Page 112 of Rise of the Vicious Princess

“Here’s the list of gifts that were left for me that night.”

She placed the two lists side by side and slowly moved a finger down each. Her heart kicked hard, and fury burned within her. “Do you see what I see?”

His voice was as unforgiving as the stone floor beneath them. “Lady Channing left a gift, but her name isn’t on the log.”

“Which means she didn’t check in at the guards’ station but used the staff stairs to get into my chambers,” Charis said. “But she’s been free to move about the palace for years. It could be an innocent mistake.”

“It could be,” Tal said slowly, his eyes on hers. “But she assumed the queen was dead the morning after the assassination attempt. You took her at her word that she’d overheard a conversation, but what if she assumed that because she’s the one who smuggled in the assassin?”

Charis nodded as the pieces fell into place, lighting a spark of fury in her heart. “She’s the one who tried to broker a deal with Rullenvor and the Rakuuna. She told me we had to do whatever it took to end the war. The second assassination attempt—the archer—that happened the day after I refused to take her advice and make a deal with Ambassador Shyrn.”

“There’s too much here to be coincidence. Especially when, as you said, she’s had free run of the palace. She must have hid the spy in your chambers and then put a gift into your pile to have an excuse for being here if she got caught. She could easily have shown the assassin which room would be used as the ladies’ parlor that evening, too.” Tal met her gaze, and the fury in his eyes was a match for her own. “Say the word, and I will go haul her in front of the queen tonight.”

Charis tapped her fingers on the lists, her mind racing. “It’s close to proof, but it isn’t absolute. There’s a possibility the guards simply neglected to write her name down. We’ll confront her at the ball.”

“Then let’s get going.”

The ball was a sumptuous affair. White shryenthian blooms dipped in silver and bound by elegant black ribbons graced the tables that lined the edges of the ballroom. People in glittering clothes the color of moonlight, midnight, or the star-swept sea danced, laughed, and piled their plates with roasted fish, sugared apples, and buttery pumpkin rolls. Every woman wore a pair of glittering sapphires set in silver to represent the sister moons, and every man had sapphire cuff links. There were large vases in pale blue surrounded by quills, and strips of creamy paper set on tables near the ballroom entrance for people to write a wish they hoped the sister moons would grant before the following year’s festival.

Charis did her part. Greeted her hosts. Laughed with her friends. Kept an eye out for Lady Channing, who was unusually late. And gave her first dance to Lord Severin to make sure her support for the north was clear.

But beneath it all, Tal’s words echoed.

Do you ever wish you could be someone else?

A princess didn’t get to choose love over duty. The truth of that was carved into her very bones.

But.

Her heart didn’t care what was written on her bones. Her heart wanted, just for tonight, to be lit on fire and consumed. If she had to live in the ashes of it for the rest of her life, at least the burning would’ve been her choice. Not for her people. Not for her mother.

For her.

She should have told Tal she loved him. He’d said it to her a hundred times by now, and he never expected anything in return. The truth wouldn’t heal the pain that was coming for them, but he deserved to hear it.

She curtsied to her ninth dance partner of the evening and excused herself to freshen up. Giving Nalani a little wave when her friend sent her a worried look, she moved off the dance floor and took a small cup of cider from the closest beverage table.

Her guards were stationed throughout the home. Reuben had insisted that every guard be in attendance tonight, even her day shift. Two at the ballroom’s entrance. Two near the buffet. Another walking the grounds while still another walked the house, consistently hunting for threats. And of course Tal, always at the fringes, watching his princess to make sure she stayed safe.

She finished the cider and headed for a side hallway. Vellis turned to follow, and Charis said, “Notify me when Lady Channing arrives.” Then she entered the first room she found, with Tal on her heels, and let the door shut behind her.

They were in the Farragins’ main library. Three walls held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, filled with leather-bound books and rolls of parchment. The fourth wall held seven pieces of artwork in heavy golden frames. The pictures were as tall as Charis herself, each depicting a seminal moment in Caleran history.

Tal and Charis stared at each other, the ticking of the library’s enormous clock and the muted sound of the music from the dance floor filling the silence.

He closed the distance between them. “Could we pretend for a moment?”

“Pretend what?”

“To be just a girl and a boy who care about each other and want to dance at a party. No complications. No duty.”

His eyes lingered on her, darkening with something that sent her pulse beating against her skin like a caged bird. “Tonight, I decided that we have no tomorrows. No guarantees. There is only who we are right now, right here. And who I am is a boy who wants to dance with you.”

Hope was a frail, impossible thing that refused to let Charis rest.

There was no path forward without duty. No alternative to the road she’d set her feet on when she’d signed that treaty.

But her heart refused to care. She wanted, just for tonight, to be an ordinary girl dancing with the boy she loved.

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