This night, though, she did not make it all the way to the guards’ private wing.
Rather, as she approached the main thoroughfare of the palace, she heard chatter bouncing off the windows. The clomp of booted feet. A pair of maids whispered sadly in an alcove, startling and curtsying when they noticed Winter in their midst.
She followed the commotion and found it centered in one of the libraries.
Thaumaturge Aimery Park stood near a window. He was wearing his crimson coat, even though it was the middle of the night. “Your Highness, what are you doing awake?”
Winter did not like Thaumaturge Park, though she was smart enough not to let it show. She couldn’t even pinpoint what it was about him that set her nerves to vibrating when he was nearby.
He always smiled when he saw her, but it was the smile of a vulture.
Not wanting to mention the nightmare, Winter answered him, “I thought I heard something.”
He nodded. “Something tragic has occurred, young princess. You do not need to see.”
He looked back out the window, and despite his warning, he didn’t stop Winter as she made her way to another window, where two guards were looking down toward the gardens.
Winter gasped.
A body was sprawled out in the fountain beneath the window. Blood filling the basin. Limbs turned at odd angles.
She knew, though it was too far to see for sure, that it was the servant woman. The one she’d saved years ago, when she was only a child. The one who Winter had been feeding happiness to for more than half her young life. At least, she thought she had.
Winter stumbled back.
“She was ill, Princess,” said Aimery. “It is terrible, but these things do happen.”
Unable to speak around the emotion clogging her throat, Winter turned and rushed from the room. Walking at first, then faster, faster. Behind her, she heard the familiar clomp of boots as her guard chased after her. Let him run. Let him chase.
She ran as fast as she could, arms pumping, feet barely touching the cool floor.
When she reached the wing where the guards lived, she passed Jacin’s father, Sir Garrison Clay, on his way to start his next shift. He was a palace guard, like Winter’s father had been. They had been in training together years before and had been friends from the start—which is how she’d known Jacin all her life too.
“Highness,” said Garrison, eyes widening when he saw her and took in what must have been a look of shock. “What’s wrong?”
“Is Jacin awake?”
“I don’t think so. Are you all right?”
She nodded and whispered, “Just another nightmare.”
His expression was understanding as he turned and headed back to the apartment he shared with Jacin and his wife, along with two other guards and their families, all in about the same amount of space as Winter’s private chambers. He let her inside with a fatherly squeeze of her shoulder before leaving—it was not acceptable for a guard to be late for duty, even if it was the princess herself who came knocking on his door.
Jacin was still asleep, but he was a light sleeper, and his eyes snapped open the moment Winter creaked open the door. His mother’s heavy breathing could be heard from the cot on the other side of the room. “What is it?” he whispered, pushing himself upward.
Winter took a step forward, but hesitated. For years, it would have felt like the most natural thing in the world for her to crawl into bed beside him. After all, he had comforted her more times than she could count after her father died.
But lately she could sense something changing. Jacin was fourteen now, and no longer the slightly gangly boy she’d grown up with. It seemed like he was taller and stronger every day.
There had been recent changes in herself, too, though she wasn’t sure if he’d noticed.
Suddenly, having never before cared about all the court whispers of “propriety” and “decorum,” Winter found herself questioning the meaning of her oldest, dearest friendship.
“Winter?”
“She’s dead,” she stammered. “The servant. She … jumped out a window, into the gardens. She—”
She started to cry.
Jacin’s face twisted and he held his arms toward her.
All her concerns vanished as she scrambled onto the bed and buried her face in his chest. She was an idiot to think that getting older changed anything. This was, and would always be, the only place she belonged.
* * *
“Good afternoon, Sir Owen,” Winter said as she stepped out of her quarters the next morning. She gave a curtsy to her guard, guilty for having made him chase her halfway through the palace the night before, but he neither looked at her nor acknowledged her greeting. Which was the way of the guards. They were there to serve and to protect, and to act as a target and a shield for any intruder that might want to harm the royal family. They were not friends. They were not confidants.
But Winter couldn’t always bring herself to ignore them as they ignored her.
She glided down the hall on her way to her tutoring session and spotted Jacin waiting for her as soon as she turned the corner into an elevator bank. She smiled—an instinctive reaction—though it fell once she took in his expression. A frown creased Jacin’s brow.
He glanced once at her guard, who had followed a respectful distance in her wake, before dipping his head toward her. “They found a note.”
“A note?”
“From the servant. The one that…” He didn’t have to finish. “My dad is on the team conducting the investigation. It was found in the servant’s quarters. Probably won’t be made public, but he read it before it was taken away.”
“And it was a … suicide note?” she asked, her heart pattering. The words chilled her. Suicide was always met with suspicion in their society. Everyone knew, even twelve-year-old princesses, that an apparent suicide could just as easily have been a murder caused through manipulation. That was how almost all of the queen’s formal executions were carried out, after all. Hand the convicted perpetrators a sharp blade and let them drain out their own lives.
But the crown did not have a monopoly on the Lunar gift, much as the queen may have wished it so. No death could ever be proven a true suicide, and few murders were ever solved.
“What did it say?” Winter asked.
“It wasn’t murder. She definitely meant to do it.” Jacin’s voice stayed low as they stepped into the elevator, along with her stoic guard, and he said nothing else until they’d stepped out again and left the guard to follow a few paces behind.
Winter frowned. Much as she’d hoped that it was a misunderstanding, she wasn’t surprised. No one had been manipulating the woman in the throne room before Winter rescued her. Or thought that she’d rescued her. She couldn’t help wondering how many attempts the woman had made to take her life before she finally succeeded.
“But why?”
Jacin’s gaze darted around the hallway. A few young aristocrats wandered by, probably having just finished with their own tutoring sessions, and when they noticed the princess they stopped to gawk at her. Winter ignored them. She was used to gawking.
Jacin scowled every time and seemed relieved when they passed.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
She wasn’t sure at all, but she nodded anyway. What could drive a person to such a decision? What could make them think there were no other options? Especially when there were doctors and specialists who could ensure you never felt sad or lonely or frightened again.