as such, the royal guards were assigned the task of serving justice. Prim didn’t know how they had identified the murderer, or how they had determined he was in Tichua. All she knew was that she hadn’t seen Roan in several weeks. “Were you at least successful?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t ask what that meant. Either the man was dead or in the dungeons, and she didn’t really care to know which.

They were at the top of the stairs that opened to the queen’s hall when Roan slowed, causing Prim to pause. “Do you really want me to find you later?”

She smiled softly at her friend and continued walking. They reached the queen’s chambers and the guards stationed outside gripped the handles to the double doors, but Prim held her hand up, signaling them to wait before opening. She turned to the leopard shifter.

Roan was a good man. A good guard, too. He had been a good lover for that brief time, and a good friend since. Not for the first time, she lamented that the romances of her trio had to be so short-lived.

“My lesson with Helena will only last an hour tomorrow,” she said quietly. Though she didn’t think the guards could hear, she still didn’t add the rest: find me then.

Roan dipped his head and left Prim in front of the doors, the two guards still grasping the handles.

Prim took a deep breath and smoothed her dress. She’d have to think of a way to get out of her lesson early tomorrow. But for now, she needed to focus on whatever was so important the queen had requested her audience. Prim nodded and the guards opened both doors in one synchronized motion.

The queen's chambers were bright, the tall, skinny windows facing the west casting the room in a golden hue from the sun that had started to dip toward evening. The doors on the adjacent wall lead to her private bed and bath chambers. This room was for entertaining, set up exactly as the princess’s chambers were. On one side, a large table with chairs for eight sat. On the other, four plump purple chaises sat facing one another in a square with a low-laying table in the center. It was on one such chaise that Queen Mallis sat. Completely alone. No king, no guards, not even her handmaidens. Odd.

Prim approached and slid through the opening between the corners of two of the chaises, facing the queen. She curtsied deeply. “Your Majesty wished to see me?”

Prim rose to find Queen Mallis patting the seat next to her in invitation. Prim took her seat, angling her body toward the most powerful woman in Wassalia. She wore a simple golden dress. No crown sat atop her golden hair, no jewelry graced her ears or neck or wrists. The only thing of value on her was the gold band on her left hand finger to denote her marriage to King Achrod.

The queen’s smile was warm but her eyes held sorrow as she reached toward Prim and took her hand. “Primrose.”

Prim swallowed. The queen was not often this intimate with her.

“I have news,” the queen continued. “The King of Lanham has offered his youngest son, Prince Egan, in marriage. Achrod and I accepted.”

Prim knew this day would come. Honestly, she was surprised it had taken this long. But that didn’t help the bile rising in her throat, the bottoming out of her stomach.

She tried to recall information about the youngest prince of the land-locked kingdom to the south, but nothing came to mind. She knew nothing at all about him or his younger sister, though she knew much about the crown prince, Tigan, who was slated to become a wise and just ruler and was already married with a young daughter and another on the way. She knew some--but not much--about the second son. Enough to know he wouldn’t have been offered because he was still third in line to his own throne. And she’d heard rumors that the third eldest, the older princess Torra, planned on marrying a fae noble as soon as Tigan’s second heir was born. Only then would she be fifth in line and released from her obligation to produce offspring.

Wassalia had the same custom: the first four in line to the throne had an obligation to continue the royal bloodline. While history provided a handful of examples of cross-breed coupling producing a pregnancy, they never came to term. Which is why the princess would have to marry a human man.

Prince Egan fit the bill; Lanham was one of the other human-run kingdoms on this side of Hosta. Prim had long assumed a Wassalia nobleman would be selected as the future king consort. But with Egan already fifth in line to his throne, soon to be sixth, there was no reason not to accept the King of Lanham’s generous offer to ally the two kingdoms. Prim was sure the king and queen had decided a foreign prince was better than a local nobleman, regardless of the fact that they knew nothing about him.

The silence was deafening, the queen’s attention crushing as Prim considered her words. Prim was well aware Mallis was studying her reaction, so she kept her face as neutral as she could, even as she allowed herself to look around the room, escaping the queen’s eye contact. As her eyes wandered, she remembered they were alone.

It had to be intentional, just as it had been intentional for the queen to summon her just at the start of lessons, when Prim herself would be alone. Prim didn’t need to be told this news was not to be shared.

“The Lanhami royals will be here in a month’s time. They will remain here as our guests for a month. At the end of the second week, we will announce the engagement. The wedding will take place at the end of their stay,” the queen continued.

“Your will is mine.” It was a statement, yet a question: What must I do to prepare? Prim refrained from asking what she really wanted to know: Why are you telling me this now? Why without any witnesses?

Mallis sat unnervingly still. “Anyone harboring ideas of weakening or stealing the Orlana throne would want to strike before the birth of my grandchildren. This union will announce that their time to act is running out.”

Prim recoiled, though the queen still held her hand. “Who would—” she began the question before she could control herself, but quickly stopped at the queen’s gentle squeeze.

“Primrose, do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Prim nodded. This is what she must do to prepare. Be vigilant.

The queen scanned her again and must have accepted the resolve on the young woman’s face, for she nodded in return. “When the Lanhami arrive, keep your eyes and ears open, and tell me everything. If Egan is deemed unfit, we have the opportunity to withdraw our acceptance.”

Prim nodded again, realizing this was likely why the chambers were empty. If they did decide to withdraw their consent--and everyone already knew about the proposal--it would be seen as an insult to the Lanhami royals.

The queen released Prim’s hand, and she recognized it for the dismissal it was. Prim curtsied again and swiftly strode for the doors. Before she reached them, the queen added, “I’m trusting you to protect what is most precious, Primrose.”

Prim stiffened for only half a heartbeat at the weight of her responsibility. As long as she could remember, her life had been about protecting what was most precious: the future of Wassalia. So she let the weight of Mallis’s words become an embrace as the doors opened for her, courtesy of the queen’s gift of wind.