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Rain was in the air. Gray clouds hung heavy in the distance, warning of a storm to come. The perfume of roses and the stench of blood mixed to confuse my senses and addle my thoughts further. I needed to stop thinking. This was a job, and Prince Chevalier was my employer, and that was all. It didn’t matter that he shattered my heart into a thousand pieces in an ill-conceived attempt to protect me from the dangers that surrounded him. It didn’t matter that he obviously hated what he’d done within seconds of doing it, probably even while he was doing it. I couldn’t let myself imagine him tossing his bloody clothes in the laundry hamper the night before and then lying awake, worrying about me, formulating a plan he despised, hoping to make me run away and never come back.
That’s what I wanted to believe happened. Not that it made anything better.
I wanted to hate him, but I couldn’t.
My back. My back, of all places. That was where he touched me. It was more than enough to terrify me, but it was a relatively safe location. Jack’s lecherous hands went for my chest and up my skirt every time, starting that first horrible day shortly after I turned thirteen when he turned up at my house while Mother was out working. I could still feel his hand clamped over my mouth to keep me from screaming for help as he ‘checked to see how I was developing.’ He wasn’t interested in my back, and neither were the men who would have become my customers if I’d given in to him.
Prince Chevalier had wanted to scare me, but he hadn’t wanted to hurt me. His touch had been unwelcome, but gentle. He’d left no marks on me.
I couldn’t hate him.
“What are you doing here?”
Prince Leon’s surprised voice came from overhead, interrupting my thoughts as I scrubbed the bloody paving stones in the gardens on my hands and knees. I looked up at him, frowning down at me.
“You shouldn’t be doing that.”
“Prince Chevalier asked me to clean this up, Prince Leon,” I replied, returning to my scrubbing.
“Asked?”
“Ordered, your highness,” I corrected myself.
Although I could easily have gotten out of it by telling Prince Chevalier that I wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t have argued with me. I barely let him get a word in edgewise once I snapped.
Prince Leon squatted down beside me and put his hand on my arm. “Stop. You don’t have to do this. I’ll get someone else to finish up here.”
I sat back on my heels, looking up at him. “I appreciate your concern, your highness, but I’m almost done, anyway.”
And this wasn’t even the last of the bloody mess I had to clean up. I still had to check on Prince Chevalier’s laundry and see if I could save any of it.
“You can knock off the ‘your highness’ stuff with me, Ivetta,” he said, furrowing his brow as he gazed down at my wrists.
Darn those bruises. And of course I’d rolled my sleeves up again. I pulled them back down as I thought of a way to redirect Prince Leon’s attention.
Blood or bruises? Which was worse?
Bruises, in this case. Jack had already spent too much time in my thoughts today.
“Is this a common occurrence? This…” I looked back down at the paving stones. “This assassination attempt?”
Prince Leon hesitated. “Chevalier has a lot of enemies.”
That sounded like a yes. I frowned, considering. “How common?”
Prince Leon’s amber eyes darkened, and he hesitated again. “I should talk to him about getting you reassigned.”
“How common?” I repeated.
He sighed. “You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“At least once a month for a while now, and usually multiple assailants. His enemies can’t seem to get it through their heads that they can’t take him out this way. It’s just a waste of human lives. A dozen men ambushed him out here last month, and he killed them all in a matter of seconds, leaving one for questioning. One man on his own? He didn’t stand a chance. And it’s not just physical attacks, either. There have been other attempts, including poisoning, but he’s just too smart and too skilled to fall for anything.”
Now I understood why he slept with his sword by his pillow, and that scolding he gave me after I came to his office without him calling for me felt a lot more justified. A cold shiver ran down my spine as I realized just how dangerous it was to continue working for him. Maybe I should leave.
But was it already too late? We went to the festival together, and a lot of people saw us. Then there were the rumors floating around the palace. Everybody knew I worked for him and that he liked me enough to keep me close. Even if they didn’t know how much he liked me, I could still be a target. And if Prince Leon’s words were anything to go by, it sounded like I was safer if I stayed close to Prince Chevalier. He couldn’t protect me if I wasn’t with him. Any time spent away from the palace left me vulnerable, and if I quit, that would be all of my time.
This wasn’t helping my head.
“Why do so many people want him dead?” I asked. Maybe more information would help.
Prince Leon gave me a wry smile. “You really want to know everything, don’t you?”
“I need to know more to make the best decision for my mother and me,” I replied firmly.
He stood, offering me a hand. “Come on. I’ll tell you on the way back to the library.”
“But I’m not done here.”
