The Prince from the North
Selena left quickly enough. With the busybody gone, things were easier for me. Back in my room, I ran my fingers over the mirror once more and sorted through the information I had uncovered.
Before long, a guest from a foreign land would arrive here.
None other than Henrik, Second Prince of Bwendowska. They said royal dragon blood ran through that kingdom's veins.
"Well, my mother was a witch, after all."
So even that legendary creature called a dragon held no particular wonder for me.
Henrik was famed as the first northern prince to push his way into the heart of the continent. As far as I knew, he was locked in a war of succession with the First Prince, Leszyca. He had been driven onto the battlefield for political reasons of one kind or another, yet he had flourished there, until at last he seized for himself the epithet of the Black Dragon of the Battlefield.
In every sense of the word, he wanted conquest — and a reputation greater still. Otherwise, there would have been no reason for a man of princely rank to take the field a second time.
"Which proves he's ambitious and belligerent. And if I'm to keep someone like that at my side, I'll have to pay an appropriate price."
Usually, when I used magic for too long, my chest ached as though my breath were being strangled. I couldn't read much further tonight, but that hardly mattered. Scrying the future with magic was no cure-all. It was merely one tool among many — and I had plenty of other ways to gather information.
I might be confined to this tiny room, but I was nothing more than a powerless princess; my surveillance was hardly airtight. So I slipped out of my room at regular intervals and pored over the newspapers and magazines scattered in the rubbish bins.
Even if word spread that I'd been caught rummaging through trash, I had nothing left to lose.
And from those papers, I learned the official reason Henrik was coming: a peace accord between this kingdom of Francia and the northern realm of Bwendowska.
I knew, reading that sentence in a crumpled, dirt-stained newspaper, that it was a lie.
Because the future the mirror showed me was nothing of the sort.
The future I envisioned was vengeance against the people who had cast me aside; the mirror's role was to show me how to achieve it. A future of peaceful exchange between this country and the North had nothing whatsoever to do with that prince.
When a man of great standing from a foreign land sought peace, the method he put forward was a marriage pact.
"Both of the other princesses are already married, so the King will want to get rid of his troublesome me."
He would sell me off as a second wife to some noble house, and in my place send a respectable second daughter from a prominent family to the prince. But what if that prince, wielding his military might and the banner of peace with the North, demanded a different woman instead — me?
I knew the King's temperament well. What mattered most to him was preserving his authority. He would want to avoid a sudden collision with a foreign power in the middle of this era of peace. And I intended to exploit exactly that.
"I'll have to persuade him to take me north with him."
Revenge — I would repay, in kind, every ounce of the bitterness they had poured into me.
"First I have to get out of here. Only then can I scheme for anything at all."
They had tried to break me with insult and humiliation, with contempt and mistreatment — with beatings they wouldn't have given a servant. Sometimes they had cooed at me, sweet and tender as honey, trying to unravel my very sanity and emotions along with it.
"That will never happen. Never."
I caressed the mirror and steeled my resolve. My first priority on the road to revenge was clear.
Persuade him to my will — and then,
"I'll need to start by putting him on the throne."
And for that, I had to win his trust — whether by selling the intelligence I held on this country, or by aiding him with my magic.
"Only if he has real power will he be useful to me. Raising an army to bring this kingdom down will take some time, but…"
Merely punishing them would never sate me. I would make them lose everything, exactly as I had — their homeland, their power, their peace. All of it.
"…I can be patient until then. I have patience enough."
Once I had sketched the grand design, my goal and my plan felt sharper, more certain. The fine details I could refine as I came to know him — and the northern kingdom — better.
First, when Henrik arrived, I would find some way to meet him face to face and open negotiations. That first step was everything. We were strangers, after all, and I couldn't predict what variables might arise. So I laid out contingency after contingency to make sure things went my way.
* * *
A chill wind crept through the gap of a window long neglected by any caretaker.
