Page 18 of Rise of the Vicious Princess

She could send her regrets to Father and stay locked in her rooms for the rest of the night. He would understand. He always did. Unlike Mother, he had no expectations for Charis to meet. No rigorous agenda for her to perform.

Sitting at her desk, she reached for a fresh piece of paper, then paused, her fingers hovering over a small list written in Milla’s sprawling loops and loose swirls. Letting her hand come to rest on the paper, she pressed her fingertips into the tiny raised lines of ink.

Silk rosette—Lady Ollen

Tuuberstone brooch—Lord Westing

Embroidered scarf—Lady Channing

Bronze hairpin—Lady Rynce

Lace handkerchief—Lord and Lady Perch

Charis stopped reading. It was a list of the gifts that had been left for Charis’s use at the ball last night. The last thing Milla ever wrote. It was useless now, with the ball past. More gifts would arrive before the next formal event. She ought to throw it away.

Instead, she slipped it in a drawer and reached for fresh paper. She’d already dipped a quill into her inkpot, ready to send a note to Father, when she paused.

The room felt wrong. Charis’s battle dress and training clothes still lay on the closet floor where she’d let them fall. Her brush was tossed haphazardly onto the dresser, strands of her hair still caught in its teeth. There was no patter of light footsteps in the bath chamber. No cheerful humming filling the space. Charis had never realized just how large her rooms could feel even as the walls seemed to close in on her.

She couldn’t stay here with only a stranger for company. Not while every shadow, every whisper of sound made her heart jump with hope that it might be Milla. That somehow Mother had been wrong, and Milla hadn’t been killed in the dungeon that morning. It had been some other girl, some stranger who hadn’t quietly taken a piece of Charis’s heart when she’d forgotten to guard against it.

The quill fell against the paper, leaving a smear of ink across its surface as Charis turned away from the desk. From the discarded clothes and the treacherous shadows and the silence. Drawing in a ragged breath, she schooled her face into cold indifference and knocked on Tal’s door.

He opened it seconds later, bowed his head, and said softly, “Your Highness.”

“I’m going to have dinner in Father’s rooms.”

He nodded and followed her as she opened the door to her chambers and entered the hall.

Her new pair of guards stood at the head of the corridor in front of the guardroom listening to Reuben. Charis ignored them. Turning on her heel, she strode toward the small spiral staircase at the far end of the hall. The one the staff used as they moved through the palace attending to their duties.

“Your Highness!” Reuben’s voice barked from behind her.

For an instant, Charis was tempted to pretend she hadn’t heard him. But whatever she did now would be reported to Mother. Giving in to emotion over her handmaiden and her guards was a weakness the princess of Calera could ill afford. Not if she wanted everyone to believe she would ruthlessly cut down any who betrayed her. Even if it destroyed her own heart to do it.

Turning sharply, she met Reuben’s gaze. The fury in her heart became fire in her blood as she stared into his dark eyes.

He had killed Milla, Fada, and Luther. Charis would be willing to stake her life that he’d enjoyed it.

“These are your new nighttime guards,” Reuben said, watching her closely. “Vellis and Gaylle. They will accompany you to the king’s chambers.”

Vellis was a tall woman with sharp, angular bones and a raw, windswept look to her pale face. Gaylle stood eye level with Charis, his eyes watchful, his brown skin gleaming in the dying light of the sun as it streamed through the windows.

“Wonderful.” Charis turned and continued to the staircase, trying to ignore the sound of footsteps in her wake.

She didn’t want to know their names or memorize their faces or hear them share stories about their families with each other when they thought she was otherwise occupied. The aching hollow within seemed to expand, pressing against her skin until it was difficult to breathe.

“Remain here,” Charis said to the new guards as she reached the door to Father’s chambers. Opening the heavy wooden door, she stepped inside with Tal just behind her and closed it.

The lock slid shut with a satisfying click, and she leaned against the door for a moment, her eyes closed as she prepared to be the Charis her father expected to see.

The rage she wore like armor subsided. In its absence, the aching space where Milla had been seeped into her veins and spread. She pressed her lips together and tried to push the pain back where it belonged, but it had taken on a life of its own and refused to be diminished.

“Good evening, Your Highness. Tal.” A quiet voice interrupted Charis’s thoughts, and she opened her eyes to find her father’s companion standing in front of her. Ilsa held a tray of thinly sliced apples and cheese arranged around a small loaf of hearty oat bread. Her black hair was pulled into a tight bun, and strands of silver sparkled at her temples.

“Good evening, Ilsa. How is he?”

The older lady’s smile creased the corners of her brown eyes. “Seems a bit stronger today than usual. Follow me, Your Highness.”

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