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The King leaned past Briar, his eyes landing on me. I rocked back on my heels at the full force of his stare. Was it time? Was he going to tell everyone who I was? Sadie cleared her throat beside me and my senses came back to me. Dropping my eyes, I bowed.
“The Princess’s personal guard,” King Nero said, flashing his canines as he grinned. “The only other Gold Wolf to have survived Sawyn’s wrath. Not much of a warrior, by the looks of you.”
The crowd tittered, their stares pressing in on me as my cheeks burned. Spots clouded my vision, and I pushed against the dizzying feeling in my head. Just get through this one moment and then I could fade away into the background again.
Grae took a half step toward his father, his voice lighthearted as he said, “I wouldn’t underestimate her.”
King Nero cut him a sharp look and Grae dropped his eyes. I prayed to the Moon that my face hadn’t turned an unseemly shade of green. A painful awareness of my body made me clench my jaw. I felt their eyes wandering over me, taking in everythingfrom my dark curls to my large hips to my diminutive stature. Nothing lithe or graceful about me. Nothing forceful or menacing, either. I forced myself to stare at the crowd, challenging each of their mocking glances. My body might not look like that of a killer, but my expression did. One by one, their eyes dropped, and I straightened my shoulders.
The King looked me up and down again, a twinkle in his eyes. He knew who I was.
“Perhaps we will need a demonstration of this skill at some point.” He laughed, and the crowd echoed the sound. Bile rose in my throat as he turned back to Briar. “But for now, we have a wedding to prepare for. Tonight, when the Moon Goddess is full in the sky, we shall fulfill the Marriels’ ultimate wish to bind our families together forever. Olmdere will have a king once more!”
A king. Not a queen. Briar was a kingmaker—that was her true value to them. Without her, Grae couldn’t be king of Olmdere. My fingernails dug into my palm as I watched the smiles shared between father and son, king and prince. As I watched my sister’s trueborn self seemingly vanish before our very eyes.
Cheering broke out again as King Nero waved his hand, dismissing our traveling party. Grae joined his father on the dais as the rest of us bowed in unison and hastened to a side door. I cast one last look at Grae, finding his dark eyes already upon me. I couldn’t read his steely expression as his eyes tracked me out of the room.
In the forests of Allesdale, I thought I knew him. But here, in this world, he was another person. And I wasn’t sure if this version of Grae would ever be friends with someone like me.
My ears rang in the hallway’s silence. The air was cooler, smelling of silver polish and fresh paint. Servants rushed past the narrow space, carrying trays of silverware and baskets of linen napkins, racing to prepare for the wedding feast.
The one that was apparently happeningtoday.
The King hadn’t revealed who I was. Worse, he let everyonelaugh at me. I clenched my hands to keep them from shaking as a million thoughts battled in my mind. Maybe he didn’t want to take away from the excitement of the wedding? Or maybe he was embarrassed by me. Gods, the way they laughed. I looked nothing like Briar. There was nothing regal about me. Maybe he took one look at me and realized I didn’t belong in his pack. Perhaps he would announce it once the ceremony was over . . . My worries popped up faster than I could assuage them.
“It’s okay. You were perfect,” Maez whispered from up ahead.
I leaned past the guards twice my height to find Briar’s reddened face, panting as her eyes welled. I shoved my embarrassment aside and rushed to my sister. She looked like she might throw up, too. Her vacant eyes scanned the ground as I pulled her into a hug.
My embrace seemed to snap her back into reality, and she buried her head in my shoulder.
“Your beauty and poise awed every single one of them, Briar.” My voice was muffled in her hair as I swept soothing circles over her back. I knew it’s what she needed to hear. “You couldn’t see their excitement, but believe me, they were joyous.”
Briar nodded into my shoulder. “I’m okay,” she breathed, pulling back and looking me in the eye. “We’re okay.”
We’d rehearsed that moment in our minds for twenty years and still it had felt overwhelming. The vaulted ceilings, sparkling jewelry, and press of so many people... nothing could have prepared us for it. The world was different when we were being watched. No longer did we exist as ourselves, but rather a projection of their own assumptions and beliefs—Briar the beautiful princess, and me the lowly guard. It made me stand differently, move differently, trying to contort myself into who I thought they expected me to be.
“Let me show you to your chambers,” Maez offered.
Briar and I took a simultaneous deep breath, making the guards chuckle. Whenever we acted in unison, it seemed to elicitthe same response. We appeared like complete opposites, but in many things, we were the same. I released my sister from our hug and grabbed her hand. It was as sweaty as my own.
“We’re okay,” I echoed to her as we followed Maez into the heart of the palace.
Seven
My feet dangled through the balustrade, floating in the open air as I ate my lunch. The doors to Briar’s bedroom sat open at my back, welcoming the warm, perfumed air from her chamber. From my vantage point, I could see the entire city of Highwick—the rolling forests bordering fine townhouses and out further to the crammed human quarter. Thin trails of smoke curled into the air from the many smokestacks, the wind carrying them away from the Wolf part of town.
The sound of a string quartet floated up to the fourth-floor balcony where I sat. They’d play and pause, tuning their strings, breaking into jaunty melodies, and pausing again. I recognized this current song from its very first notes.
“‘The Sleeping Queen,’” I said with a huff. “A little on the nose, don’t you think?”
Briar sauntered over from where she stood by the mirror, trying the same two earrings back and forth as if the fate of our kingdom rested on her selection alone. “It’s a famous song about our parents. Why wouldn’t they play it at my wedding?”
I pulled my head back through the railing and gave my sister an incredulous look. “Because they died?”
“I think it’s nice to remember them on my wedding day. We’re in a foreign kingdom with different customs than our ownpack. It’s nice to have this little part of Olmdere.” She shrugged. “And our parents loved each other. We should still celebrate that, even though it ended.”
I didn’t know if my heart could take hearing it in full. I’d heard it around Allesdale before—hummed by washwomen hanging clothes on the line, trilled by a lute in the local tavern, but to hear a proper rendition... Something about the joyful notes scratched against my ears. The song was about their happily ever after, about them defeating the sorceress who ultimately killed them. It was a lie preserved in melody.
