Page 2 of A Darkness So Sweet

She stayed in the curtsey for too long before straightening. “It’s an honor to create the florals for your wedding, your highness.”

“Ah, yes, that’s what you’re doing here. I thought perhaps you were another maid.”

The princess smoothed her hands down the intricately beaded bodice. Maia took a step closer, and realized the tiny pearlescent beads were actually woven in a pattern. They were roses. Shimmering roses that spilled down her chest into a smooth satin skirt that swayed with her movement. She was exquisite. The true depiction of all the elven blood the royal family shared. Nearly half blooded, if the rumors were true.

Maia needed to remember where she was. She certainly needed to not gape at the princess like she was a complete dolt.

But it was hard being in the presence of a half-elven woman when she herself only had the merest drop of elvish blood. It was like standing in front of the sun.

“I hope the flowers are to your liking. It’s an honor to be part of the first royal wedding in many years.” She cleared her throat, trying hard not to stare at the pillowy cushions of the princess’s breasts, which really were impressively high. How did she get them to stand up like that without it hurting?

The princess wandered over to the podium, stood on it, and admired her reflection. “A royal wedding that will chain me to a beast. What a wonderful thing it will be.”

She could hear the bitterness in the words, and pity flooded through her chest. “You are not... I’m sorry. Did you say a beast?”

“You haven’t heard? My father is marrying me off to the trolls. It’s a bid for peace, although I highly doubt such creatures are capable of controlling their baser instincts.”

Maia felt all the blood drain out of her face. She grabbed for the nearest object, a chair at the vanity, as she listed to the side. “Trolls?”

She’d never seen one herself, of course. They were rarely seen in these parts, but she’d heard they were getting closer. Attacks on the outskirts of the kingdom were becoming more regular. Rumors abound that trolls were tunneling through the ground and coming into homes from the basements. Everyone knew to fear the beastly creatures.

They hardly even fought with weapons. They liked to use their massive fists, pounding a man’s skull until it popped into nothing more than gore and brains.

“Your father wouldn’t marry you off to one of them... would he?” she asked, her voice quiet as maids suddenly poured into the room.

Six maids, each of them in the same black and white outfit. Their skirts kissed the floor, their hair pulled back just as tightly as the beak-nosed woman who still stood at the door. They all lined up against the wall, waiting for Princess Liliana’s command.

“I’m a princess. I don’t get to choose who I marry.” Then she looked over her shoulder at Maia, and she swore there was a calculating look on the princess’s face. “Do you get to pick who you marry... I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

“Maia, your highness.” It was so strange that a princess wanted to know her name that she almost forgot the original question. Clearing her throat, she shifted from foot to foot as she tried to find the right words. “I cannot marry.”

“You cannot? What an odd choice of words.”

“My father...” She shouldn’t even be talking about this, but the words still poured out of her. “When my father died, I was his sole heir. If I want to keep the business in my name, and I very much do, then I cannot marry. Whatever I inherited from my father would transfer over to my husband, and there are very few suitors out there who wouldn’t sell the whole thing.”

Her father’s business had hardly been his in the end. Maia grew the flowers into the perfect blossoms. She cut them at the right time, making sure all the arrangements were perfect. And yes, it was hard. Few people had a reason to spend money on flowers when there were more important things. But plenty of nobility used to sponsor her father simply so that their homes looked more impressive when people came to visit.

Then he’d died. Fewer nobles wanted to give a woman money when she was running the business, even though the product hadn’t changed.

The princess turned, looking perfect even though more maids had rushed to attach more fabric onto her back, weaving through the strands of her hair beneath a veil. They draped jewels over her throat and rings on her hands. But the princess’s eyes were on Maia.

“Come here,” the princess said, her voice low and melodic.

An icy cold wind coiled around her. It seemed to take root in her chest, twisting painfully the longer she stood still. She had to move, even though she didn’t want to. Maia drifted forward as though in a dream, taking one of those bejeweled hands when one was offered to her.

She stared in shock as the princess turned her hand over, looking at the callouses on her palm and the dirt underneath her nails before gently kissing her fingertips. “You and I are the same. Stuck in a life we didn’t choose. Unknowing who our husband will be, or if we even want to marry. I feel such kinship with you.”

“Kinship, your highness?”

“You are alone, are you not?”

That stabbed her right in the heart. Because yes, she was. Her mother had died when she’d been very young, and her father had passed last year. It had been hard ever since. Maia had worked her entire life for her father until she’d been little more than skin and bones some years. Even during a good year, she hadn’t time to find friends or even suitors.

But it was hard to believe a princess was ever really alone.

It was almost as though she said the words out loud. The princess smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You can be surrounded by people and never feel like a single one truly knows you.”

Again, that icy cold sensation stabbed at her. What was it? Magic? It felt like some kind of power coiling throughout her entire body.

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