the enemy of my enemy

PART ONE: THE KING AND THE PRINCESS

Marian Castine, first and only heir to the Adysan throne, had spent the last ten years surrounded by guards. She liked the guards. They had taught her three different card games, provided her with a multitude of scandalous gossip, and spent their time dedicated to risking their lives if assassins entered the castle.

However, she’d never needed to lose her ever-present trail more than the current moment. As such, she’d ended up wedged in the back of the seamstress’s fabric storage, ostensibly sorting the bolts by weight and season. And she had moved some bolts, to be fair, but only so she could get comfortable as she told her sordid tale to Lacey Barton, the queen’s chief seamstress.

“And so,” she continued, worrying a swath of damask between her fingers, “he’s constantly switching his parapet shifts for mine, and then there’s that time that Tobias told you that he was watching me sleep—”

Lacey nodded vigorously, having abandoned her newest project, and now the pilfered lantern served no purpose other than to illuminate her widened eyes. “And so,” she echoed, gesturing that Marian continue.

“And so after first bells rang, I asked if he would stay for a bit, and then I dragged him into the closet and kissed him—”

Lacey gasped.

Marian held up a hand to forestall the expected tangent.

“And then he ran away.”

Her friend froze for a moment, blinking rapidly, and then her face twisted into something resembling rage. Lacey had never quite mastered emotions requiring negativity, but Marian appreciated the attempt.

She felt rather foolish, after all.

The two girls had spent many hours whiling away Lacey’s shifts with novels lifted from the library under Maizel’s watchful eye, so Marian knew how this went. If two people were interested in one another, they kissed, and after they kissed, they fell in love. And maybe it wasn’t proper for Marian to fall in love with a guard, because she needed to secure a strategic match to keep Adysa’s image strong, but what else was she supposed to do when Charlie wouldn’t leave her alone?

“How dare he!” Lacey shrieked, and her voice carried past the closed door of the closet.

Marian winced at the volume and gestured for her friend to hush. “Shh! He’ll hear you!”

The most unfortunate part of the entire situation was that Charlie was still on her rotation. She would’ve asked Tobias to trade him if she hadn’t been so utterly humiliated.

No one could ever know what had transpired.

Except for Lacey, of course.

Because Lacey was older and wiser and had been through many a failed tryst herself, most notably with Nora from the kitchen. Marian no longer got free tarts when she snuck in.

“He’s an idiot,” Lacey declared emphatically. “I wouldn’t run away if a princess kissed me.”

Marian sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You could get him dismissed. Maybe hung.”

“Not helpful,” Marian snapped, and to her horror, tears gathered in her eyes. “I feel stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” Lacey said immediately, but Marian knew her friend was incredibly biased.

“It wasn’t proper.”

“Who cares about proper?” Lacey asked, fiddling with a roll of silk. “I’ve been caught at least four times—”

“That’s fine for you,” Marian shrieked, hardly remembering that this was supposed to be a secret conversation. “But Silas is always telling me about propriety, and now Charlie’s going to be spilling everything to the entire guard, and they’ll all laugh at me—”

“Breathe, Mare,” Lacey commanded, and Marian took several gulping breaths.

She looked right into Lacey’s wide amber eyes, and for a moment, Marian thought it might be okay, if only the three of them knew what had transpired. There’d be no one calling for her mother’s removal after seeing that her insanity had affected the next generation, Silas wouldn’t bring it up in tutelage, and Marian would escape with only her pride scathed.

Marian couldn’t afford to destroy her mother’s reputation any further. Queen Evangeline had spent Marian’s entire eighteen years of life gallivanting across the continent in search of a cure for the voices she heard in her head. She’d formed a council of three Advisors to manage the kingdom while she wasn’t in residence, and they’d made it very clear they thought the entire family unstable.

And Marian had to prove them wrong.

“What if he tells someone?” She had begun to pick at a loose thread some time ago, and Lacey swatted her hands before she could unravel it any further.

“Then say he’s lying,” the seamstress suggested with a wave of her hands. “No one’s going to accuse you of lying.”

Most days, Marian wished she could be as blasé as Lacey in every aspect of her life. Lacey didn’t worry about voices or assassins or mothers. She sewed, she kissed too many girls, and she went to bed every night content.

“But what if they believe him because he’s not…” Marian trailed off, afraid to say it aloud.

“Crazy?” Lacey finished.

Marian nodded.

“Then get him released before he says anything.”

The prospect held merit. But the Advisors would hardly come to her for suggestions on staff management.

If her mother hadn’t been so damn crazy, the Advisors wouldn’t be practically running this kingdom, and Marian could kiss whomever she wanted.

She didn’t think you were supposed to hate your mother, but sometimes, late at night when she lay alone in the humming castle, she thought about it.

The voice woke her first.

Marian peeled her cheek off the map across her desk and listened. Outside her door, the night shift guards gave a few shouts. She assumed someone had won their card game. Her candle had long since burned down, and the moonlight hid behind curtains.

How pathetic. She couldn’t even stand against one of them.

“Who’s there?” she asked. No one answered.

Marian stood from her desk and turned her back to the wall. The guards had trained her to always keep an exit in sight. Her eyes flitted from the sole window to the doors and back again.

Rather than ask another question, Marian opened her mouth and let loose a piercing scream.

Three guards shoved open the ajar door and filed into her room. Torchlight in the hall glinted off their blades as they separated to sweep. Marian pressed herself tighter against the wall and sent up a prayer to Velminia.

“Joining the Red Hand is considered treason to the crown,” the tallest said. He pulled open her armoire doors and shoved his sword inside carelessly. Lacey would kill her. “Renounce your conspirators, and you may be shown mercy.”

Eventually, the guards sheathed their swords and gathered near her. Marian attempted to look calm and hid her trembling hands behind her back.

“Your Highness,” the same speaker began. “There appears to be no sign of the Red Hand.”

Marian nodded, feeling her cheeks flame, and went back to her desk. Skies above, she needed more sleep. “I apologize for the disturbance, gentlemen. I thought I heard something.” She chose to straighten her papers rather than look any of them in the eye as they bowed. “Good night.”

If not assassins, then who had she heard?

How pathetic you will be, just like the rest.

“I’m not pathetic!” she hissed in outrage.

Silence answered.

Just silence.

By all appearances, the voice remained in her head. A voice she responded to.

She needed more sleep. That was it. No voices, no crazy. Nothing like her mother. She’d wake up and everything would be fine.

Candle flame wobbled on her desk, and Marian moved to blow it out, but the wax lay cold and hard. Fear spiked again, but she brushed it off and fought the urge to look over her shoulder.

“I’m not my mother,” she whispered, but she watched her hands shake all the same.

Marian turned to her bed, but she swore she saw light. She spun around, expecting torches, assassins, death, but only emptiness greeted her.

A flicker of flame entered her vision again, but this time, Marian knew where it came from.

Her hands.

Her hands, and the thought was so ridiculous she laughed. Only one person had the ability to summon fire from her fingers, and that person wasn’t here. She’d set off for southern Adysa three weeks ago. Any day now, the regiment would appear at the gates and Marian would receive another useless trinket as her parents planned their next trip.

But the fire reappeared, and she watched it dance in the dark. Eagerly, the flames crawled up her fingers, spread down her palm, and licked painlessly at her skin.

Marian buried her hands in her skirts and willed it not to be real.

She took a deep breath and counted to ten.

Sleep.

But when she looked down again, flames coiled tight like barely burning embers still waited. The breath in her lungs vanished, and she couldn’t do anything but stare.

And by the time the sun rose, the fire still shone between her fingers.