"Whew…"
I let out a long sigh in a room where not even the fireplace was properly lit. The cold autumn air turned every breath into a faint white haze.
Beyond the window, brilliant lights blazed and elegant music swelled. Confined as I was, I could still piece together what was happening.
Tonight, a grand banquet would be held to welcome the foreign guest.
Bwendowska was far away; the two kingdoms had never traded envoys often. For those charged with entertaining its prince, the evening would be a frenzy of preparation.
Everyone's but mine.
It didn't matter. Honestly, those days of society balls and being called "Her Highness" or "Duchess" felt like an empty dream now.
"What matters is meeting him. Attilenta."
I murmured to myself — a habit I'd picked up during my long confinement — and hardened my resolve. I would also have to be careful not to put a single word wrong in front of the Prince of Bwendowska.
Night deepened. Following the route I had used to slip out of the palace countless times in secret, I made my way toward the guest wing where the foreign visitors were lodged.
Thanks to my experience escaping and my own abilities, it wasn't difficult. Times like these, my gaunt frame was even a blessing — it kept me from drawing any eyes.
Knights in black armor, black weapons at their sides, stood before the annex.
There he is. I drew a deep breath and stepped forward. Soon the blades would come flying.
"Who goes there?"
"Stand back."
I did not retreat at the unfamiliar foreign tongue. Instead, I pressed myself low against the ground and pleaded.
"I wish to see His Highness the Prince."
To anyone watching, I was the picture of a frail, helpless woman. Even knowing I had come creeping in the dead of night, they wouldn't cut my throat on the spot.
As the knights hesitated, I murmured again.
"I mean no harm. Please, let me in."
I had used their native tongue out of respect — to show that I honored them deeply.
Then, from within, a low voice carried out.
"Who's there?"
That voice was as cold as the autumn wind, and it settled low around us like darkness itself. Gooseflesh raced up my spine.
"Your Highness. A girl has come to see you."
I knew, by instinct, that this was the Second Prince of Bwendowska. To steady my nerves, I bit my lip.
"Your Highness, I am no assassin."
"I can hardly turn away a guest in the night, can I?"
As if his words were a signal, the knights seized me, hauled me to my feet, and escorted me inside.
The interior was as lavish and dazzling as befitted a precious guest — chandeliers, a richly patterned carpet, a table of solid hardwood and a fine sofa.
Only one man was seated on that sofa.
"She carries no weapons."
I didn't much care when a knight I'd never met patted me down. Only one thing mattered to me now.
"Why have you come?"
I gave Henrik a slow, measuring look. He was a man with hair as black as a moonless dawn and eyes unlike any I had ever seen — deep as amethyst.
Unlike the knights surrounding him, he wore no armor at all, yet his cold features and powerful build stood out all the more for it. Leaning back against the sofa, he radiated an easy confidence that a shabby little princess like me could never hope to match.
"Mind your words."
I would have been cautious even without the knight's warning. No matter how you looked at it, he and I were not equals. But that didn't mean I needed to cower. I had come to offer him a bargain.
"I am Attilenta, a princess of this kingdom."
My eyes were green — the same green as the King of Francia's. That much was a truth no forgery could produce.
He had already attended a Francia banquet; he would know the royal look well enough.
Henrik gave a small nod, as if granting permission, and I took the seat across from him. He raised one large hand and rested his jaw upon it at his leisure. Even that casual gesture carried the polish of decades of breeding.
"Far too thin — and yet the royal eyes. You'd hardly do as an assassin."
With fluid diction and a voice pitched low, Henrik assessed me as though I were some doltish gift horse. I paid it no mind and went straight to the point.
"You speak truly. I have only one reason for coming here. Since Your Highness seeks nothing from this country but a nominal tie—"
"You misunderstand, my lady. I've already finished the banquet your King so graciously hosted."
"—it is precisely as his counterpart that I am suited to Your Highness."