Page 80 of Feralheart

She didn’t show gratitude like the gray-bearded man whose smile never reached his eyes. Or stare at the wall like the red-haired man who’d already given up. Her gaze swept the room the way mine did, noting exits first, then guards, then who held real power versus those who only pretended.

The crown had paid tutors to teach me how to do that, and it hadn’t been easy.

She’d learned because she had to.

I looked down at my wineglass and found I’d been holding it so tightly, the stem had pressed a line into my palm.

When her eyes found mine, she didn’t flinch away. She looked at me the way Aristus sometimes did, reading something I didn’t know I was showing. I wanted to look away. My jaw ached from holding it tight.

This woman was unraveling all of me just by standing there. By surviving when she shouldn’t. By refusing to play the role society had written for her.

Protocol said I should go to her again, only this time I could acknowledge the fact that she’d made it through the initial trials. Offer congratulations. Perform the role of the gracious crown prince who believed in the court’s fairness.

I didn’t move.

I’d spent my entire life making sure I didn’t fail. If I walked over there and acknowledged her as anything other than a curiosity or a betting slip, then I had to admit the kingdom was broken.

That I was complicit.

That my perfect life had been built on her suffering.

So I stayed where I was. Watched from across the room. Pretended disinterest while my jaw got tighter and my hands white-knuckled the glass.

Until she slipped away.

One moment she was standing near the food tables, a noble leaning too close. The next she was gone.

Following her would be foolish.

Terrant tracked my gaze to the door she’d used. He was good. He’d been chosen for that reason.

“I’m not enjoying this wine,” I said, handing him the glass. “Bring me a bottle of Vellish red.” I named a year that would be a challenge to find.

He hesitated. He’d know this wine was stored three floors down, behind the cellarer’s lock. But refusing meant explaining out loud whose man he was. Neither of us was ready to say it in words.

He bowed and left.

I strode across the room and stepped through the servants’ entrance.

Slipping the leash was its own kind of treason.

The thought arrived too late, after I’d watched her disappear from the ballroom using the same invisibility trick I’d been taught, the one that said, I belong here so completely you won’t question my leaving.

She didn’t belong. That was the problem. Or maybe the problem was that she actually did.

Outside the fortress, I paused to look for her. I’d expected she’d go to the adjacent aerie. It was her territory, familiar ground. But she turned onto a path weaving through the fortress gardens.

Following at a distance, I kept my boots silent on stone. My training made it easy. I could track someone through a crowd without them knowing, could disappear into shadows when I needed to.

I told myself I was following her to ensure order. Making sure the commons woman didn’t cause trouble. That’s what a crown prince did. We managed problems before they became incidents.

I was fooling no one with the thought, not even myself.

But I wasn’t the only one following her. Two men peeled away from the shadows of the building, moving like soldiers, not staff. Commons or low-tier guards. I didn’t recognize their faces, which meant nothing. But I recognized the way they moved. The careful spacing. The hands hovering near weapons.

My pulse kicked up with a spike of something that felt uncomfortably like panic.

These men were hunting her, and she had no idea.