“Yeah, you are. I’ll get someone else to finish up if the rain doesn’t get to it first.”
I sighed and took his hand. He pulled me to my feet and led me back to the palace.
“The general answer to your question is that Chevalier prioritizes the wellbeing of the kingdom above all else and he doesn’t value individual human lives, meaning he’s made a lot of unpopular decisions over the years.”
I pulled my hand free from Prince Leon’s and pressed my lips together to keep from disagreeing with him. This morning was proof that Prince Chevalier valued at least my life, and I got the impression he valued my mother’s, too, if only for my sake. But Prince Leon didn’t need to know about this morning. It was probably best if he didn’t know.
“But, more specifically, most of the animosity towards him traces directly back to Bloodstained Rose Day. Do you remember that? Well, you were, what, eight years old, so maybe you don’t.”
“No, I remember.”
I couldn’t forget Mother huddled in a corner of our little house, clutching Father’s journal to her chest and sobbing hysterically. It was one of the few times I’d seen her fall apart, and it was the only time I’d ever seen her scared.
“But I don’t really know much of what happened beyond Obsidian invading Rhodolite,” I prompted him.
“A lot of awful stuff happened that day,” Prince Leon said grimly. “Jin and Chevalier were the only ones who had seen battle before that, but all of us had to go out to fight - except Luke, of course, since he wasn’t here yet. I was only eighteen. It was a heck of a way to introduce a bunch of teenagers to actual combat.”
“So, Prince Yves, Prince Licht, and Prince Nokto were just boys?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah. They all knew their way around a sword, but they were really just kids. Jin, Chevalier, Clavis and I had our hands full trying to keep an eye on them while fighting for our lives. Yves froze up and would have died if it weren’t for Chevalier. Licht fought like he was trying to get himself killed, and he nearly did - we found him unconscious from blood loss on the front lines later that night after the fighting stopped. Nokto did fine during the fighting, but seeing Licht at death’s door afterwards hit him pretty hard. Like I said, a lot of awful stuff.”
Prince Leon sighed, his amber eyes narrowed and dark with anger. I wished I hadn’t asked. His painful memories were overwhelming, and I was only hearing them. I couldn’t imagine the horror of actually being there on the battlefield that day.
“But the worst part of it was that the king didn’t come out to fight, which meant we, the princes, had to make all the life-or-death decisions,” he continued. “So when we heard Obsidian took one thousand Rhodolitian civilians hostage, Chevalier and Clavis went to check it out, and Chevalier had to make the decision to sacrifice them for the sake of the kingdom.”
“What?” I asked, shocked.
“Obsidian made him an offer. Surrender and save the hostages. If he refused, they would execute all of them. It was a no-win situation, and as much as I hate to say it, I would have made the same decision he did. If he surrendered, there would be no Rhodolite anymore, and we would all be Obsidianite slaves.”
“But - there was no other way?”
Prince Leon shook his head. “I’ve run through it a million times in my head, tried looking at it from every different angle, but there was no other option. It would have been a lot easier if the king had been the one to make that call, but since it was Chevalier, who already had a reputation for devaluing human life, he got the blame. The anti-war faction and the anti-monarchy faction started up after that, and then there are all the people who lost family members and loved ones. That’s a lot of angry people after his head.”
A heavy silence fell between us. I was struggling to process all the information he had given me, trying to settle my focus on only the last bit, the reason Chevalier had so many enemies and where I could expect to find them in my day-to-day life. But everything else…it explained a lot about all the princes. Not everything, but a lot.
“Well, here we are,” Prince Leon said, holding the library door open for me.
“Thank you for telling me that, Prince Leon,” I said politely, stopping in front of him instead of heading into the library. “It gave me a lot to think about. But I’d just like to point out one thing. You say that Prince Chevalier doesn’t value individual human lives, but you yourself said he protected Prince Yves on the battlefield, and it sounded like he was watching out for all of you. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
A slow grin spread over Prince Leon’s face.
“You’re something else, you know that?” He chuckled and shrugged. “I don’t claim to understand everything that goes on in Chevalier’s head, but he has his moments where he seems halfway human - and lately, those moments are happening more often than usual, I might add.”
I blushed and averted my eyes, not sure what to say to that. He tousled my hair playfully to get my attention again.
“Hey!” I swatted his hand away, glaring up at him.
“Get back in the library,” he said, his amber eyes back to their usual warm, friendly gaze. “That’s where you belong - where it’s safe and peaceful.”
I nodded and smiled. “Thank you, Prince Leon.”
“Thank you, Ivetta."
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