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“She... she set me an ultimatum. I had to watch Aurelius closely. To stop him on his mission. And under no circumstance was I to help him. If I did, she’d send me home with a black mark against my family’s name. Meaning all of my family’s work... all my father’s dreams... all of it...”
Her words collapsed.
She couldn’t breathe.
Memories of her father thumped through her aching head—him holding her on his shoulders so she could see the races, her little legs gripping his neck like a steed’s flank; staying up till all hours of the night, thinking up strategies to beat the other stables; taking her to the library before dawn, teaching her the knowledge she’d need when they rose to patrician status and she joined him in the senate.
All that work.
All that effort.
Gone!
All because of me.
And in that moment, in a way she’d never fully realized before, Teigra understood the pain and purpose she’d kept for so long. All the effort that she’d gone through since that awful day, all the beatings and humiliations at the hands of Mother, all the horrible things that she’d been forced to do. She’d done it all to keep his path alive. To keep some small part of him alive.
Stick to the path, kiddo. Even if it terrifies you.
She’d failed that final instruction. The words he’d said while securing her into the harness, moments before the race that had ripped her life apart.
And now it was like she’d killed him all over again!
“No,” said Jaspar, pulling her hands from her tear-soaked eyes. “I don’t understand what is happening, but I won’t let her do that. No letters have gone today. I’ll talk to her. I’ll—”
The door was thrown open. It was Mr. Placi. “You have to come downstairs, girl! Quickly!”
Teigra’s heart dropped. It was to be like this, was it? Straight to the door. Straight to the carriage. Back to Mestibes at the earliest possible point. No time to even pack.
She pulled her broken body from the bed—all pain now numbed—and dressed in a thin yellow stola. Mr. Placi took the stairs more gracefully than she imagined a centaur could.
Ms. Securia was waiting at the bottom of those stairs. But her expression was not of fury? It was of... restraint?
Because standing in the doorway, lit by scorching sunlight, was the crown prince.
The muscles in Ms. Securia’s neck visibly strained. “His Royal Highness has come to see you, Ms. Cosmin. Let us not keep him waiting.”
The prince gave a forced-looking smile, no doubt mortified at the sight of her. She probably looked an even bigger mess now than yesterday, when she’d placed a drunken kiss on his beautiful face.
He stood like finest statuary, the sort Mother would slap her hands away from if she tried to touch—too nice for the likes of her. Tall and strong, with a square jaw overlaid with a thick and manly beard, and with cheeks that the young suitors of the senate could only dream of.
He gave her a stiff nod. “Ms. Cosmin, I’ve... I’ve come to check on you.”
“Oh? Thank you,” she muttered, blinking against the blinding blur. “For saving me and... you didn’t have to come here or anything but thank you for that as well.”
“It is such a shame that one of your first big experiences in Ardora was so regrettable,” he said, his voice deep and loud through her hangover. “I must make it up to you.”
“To me?”
“Yes. I was wondering if you would join my family for dinner tonight. At the palace?”
Teigra squinted in stunned silence.
It was all too much. Moments ago, she was to be driven home in shame, with her whole house ruined. And now the Crown Prince of Ardora was on the doorstep, asking her to come to the palace? To make it up to her?
As kind as the offer was, she obviously couldn’t accept. She’d already embarrassed herself enough! The thought of attending a formal dinner—with all the people who watch her almost drown—was unimaginable.
But just as she was about to politely decline, she saw a face peeking from behind the pomegranate.
